Contents
Baby’s drawings, age by age
As your child grows, his pencil stroke evolves! Yes, the more his intelligence develops, the more his drawings take on meaning and reveal his emotions. Roseline Davido, specialist in the field, deciphers for you the different stages of drawing in toddlers …
Baby Drawings
Baby’s drawing: it all starts with a… stain!
Painting before a year is possible! According to Roseline Davido, psychoanalyst and specialist in children’s drawings, “ children’s first expressions are the spots they make when they grab paint, toothpaste or their porridge “. However, very often, parents do not let their toddler have this kind of experience … for fear of the result!
Baby’s first scribbles
Around 12 months, the toddler begins to doodle. At this stage, Baby likes to draw lines in all directions, without lifting his pencil. And these seemingly meaningless designs are already very revealing. And for good reason, “when he scribbles, the child makes a projection of himself. In fact, he delivers his “me”, the pencil becoming the direct extension of the hand. For example, toddlers who are happy to be alive will draw all over the sheet, unlike a child who is unstable or ill at ease. However, keep in mind that at this age, the child does not yet hold his pencil perfectly. The “me” delivered is therefore still quite “confused”.
The doodle phase
At around 2 years old, the child goes through a new stage: the doodling phase. This is a big step since now your child’s drawing becomes intentional. Your little one, who is trying to hold his pencil better, tries to imitate the writing of the adult. But the attention of toddlers disperses very quickly. They can get an idea by starting their drawing and changing it along the way. Sometimes the child even finds meaning in his drawing at the very end. It could be a chance resemblance or his current idea. And if your little one doesn’t feel like finishing their drawing, that’s okay, they just want to play something else. At this age, it’s hard to stay focused on the same thing for too long.
The tadpole
Around 3 years old, your child’s drawings take more shape. This is the famous tadpole period. “When he draws a man,” (represented by a circle acting as a head and trunk, fitted with sticks to symbolize the arms and legs), “the little one represents himself”, explains Roseline Davido. The more he grows, the more his man is detailed: the trunk of the character appears in the form of a second circle, and around 6 years old the body is articulated.
The specialist specifies that the tadpole man allows you to observe how the child is projected. But he will only get there when he has become aware of his body schema, that is to say of “the image he has of his body and of his position in space”. Indeed, according to the psychoanalyst Lacan, the first image that the child has of him is fragmented. And this image can persist in abused children. In this precise case ” children, even 4-5 years old, only scribble, they deny their bodies. It’s a way of saying that they are no longer anyone, ”adds Roseline Davido.