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— Judith Costello

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June / July 2003

ART is the Natural Language of Children
— Judith Costello

A little girl draws a fierce bear over and over. Is it simply an active imagination? Or is she trying to help “bear” her mother’s pain during a highly conflicted custody battle? An eight-year-old boy draws people with very long necks and porcupine-like hands. He draws these figures over and over. Is he perhaps feeling exposed and unable to get a hold of his life?

Children live in a symbolic world. When they draw or create, they reveal something of their inner lives. A 1993 movie called The House of Cards offers an inspiring look for therapists and parents into the complex symbols of childhood. In this movie, a little girl retreats into autistic-like behavior seven months after the death of her father. Only after creating an amazing spiral of cards does her mother glimpse an opening into the silent world of her daughter. Meanwhile the psychiatrist tries to use mirrors and reinforcements to get the girl to speak and relate to the world around her. At the same time, the mother actually constructs a lifesized copy of the spiral. And as she dreams about this creation, she enters the world of the child who wants to build a tower to reach her father who she believes is “alone and living in the moon.” It is the mother’s refusal to share her own grief and her resulting fear of heights (the father died by falling from a height) that has caused the girl to retreat. The psychiatrist slowly realizes that the girl’s creative act is her attempt to reach past her pain and into the world of the living. But it is only when her creation is honored that true healing can begin.

SHOWING STORIES Art is the natural language of children. Across all boundaries of language and culture, children make pictures that tell the stories of their inner lives. Beginning as early as age two, children can reveal their inner lives on paper. By this age children are beginning to put shapes together. They make circles and crosses. They begin noticing different colors. They can make pleasing repetitions of patterns on paper. By age six they are telling stories through images.

I met a Laotian girl while I was working as a hospital art therapist. She was in for tests on her kidney. She didn’t want to talk but she was interested in creating dolls. We worked with construction paper cylinders. While I created a little sculpture that I meant to look like this sad-eyed girl, she created a blond and blueeyed “Sandy.” We let the little sculptures talk to each other, and it became increasingly clear that this little girl felt profoundly different and therefore worthless. She was different in appearance from the Scandinavian look she most often encountered in Minnesota, and she also had a different kind of family, and now she had an illness. I tried to let her know through the doll voice that she was pretty and smart and that being different is OK. If her friend “Sandy” went to Laos SHE would be the different one. By the time we ended our session, the little girl was smiling; but it would take some effort by her parents and her teachers to help her deal with her worldview of unworthiness.

Parents and therapists can monitor their children’s inner life by learning to “read” their creative expressions. If the child’s artwork becomes increasingly dark, if the style changes from skillful to messy and chaotic, if the images become frightening; these are clues that something is disturbing the child. Ask him/her about the artwork. Be careful not to judge it as “bad.” Don’t say, “How come this is so messy?” Ask instead, “What is this drawing about? It looks like maybe you were having a lot of feelings when you did this.” Creativity allows children to feel a sense of control in their world. It offers opportunities for bringing a sense of order and balance. Often-times, tension is relieved simply by having the opportunity to work with art materials. At such times, only limited discussion is neces-sary, and the child shows clear relief and a change in attitude.

THE SCRIBBLE CHASE GAME For children (ages 5-11) who won’t talk and who appear to be depressed, I recommend the following exercise. This is called The Scribble Chase. Use a big piece of paper and tape it to a table. Explain that this is a game you would like to play and that it’s about chasing each other on paper. Have the child pick out a watercolor marker, and you pick a different color. Tell the child that they can lead first and you will do your best to follow them. Tell them to scribble and you will “chase” them. Then say, “Go.” The child may start out slowly and then speed up. Follow behind their line with your marker line. At some point, say “Stop.” Then it is your turn to lead. What usually happens is that the child laughs when you can’t keep up with him/her. It becomes quite fun. You can go back and forth with each taking different turns until the paper is filled up with lines. The purpose of this chase is to have fun and let the child feel his/her power. It becomes competitive.

The next step in this exercise is to see what you can see in the picture. This becomes a cooperative exercise. “I see a duck there.” “Oh there is a cat.” “Do you want to make this into a night picture with an owl?” You can outline the shapes that you see and then use a brush and water to soften the scribble lines outside of that area. In this way you begin to make the scribble into a picture. The final step is to make it into a “prettier” picture by really defining and adding to the shapes using crayons or other markers.

The end result is a picture that reflects both of you. Most children come away from this exercise feeling better about themselves and more able to communicate.

Children who are regularly encouraged to paint, draw, or sculpt will feel that someone is paying attention to their inner needs. They will begin to channel frustrations into an appropriate outlet. And the symbols conveyed on paper speak volumes about how the child is perceiving the world.
JUDITH COSTELLO, MA, ATR-BC, is a registered and board-certified art therapist with the American Art Therapy Association, a practicing artist, the mother of two children, and the editor and founder of a seven-year-old magazine on the inner life of families. To find out more about the magazine, Parenting with Spirit, see www.parentingwithspirit.com. In this quarterly journal, Judith explores questions of meaning and balance for parents and children.