The role of painting in children's growth

After reading the book Child Psychology by Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, I found that painting actually plays a great role in children's growth.

When did children start drawing? Piaget said he was two years old. Recalling the wall at home, it seems that it is at this time that children like to doodle on the wall. Painting is a form of signal function. It is the intermediary between symbolic games and psychological appearances. From its pleasant function and ultimate goal, it is a symbolic game; Imitating reality from hard work is a psychological representation. Next, I will talk about my child's case.

The former is most obvious in my children. My son liked painting very much when he was a child. He not only doodles on the wall, but also often doodles on paper. We throw away hundreds of his works every year. We never paid attention to those paintings because they were really out of shape. Now that I think about it, in fact, children are using painting to meet their emotional needs! And we didn't give him feedback. Unfortunately, those works have been thrown away.

When he was at school, his paintings mainly focused on stories of soldiers fighting, and a war usually required several paintings. We just blame him for wasting paper. His habit didn't disappear until the fourth grade of primary school. We never understood why he once loved "graffiti" so much.

According to Piaget's theory, he is meeting his emotional needs! This is a way for children to adapt to the adult world. However, I didn't understand at the time.

Later, I saw Mr. Gan Guoxiang write the reason why his daughter was keen on painting when she was a child. It turned out that the child was so lonely that she used painting to meet her emotional needs.

Indeed, because I didn't bring my children to communicate with my peers since I was a child, my son is very bad at communicating with his peers. Maybe that's why he vented all his feelings on paper. After we scold him, he will also say angrily, "I want to draw." This habit disappeared in the fourth grade because he had extracurricular activities with his classmates in the new school and went to the small park together. Secondly, because of his academic progress, our criticism of him has decreased. Third, with the change of parents, we are more willing to listen to him.

From this perspective, painting does have the function of symbolizing games, which can meet children's emotional needs.

As for painting as a psychological representation, it is better to understand, because although children draw like four, if they explain, this vertical point is real! Children's painting is really trying to imitate reality.

Moreover, children's painting ability is gradually developed in stages.

1. At first, children's paintings were just simple lines, about two or three years old, which was called graffiti realism.

2, failed realism, about four or five years old, like tadpoles, stick figures.

3, rational realism: about six or seven years old, can describe the rational attributes of the prototype, such as drawing a face on the side, you can also draw two eyes.

4. Visual realism, when I was eight or nine years old. Only what is seen from a specific perspective is shown, and the objects in the description are arranged according to the overall design and drawn according to their geometric proportions.

According to this stage of development, we can see that children's concept of space is gradually improved and developed. At first, their spatial intuition was only topology (topography), and they used closed curves to represent any shape. Of course, in the scribbled realistic stage, they can't even draw a closed curve. It is not until the stage of rational realism that children have the concepts of approach, separation, encirclement and closure. It is precisely because of these topographical intuition that children have the intuition of projection and the concept of Euclidean geometry.

According to the stage of children's painting, we can see the development of children's spatial cognition, from lines to closed curves to abstract images. Is it possible to draw such a conclusion? Fully developing a child's drawing ability will help him learn solid geometry?

So, what is the significance of knowing the development stage of children's painting ability?

I have the following points myself.

1, I won't make mistakes and I won't encourage others.

2. Be able to guide children according to scientific laws and give them the evaluation feedback they need.

This is from my painful experience of raising my son. Because the child likes graffiti, I enrolled him in a painting class when he was in kindergarten. The teacher shows a sample in each class, then takes the children to copy it bit by bit, and then imitates it after going home. As a result, the children didn't like it after watching it several times. I didn't understand why at that time. Now, I have some understanding that such imitation does not conform to the law of children's cognitive development and will dampen children's self-esteem and sense of accomplishment.

Finally, how to promote the development of children's cognitive ability through painting. Naturally, we should read, write and draw. Here, I'd like to share Ma Ling's morning reading class for children. I think she must have read Piaget's theory, because there are detailed theories and detailed cases in the book, which is very suitable for novice parents and primary school teachers to read.

In the book, Ma Ling describes children's cognitive development at different stages, painting characteristics and parents' suggestions according to their age. I won't go into details here, just repeat the reading, writing and drawing process of Teacher Ma Ling.

We can get some inspiration from Ma Ling's four steps of reading, writing and drawing. Parental participation is very important. Recently, I heard Fan Deng talk about curiosity. For example, he said that if parents can give their children correct feedback and continuous guidance, it will help the development of their curiosity. I think, in fact, the development of every ability of children is inseparable from the effective feedback from parents, right?

Let me end this article with a question! In fact, every child is born to like painting, which is his way of knowing the world. Then why do some children's interest in painting gradually weaken?