Is it odd that my DD5 doesn't like to color or draw much?

[melissel]

A lot of the things we do come with coloring pages or drawing portions (as do most materials for kids her age). She never wants to color them--in fact, she pushes back against it hard. And I'd love to see her keep a science journal, but she really has no interest in drawing anything along those lines. I mean, she's 5!!! Don't little kids love to draw? She does like to draw, but only occasionally, and mainly pictures of princesses and stuff, LOL!

 

Is this odd? Should I be pushing the issue on the nature journal? I will say, I personally hate to draw, so she comes by it honestly, but I think it would help her learning to do a journal-type thing. Hmmm...or, am I just projecting?

 

TIA!

[abbeyej]

I think a great many little children -- in fact, lol, "most" -- love to color and draw. But by no means "all"!!! :) So no, I don't think it's particularly "odd".

 

And if you hate to draw, I think it's even all the more "normal".

 

What if, instead of drawing for her nature journal, you find photos or nature drawings online to print out and paste into her nature journal? It doesn't exercise the powers of observation in quite the same way, but I believe if you do it in a thoughtful manner it can still be a very worthwhile exercise. So when you find an interesting bug or flower or chrysalis, you look it up later on and decide which image(s) you want for the journal... Save the actual nature drawing for later on -- she'll probably get more out of that particular exercise when she's older anyway.

[Halftime Hope]

but I'd pay really close attention to how her other skills are coming along. Does she do well with recognizing sounds, rhyming, can she ID letters?, can she write letters?, numbers? was she late, normal, early verbalizing? Any family history? IOW, are all her other developmental milestones within a normal range?

 

The reason I ask these questions is that, for one of my children, the lack/aversion to drawing and writing should have been an early elementary clue to his dyslexia and dysgraphia. He had great fine motor skills, so one of the evaluators who saw him early dismissed dysgraphia out of hand, but she was wrong. If we had paid attention to that clue, we could have started remediation much earlier and worked on shoring up his skills and actually helping to strengthen the wiring in his brain.

 

I wouldn't worry about it *at all* if it is merely the subject matter that doesn't interest her and if all the other indicators are within normal range, but if you are getting multiple red flags, please follow your heart and get her seen. Earlier is better. Remediation pays off!!

 

Stepping down off the soapbox. :blushing:

 

Valerie

[Mandamom]

just like some kids like to read and others don't.

 

My 7 year old daughter didn't like to draw or color until she was six years old. she wanted nothing to do with it before that.

 

My 5 year old dd and 15 year old dss are the opposite and I can't keep a writing implement out of their hands as they are constantly drawing, coloring, etc.

 

My 12 year old dss wants nothing to do with drawing/coloring and he never has been interested in it.

 

My 2 year old so far only likes to color on the walls and floor :glare: so I'll give him a few more years and see where he stands on the topic.

[Mom2legomaniacs]

Neither of mine care for it either. Come to think of it, Dh nor I are bent in that direction either. I never cared to 'journal' or sketch. My kids don't do much of it. I try to get them to do things periodically though. BTW they are boys and are 6 and nearly 10. I think it is somewhat how they are wired. Their other skills are fine. They can write well and can color in the lines and all. They just don't love it, you know!

[Jennifer in MI]

All my boys hated drawing!! They never really did get into it.

 

Now, my dd (2), seems to love it so far. She just turned 2 and all I have to do is hand her a pencil and she's happy!! "Look mommy, a circle!! A triangle!"

 

So, yeah - I'm in the "some kids love it and some don't" camp.

[Doran]

but I'd pay really close attention to how her other skills are coming along. Does she do well with recognizing sounds, rhyming, can she ID letters?, can she write letters?, numbers? was she late, normal, early verbalizing? Any family history? IOW, are all her other developmental milestones within a normal range?

 

The reason I ask these questions is that, for one of my children, the lack/aversion to drawing and writing should have been an early elementary clue to his dyslexia and dysgraphia. He had great fine motor skills, so one of the evaluators who saw him early dismissed dysgraphia out of hand, but she was wrong. If we had paid attention to that clue, we could have started remediation much earlier and worked on shoring up his skills and actually helping to strengthen the wiring in his brain.

 

I wouldn't worry about it *at all* if it is merely the subject matter that doesn't interest her and if all the other indicators are within normal range, but if you are getting multiple red flags, please follow your heart and get her seen. Earlier is better. Remediation pays off!!

 

Stepping down off the soapbox. :blushing:

 

Valerie

 

 

It would be very easy to dismiss this as a signal of something larger when your child, like ours, has excellent fine and large motor skills. But, our youngest (a girl) was loathe to do many "crafty" things at five. She rarely painted, when she colored it was just scribbles, there was little "sense" to make of any of her drawings until a much later age than many of her peers or than her older sister. I now think that was a symptom of a larger processing disorder for which she is in remediation at age eleven.

