Why are adults’ standard of realism not suitable for children?
We often receive requests from parents who want to send their primary school-aged children to us to learn how to draw. And each time, we’ve had to turn them down. It’s not that children can’t learn to draw realistically. Rather, there are three important principles to consider:
Teaching technical drawing skills is only meaningful when children are ready and interested in using them.
Adults often misunderstand children’s drawings because we don’t recognize the priorities that shape them.
Art means something entirely different to a child than it does to an adult. Children don’t learn to draw, they draw to learn.
What Drawing Means to Children
Children generally begin drawing around age two. What may appear to be meaningless scribbles is, in fact, the child’s first steps into kinaesthetic and imaginative thinking. At this stage, movement is a major milestone in a toddler’s growth. Through drawing, they explore fast and slow, large and small movements, experimenting with control and variation.
These early marks are not random, they are the child’s first form of graphic language. According to Rhoda Kellogg, who studied millions of children’s drawings, toddlers create a "graphic alphabet" of 29 distinct marks. Imagine that! While the English language has only 26 letters, children instinctively invent a rich visual vocabulary that they later combine into more complex forms.
If you watch toddlers draw, you’ll notice something remarkable: their marks are not mechanical or thoughtless. They are dynamic actions imbued with emotions and thoughts, a thoughtful visual representation of how they experience the world.
The Growth of Visual Thinking
By age four, children begin forming their first schemas: early visual symbols that represent people, objects, and experiences. These schemas continue evolving until about age 11 or 12, growing in complexity alongside their cognitive development.
For young children, drawing is not just about representation. It is about expression and storytelling. When facilitating drawing sessions at the National Gallery for kindergarteners, I’ve learned what they do on weekends, who they have dinner with, and even what presents they received on their birthdays.
At this stage, imaginative thinking is burgeoning. Children invent unique visual codes to depict experiences beyond what they see. I’ve seen children poke holes in their drawings to describe diving into the water or turn the paper upside down to capture the view from across the street. What may seem like errors are, in fact, acts of invention and creative problem-solving.
When Awareness Meets Self-Criticism
A young child’s natural egocentrism at this stage protects them from external criticism. They are fully absorbed in their own creative language, unaware of how others might judge their drawings. This freedom fosters strong self-confidence and identity – but it does not last forever.
As children enter puberty, the prefrontal cortex matures, making them more visually aware and more analytical in their thinking. This shift allows them to identify more details in the world around them, which they naturally try to integrate into their drawings.
However, this newfound awareness is a double-edged sword. On one hand, their ability to see and conceive more complex forms allows them to enrich their schemas and improve their drawings. On the other hand, they become more critical of their work, more aware of how it compares to others, and more sensitive to judgment and perceived failure.
At this point, spontaneity and imagination start to fade, replaced by a reliance on observation and realism. Replicating reality becomes the goal, and without proper guidance, many children lose confidence in their drawing abilities.
This Is Where We Come In
This transition is not something to fear. It is a natural and necessary phase in development. But it is also a stage where thoughtful, sensitive instruction becomes valuable. At this point, students need guidance to:
Overcome the limitations of their childhood schemas and develop a more refined way of perceiving and representing the world.
Learn new techniques to bridge the gap between what they see and what they can draw.
Retain creative confidence by balancing technical skill-building with expressive freedom.
This is why we don’t take in primary school children for formal instruction. They don’t need it yet. Their artistic growth at this stage is best nurtured through play, exploration, and storytelling; not formal lessons in realism.
But when they are ready, when their curiosity and self-awareness call for a deeper understanding of drawing, that’s when we come in. Because at that moment, learning how to draw becomes meaningful.