My child never used to like drawing yet she won a competition amongst 500 kids of her age! You must be wondering how?? Today i will be discussing those 7 proven ways to Motivate your kids to draw which helped me.
Recalling such a beautiful event is the best memory in itself, but it surely took a lot of time and patience from my and my daughter’s end.
There are several benefits of drawing, from encouraging visual analysis, to increasing individual confidence. It improves hand-eye coordination and develops fine motor skills like proper movement of hands, wrists, and fingers.
But being a mother, I know what it’s like when you have a four and half year old kid that never draws or one who seems to want to draw but lacks confidence. With this being said, I stand by my response of ‘don’t worry’ I know that’s pretty much not impossible. I learnt that her interest is in painting rather than drawings and I have to focus on that. 7 proven ways to Motivate your kids to draw
HOW I STARTED
I still remember that drawing competition which totally changed the game in my favour. I know you would say I shouldn’t let a small kid participate in the competition but I found that as an opportunity to work on myself and her. But it was not forceful at all, as she got enough space to paint and explore the opportunity. The theme was open and we chose to use the subject “Garden”. However, the challenge was how to help her draw when she doesn’t like to draw, instead, loves to paint.
I prepared a theme based on nature where I would use a carrot to make flowers. Sponge to make a sky as she didn’t know how to hold the brush and her finger thumbprints as flower leaves. This theme interested her alot and we practised for this theme for over a month.
You can see the final picture here. We made a bee with cotton and the concept was totally loved by all the jury members including teachers. she won amongst so many kids.
7 proven ways to Motivate your kids to draw
Fast forward today, she has improved her painting skills and won much competition. No matter how busy she gets with her academics, nowadays she always spares time to paint her mind out. With such a beautiful experience of my past, I would like to share 7 Proven ways that helped me a lot to motivate my daughter to paint
1)Offer interesting objects to draw on and draw with
During the early years of practising, I asked my daughter to draw anywhere she wants to. Be it her skin, a balloon, or on the wall, with non-toxic markers or face paints.
In this phase, I kept utmost care of what object or colour my daughter is using, so that she would not face any problem. As a parent, you can use a cardboard box, a graph paper, or a foil paper, as these will develop more interest and curiosity.
2)Appeal to their senses.
While your child is exploring and developing motor coordination, don’t expect them to be clean throughout the process. Let them make their room messy, and clothes dirty. Allow them to colour the walls with their fingers, and just don’t be specific about colours too. Let them use a sand tray, shaving cream, salt, or whatever they find attractive.
If they like it, either way, offer them a pencil, pencil colours, markers, instead of crayons and paint colours. Oil colours and painting colours can make their hands greasy or dirty!
3)Same skills can be practiced without using a pencil.
It’s completely fine if your kid doesn’t like to draw or paint. As a parent, you can offer them different opportunities and take up the initiative of building their skills. For this, ask them to use their little muscles in the hands and fingers, as it will help to improve the overall coordination.
To build confidence, make sure that whatever they do, you always appreciate them for the same. Creativity comes from the mind and not by any object like a pencil, paintbrush, or spatula.
4)Relate every picture
It’s essential to relate drawing or paintings with a moment or place your kid finds interesting to watch. My daughter loves visiting gardens, and hence, I chose the garden as the theme for the competition.
5)Give them meaningful reasons to draw –
It’s best to give your kid a reason to draw or paint, and in my case, it was the competition which I was confident that she’ll do well.
However, you can try some other reasons like creating a beautiful sheet for wrapping the gift for their friend or closed ones. You can also ask them to draw what all present they need during their upcoming birthday or festival.
6)Making the process interesting
The first rule, never start with doing something difficult, instead, follow little steps. The process matters a lot in whichever activity you are teaching your child.
I developed curiosity in my daughter’s mind about the after effects of different objects. I chopped down carrots, potatoes, and okra along with every other different vegetable. In this way she explored different types of flowers. While she learned so many things during this process, she started liking the practice sessions.
7)Appreciate them
I often reward my daughter with little things she likes the most. Rewarding and speaking kind words work a lot, especially to the younger age groups. It helps them to shape their personality by building the right self-esteem and self-confidence. Besides, this also leaves a positive impact on child’s mental health.
Do you still find it difficult to help your kid to draw?
Not all kids are the same, and as a parent you must never pressurize them to do any specific activity. There are several alternatives of drawing you can try like threading activities, scissor activities, book reading, and crafts. It takes time for a kid to develop interest, just like my daughter did. And now I don’t even force her to sit and draw, instead, she does it all, on its own.
Are you still worried about your kid not being able to draw? If you use any other way to encourage your child, do let me know the same!
