A picture can be worth a thousand words, especially for young children, who find it difficult to express what they feel verbally. For this reason, children’s drawings have enormous value to understand the emotional world of children, to know their fears, worries and desires.

What aspects to pay attention to?

First of all, it is important to take into account the child’s attitude while drawing. For example, is he concentrating on the drawing or is he making movements with the pencils without paying much attention? Is he enjoying the activity or does he look angry or frustrated? We must bear in mind that the natural inclination towards drawing is an indicator of learning capacity.

Another aspect to consider is the space it occupies on the paper when drawing. Usually, when they fill the entire space it means that they feel safe, confident and open to the world. However, when the child is limited to drawing on a small part of the paper, it is a sign of introversion, shyness or fear.

The type of drawing must also be taken into account. stroke. Is he confident and stable or nervous and interrupted? Once the child masters the strokes, the speed and pressure when drawing become indicators of impulsiveness, lack of control and anxiety. However, a stable and confident stroke indicates a willingness to learn and self-confidence.

Of course, the colors most used in the drawing are also an important indicator of the child’s mood. For example, the tendency to use colors like red and black are warning signs because they are signs of impulsiveness, aggressiveness or marked sadness. In the same way, the use of one or two colors can be worrying, when the child has more colors to choose from. In this case, it can be laziness, apathy and lack motivational.

The most common problems in child development that can be seen through a drawing

• Low self-esteem. Cross-outs and erasures tend to appear continuously, which indicate that the child does not feel safe or that he fears the assessment that others make of his drawing, which leads him to retrace his steps continuously.
• Intellectual disability. Drawings are often poor, not containing the amount of detail or accuracy expected for their age. There is usually a tendency to repeat the same drawings, without introducing significant changes.
• Attention deficit and impulsiveness. The drawing is disorganized and lacks details. It is common for the child to draw only the elements that interest him with figures that appear very distorted. In these cases, it is common for them to occupy all the space on the paper and in many cases it is not enough.
• Aggressiveness. The figures usually have very prominent teeth, arms that are too long and claw-like fingers. In fact, drawings of people with lines that are too straight often denote anger and confusion.
• Anxiety and fear. In this case, nervous features appear, or the child can be drawn inside of a closed space in which he seeks refuge. The faces of the figures are usually not very expressive, with neutral expressions.
• Depression. When the child is going through a conflictive situation that generates sadness, they usually choose colors such as gray, black and brown. In addition, it is usually drawn with a neutral or sad expression and with the arms close to the body.

However, when analyzing children’s drawings, the most important thing is to keep in mind that it is not about an exact science, so any detail can only lead to hypotheses that must then be tested in reality.