{"id":4229,"date":"2014-06-30T14:16:42","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T18:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/blog\/advice-parents-anxious-artist\/"},"modified":"2017-06-26T13:44:50","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T17:44:50","slug":"advice-parents-anxious-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elisegravel.com\/en\/blog\/advice-parents-anxious-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice for the parents of an anxious artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like drawing. I don\u2019t draw perfectly: I don\u2019t always achieve what I want to, and sometimes I look at what I\u2019ve drawn and I think \u201cthis is crap\u201d.<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t matter: I like drawing, so what?! I have a blast when I draw.<\/p>\n

And since I would like my kids to have a blast as well, I\u2019ve thought a lot about how I can communicate my passion to them. I have two kids who are truly \u2018artistes\u2019, who tend to doubt themselves a lot. Anxious temperaments, like their mom. It\u2019s not easy to encourage their self-confidence as artists.<\/p>\n

My girls produce about 3245 drawings per week. Their drawings invade the house, their backpacks, their bedroom walls, my office, and if I don\u2019t watch out, they\u2019ll soon be lining the sides of the cats\u2019 litter box and the inside of the fridge cheese drawer. You would think they secreted drawings out of their pores, like dromedaries (you didn\u2019t know that dromedaries secreted drawings, did you?)<\/p>\n

It means that, in raving about their work, I\u2019ve 1) developed cramps in my jaw and 2) discovered that the way that I react has a huge impact on their self-confidence.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve discovered that for my girls \u201cYour drawing is beautiful!\u201d or \u201cYou\u2019re so talented!\u201d are anxiety-producing comments. It\u2019s as if they\u2019re scared that they\u2019ll drop in my esteem if they mess up a drawing.<\/p>\n

One day my youngest, who is a particularly stubborn drama queen (like her mom), started to panic because she thought that one of her drawings wasn\u2019t good. She tore up her work and starting to cry, yelling \u201cI\u2019m no gooood!\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I understood that the end result (my approval) had become more important to her than the activity itself. She no longer drew for pleasure: she drew to please. She tried to conform to the level of quality that she thought was necessary to maintain my approval. So that\u2019s when I started to change how I reacted to her work.<\/p>\n

Now when she comes to show me her drawings, I try to talk to her without expressing value judgments. I no longer say that her drawings are \u201cbeautiful\u201d or \u201cgood\u201d. I try to express appreciation for the pleasure that she experienced in drawing, the effort that she put into it, and the risks that she took. I want my comments to bring her back to what she herself likes in her drawings.<\/p>\n

I discovered that comments formulated as questions are particularly effective in encouraging my daughter to talk about her process, what she\u2019s proud of, and how she wants to improve.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of things that I say to my youngest when she shows me her creations. My objective is for her to understand that what is important to me is what she experiences in the drawing process, not the result achieved by the dazzling stroke of her pen.<\/p>\n