Home » Art teacher explains exactly what to say about your toddler’s scribbles to boost their self-esteem

Art teacher explains exactly what to say about your toddler’s scribbles to boost their self-esteem

Having a young child means dealing with an avalanche of papers coming your way every single day. My 4-year-old comes home with a folder full of school artwork five days a week. Then there’s coloring sheets from restaurants and the ones she brings home from the grocery store. On the weekends, we usually have some kind of art time in the mornings and that leads to a stack of a half-dozen more drawings that we have to figure out something to do with.
At her age, most of the art is scribbles or crude attempts at unicorns. Hey, I’m just being honest! Whenever she shows me what she’s made, I’m always careful to praise and tell her how impressed I am. I tell her that what she’s made is beautiful and amazing. The most important thing to me is that she feels encouraged to keep going. Outside of that, I never really know what to say. After the fifth scribbly-line drawing I’ve seen that day I tend to run out of superlatives.
An art teacher on TikTok recently explained that there might be a better way to react to your young child’s scribbles.

Scribbles are art.
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SusanStrikerisanarteducatorwhospecializesinteachingartandcreativityskillstoyoung