Question: Why do we make kids draw everything?

Is this something that they're supposed to be naturally good at? Is it supposed to help them? Is it used for children because they communicate in pictures before they can write? Because I don’t know about you, but whenever I was asked to draw something as a kid, I balked. I didn’t know how, and inevitably couldn’t communicate whatever it was I wanted to impart to the anticipating adult. It was just so much easier saying I liked elephants than actually drawing the damn things.

Case in point: my son learned to read when he was three. He’s now almost six and he draws like a three year old. He HATES drawing. He panics when he has to draw something, because he doesn’t know how. How is it that some kids seem to just KNOW how to draw? Is it the same way as some kids just KNOW how to read, or ride bikes, or do a somersault?

I wonder.

Maybe some people are just more comfortable with pictures, while I, evidently, am far more comfortable with words. My son is like me; he’d rather write a sentence than draw a picture. And my daughter hasn’t shown any interest in drawing, and she’s nearly four. Are we word-obsessed aberrations? Probably not.

I just remember trying to draw a bicycle for seventh grade art class, and the teacher was eternally disgusted with my efforts. She kept sending me back to the drawing board, like a grouchy old man returning soup at a restaurant. In my first picture, the pedals weren’t connected to anything. In my second attempt, the chain wasn’t connected to anything. In the third, the handlebars looked funny. I was beside myself. It was just some stupid bicycle to me.

Ironically, I finally won the teacher’s approval with a drawing that, in terms of skill, was about right for a first or second grader. I drew the earth in the middle of the page, then drew three different hands grabbing at it. They represented war, poverty and hate, or something close to that. She thought it was brilliant. But even then, it was my explanation that brought her pleasure, not my amateur visual arts skills.

Draw your own conclusion (hyuk), but I think some of us are wired more for words, while others are wired more for pictures. And some lucky few are wired for both.