When Is a Picture Just a Picture?

I think this is so funny.  I think I was about 9 when I wrote this. 

NPR posted the following link today: 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/12/08/368693069/kids-drawings-speak-volumes-about-home?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=202608

To paraphrase, children’s drawings matter at 6 years old because they give us an idea of how they feel about themselves and the people in their lives.  If a child experiences chaos, they will draw themselves smaller in comparison to other objects on the paper and they have sad faces and droopy arms....and every mom just scrambled to her child’s backpack and possibly popped a Xanax. 

I love psychology, but sometimes I think a picture is just a picture and it's important for us as parents to find a healthy balance between freaking out about every little thing our child does and just being aware.  Some parents are completely clueless about early childhood development and that isn't good either. You don't want to disregard a child's cries for help, but you have to relax too.  Most parents would admit that they experience chaos and clutter at some point during their lives, and probably more so SINCE having children,  and if they say they haven’t, they are liars.  The psychologists probably could have defined “chaos” and “clutter” a little better so we don't all start picturing our kid in an orange jumpsuit just because we see a cobweb and we haven’t gotten to that Pinterest board yet.  

Sometimes a drawing is just a drawing....

When I was in first grade, my dad and stepmom were called in for a conference because they were worried that I was depressed.  All of my pictures were black, solid black from page corner to page corner.  I remember my dad coming to me and asking if I was depressed or sad.  You’ve gotta love the trust and respect that my dad had for me, even as a first grader.  He came to me and said “Are you sad or depressed, Brittany?”  He also came to me when I was 18 and asked if I was an alcoholic because a parent told him that I drank a lot on the weekends that he was out of town and had no idea what I was doing.  I said no, Dad, I am not an alcoholic.  He said ok and I probably got drunk the next weekend.  I am pretty sure I was less likely to answer truthfully at 18 than 7, but whatever.  It makes me laugh now.   So anyway, my dad talked to me about my black pictures.....

I was irritated that my teachers were stupid.  They hadn't even paid attention to my pictures long enough to get the diagnoses right.  I flat out told him why my pictures were all black and then I showed him.   I first colored the page with lots and lots of colors.  Then I took a black crayon and covered the entire picture.  Then I scraped the black crayon off with my fingernail or a penny and voila.  I had a really cool picture that looked like a Lite Brite. I liked when the colors came through the black.  

As an adult, I laugh about that story because they were so off.  However, I can't knock them too much because at least someone was watching my behavior.  The truth is, I was a nervous little kid and looking back, I wonder how my parents didn't understand how nervous I was...or maybe they did.  I remember my mom trying to send me to counseling in kindergarten and I threw a fit in the bathtub, screaming and splashing water everywhere, so I wasn't exactly forthcoming when talking about my feelings.  I bit my nails until the skin was gone, I wet my bed, I used to wake up drenched in sweat and sleepwalk nearly every night; one time I even left the house.  Once, I walked back into the house and my mom was about to hit me with a crowbar because she thought I was a burglar.  So then I was afraid to go to sleep because I was scared I would get hit by a car or hurt myself.  I would lay in my bed every night afraid to go to sleep because I didn't want to have a nightmare.    My parents were divorced, they fought constantly, and I never told them how they made me feel because I wasn't sure what was wrong with me.  I really did feel depression and anxiety and I couldn't word it.  I didn't like to talk to them, so I just never said anything.  When my mom approached me and wanted to talk about feelings, I felt like throwing up, so I yelled at her.  I did this my whole life until I wound up having debilitating panic attacks for a year after I graduated high school.  Most of my nightmares were about my parents and I didn't tell them because I loved them.  I was all about smiling and suppressing my feelings as a kid until I couldn't take it anymore as an adult.

Kids have all of the same feelings that we as adults have, they just don't have the ability to express them.  So I do appreciate psychologists looking for cues through artwork, but our job is to decipher between when we are overreacting and when a child is just drawing a picture.  We do that by paying attention to them and not freaking out and creating issues that maybe aren't there.

Isn't being a parent just so easy??