Little Picassos

I wrote in a previous post about kids’ creativity and doing arts and crafts with them. Just today my son came home with a bunch of folded up sheets of paper in his school bag. He is just learning to draw faces and every picture he brings home is a picture of “Mama” or “Papa” or something that remotely resembles same. The school he goes to make a great effort to share his creative efforts with us as parents. And I do appreciate that. I really do. Today I remembered something that happened a few weeks back. He came home from school, I opened his bag, took out the crumpled up sheets up paper, had a quick glance at them and proceeded to walk towards the bin. To throw them out. I do that sometimes. (Don’t judge.) Because I can’t keep all of them…… It was indeed a very awkward moment when later in the day he presented me with the drawing he had managed to salvage from the bin and on his face was a big question mark asking “How in the name of God did that get there!” (Bad mother. Lesson learned: Bury them deeper in the bin!)

That incident brought back a memory. I remembered when I was little feeling terribly upset when I found my drawings in the little paper basket on top of my mum’s desk. Surely it got there by accident. It must have. She would never throw away my masterpiece.….. Well, she did and now I am that mum. I felt a bit disappointed and a saying that I had once read sprung to mind.

“When a child gives you a gift, even if it is a rock they just picked up, exude gratitude. It may be the only thing they have to give, and they have chosen to give it to you.”

Isn’t that just beautiful? And so true. It made me look differently at every crumpled up piece of paper, every scribble, flower, leaf, and piece of art I am handed by my children. They made it for me! I now make a conscious effort to praise them for their thoughtfulness, their efforts and creativity. We chat about the pictures they draw (sometimes to find out what the heck it is supposed to be!)

Positive affirmation is key in raising our children to be confident little people now, confident big people in the future and teaching them to take pride in their accomplishments. It all starts with that little scribble on a piece of paper. In honour of that I incorporated a little art display into our kitchen so that all the nice pieces of art they make can be displayed for them and for everyone to see and appreciate. (The ones unworthy of keeping still go in the bin. See above for Lesson learnt)

An Art Display is a great idea, it looks great and the display is updated frequently and changes with each season or time of year. The Christmas display looked especially beautiful.

It is super easy to make:

Two Curtain wires from IKEA (here) and a wall decal from Etsy (here).

Check it out.

What do you think?