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy and Noor Anand Chawla, and happily SPONSORED BY RRE Studios and SHOWCASE Events.
I resonate with your thoughts. I remember making painting with my daughter with salt and she loved it. Same happened when I did some painting with my 4 year old. We used ear buds and leaves for painting. Sometimes, we use vegetables like okra for making flowers.
Painting is a great creative activity and also a great hobby. I think every child should be encouraged to take up any creative pursuit like painting, singing, writing etc that helps them to express themselves. Your suggestions how to encourage and engage kids to paint is very good. It think parents should adopt such techniques.
Wow loved all the pointers. I agree it is very important to make whole process interesting. I really like the idea of making it relatable to real life incidence or things that your kids love most. yes, it works great when kids find it relatable. also, enjoying the whole process is very important rather than focusing on end result. with this way, kids become creative and learn the importance of whole process.
These are some wonderful tips to motivate kids to draw. I feel giving them complete freedom as to what to draw and do not judge them or interrupt them while drawing kind of motivates them to draw.
Congrats to you and your daughter, best moment when hard work pays off. I can’t agree more on this, Jyoti; you made me remember when I was in the stage of making my son familiar with drawing and painting. Now he is 11 YO, seeing him excel in his drawing skill all by himself makes me so contented. he keeps participating in the various painting competition. I, too, believe every participation is fun until it can uphold the essence of fun.
It is amazing to see how you use vegetables to make a painting. Making painting fun will let your child get interested in painting.
If your child is interested in painting these are really good ways specially the one using your hands directly it gives the children a sense of paints and it does not matter if they get messy it is their learning period and if they enjoy it that would be the best way to learn.
Great ways. Drawing is a hobby and passion that can be a positive outlet. The colors they use and the things they draw are a great way for kids to show how they feel, and also make it easier later in life to express their feelings. Their cognitive processes increase.
These are really interesting ideas and useful tips. I remember using ear buds, fingers, vegetables, straws etc. for painting.
Loved the post. I myself being an art lover, always wanted my kids to engage in drawing and craft activities. But all kids are different, so are interests. My younger son loves to draw and often tries from his mother’s sketch book. I want my elder one too just for the reason of being creative. Will try these tips for him.
Lovely tips Jyoti. Art in any form helps build creativity in kids. And it is important for them to show their creativity and not look for perfection when they start. Art made by kids should look like it is made by kids and not perfected by adults. I too taught craft to kids and both the kids & me totally enjoyed the experience.
I resonate with your thoughts. That’s precisely the approach I used with my child, who is not very keen on doing any art/craftworks. But sitting beside him and messing up things but admiring the final outcomes gave him the confidence to start drawing and painting.
I resonate with your thoughts. That’s precisely the approach I used with my child, who is not very keen on doing any art/craftworks. But sitting beside him and messing up things but admiring the final outcomes gave him the confidence to start drawing and painting.
These are great tips. I do feel that creativity is something intrinsic. Some kids enjoy drawing and some don’t. But making it a fun activity sure helps.
Improving the creativity of children at a young age is very important and the way you have been there for your child to improve her drawing and painting skill is wonderful 😊
I love drawing myself and I could never be able to list out so many amazing ways to bring out the creativity in kids. Your daughter indeed has true art in her fingers. Kudos to you for bringing it out. My son could never draw but my daughter did well. My grandsons have a whole wall of blackboard and they keep doodling all the time.
This article says that you have made enough efforts to inculcate the ability of drawing and painting in your child. I truly believe that kids make all those things whatever is in their heart.
Very useful tips Jyoti, congratulations to you and your daughter. Painting is my personal favorite too but to make it interesting for my daughter it was not so easy task for me 🙂 so I have stopped trying and I let her explore other things of her interest.
These are really helpful tips to encourage painting and drawing. I like the concept of using small objects for painting. Young kids love playing with color rather than drawing with pencil.
I totally agree with this. I do browse and find more ways so that me and daughter can spend time on drawing. She has a lot of interest and I’m looking to find ways to make it even more interesting
These are some wonderful tips Jyoti. I believe kids firstly need freedom to express their vivid imagination. And the next step as parents is not to judge their piece of art and appreciate them for them to have this interest in drawing and painting.
These are great tips. My daughter also loves to do painting and i would love to entertain these as well.
superb tips Jyoti. I am a big supporter of messy painting and free paintings. Its true the process is the most interesting and important part. it is what the kids enjoy the most.
Painting is the most fun and de stressing activity across all age groups. My son enjoyed painting as a kid, however as he is older he doesn’t seem to have the patience for it. I think am going to get him back to this wonderful activity.
Thanks! loved your post. My kid too doesn’t like drawing. Will take the pointers from your blog.