 

Just something to watch for, not something to worry over.

 

Doran

[melissel]

Thank you all. I'm not going to stress over it. I think I'm sad because I had dreams of these lovely notebooks she could pore over when she's older, and I envisioned spring days spent drawing in her nature notebook. But I just don't think that's going to happen, and I'll have to deal with it!

 

Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I'm not concerned about any developmental issues--she's been reading for over a year and actually draws quite well. She just doesn't care to do it unless SHE decides she wants to do it. Gee, I wonder where she gets that? :tongue_smilie:

[Whisperlily]

I hated to color. My mom tells me that when I went to K, I would come home frustrated because they made me color the paper after I was done doing the work.

 

I still hate coloring. LOL, even with my 3 children who love to color. My DS5 is the same way I was. Coloring is simply too pointless and boring. Give me/him a puzzle to figure out. Letters to write, code to decipher (reading). Give me science, math or literature, but not coloring.

 

I turned out fine. I have the motor skills required to fill in a pre-made space on a page with a crayon, but why? :D

 

DH on the other hand, still colors. Oh, okay, he "colorizes graphics" using artistic blending techniques but isn't it the same?

 

I'm sure she'll be fine. :lol:

[ack25]

:iagree:

DS despised coloring/drawing until a month before his 6th birthday. Now he enjoys it and even chooses it as an activity at times.

Likewise, dd hated coloring until she turned 6. Then she magically started to enjoy it. Now she colors by choice as a way to relax.

Each kid is different!

 

Maybe tell her that she is *not allowed* to color. Maybe she will want to color then! :lol: jk

[Gailmegan]

Rabbit hates to color. He will take one crayone and scribble over the entire page and announce that he is done. He has no patience for that type of thing. He puts together 600 peice jigsaw puzzles and builds intricate lego castles just from his imagination, but has no desire to color. So his little brother colors all the activity pages that go along with what we are doing in school. At least it keeps him out of trouble. LOL. As long as she is developing normally in other sensory areas, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Storm Bay]

Not odd. My ds hated drawing at 5, except for once in a while and he always wanted me to show him how to draw it first. At 6 he started drawing airplanes, which he loves. That's all he drew. He got better and better at them and his airplane drawings were far better than anything I had him draw with Draw Right Now. He's branched out, and at 7 can also draw sharks and trucks. My dd's learned to draw by drawing costumes. Lots and lots of costumes. And girls. Then my middle one started drawing cats. Both of them draw better than average now, so I wouldn't worry about what she likes to draw at that age.

 

I think the idea of cutting pictures to put into the nature journal is a good one.

[gardenschooler]

My middle dd wasn't as into drawing as my other two (they're bordering on obsessive with it, really!). She always wanted to tell me stories, talk to me, and anything else that would let her fine tune her talking! She could go on for almost an hour, just adding to a story. Really. She's still this way. She's also my only one who is really good and interested in math and science (and Latin). Maybe it's a left/right brain thing? Or maybe she's just different, and I don't know what I'm talking about. :)

[Halftime Hope]

I have known two kids who were too frustrated by their lack of drawing skill to draw. These kids were perfectionists, and their own drawings were too painful for them to tolerate. One was given the opportunity to take drawing lessons, and he has blossomed into a fantastic artist. He now has the skill to make things look like he always wanted them to look, and boy, can he draw and paint!

 

As a kid, I used to draw palm trees and houses. They were the only things that I liked, because they "halfway resembled" what I was trying to draw. :)

 

Any chance that might be part of what is going on with your dd? Not that everyone has to like to draw, but she might be persuaded to draw more if you could identify what was "bothering" her and help her work past it.

 

HTH

 

Valerie

[melissel]

She always wanted to tell me stories, talk to me, and anything else that would let her fine tune her talking! She could go on for almost an hour, just adding to a story. Really.

 

YES!!! This is her. Totally. She used to dictate stories to me while I transcribed them. It was getting to be too much, so I arranged for her to get a voice recorder for Christmas. I love that little machine :D

 

 

Maybe tell her that she is *not allowed* to color. Maybe she will want to color then! :lol: jk

 

:lol: You know her too well!

 

 

What if, instead of drawing for her nature journal, you find photos or nature drawings online to print out and paste into her nature journal? It doesn't exercise the powers of observation in quite the same way, but I believe if you do it in a thoughtful manner it can still be a very worthwhile exercise. So when you find an interesting bug or flower or chrysalis, you look it up later on and decide which image(s) you want for the journal... Save the actual nature drawing for later on -- she'll probably get more out of that particular exercise when she's older anyway.

 

Yes, I forgot to say that I think she'll love that idea. She loves looking things up with me online, and we have lots of issues of National Geographic and the Wildlife Conservation Society magazines around. And she does love to cut and paste, that's for sure :D Thank you!