The Complete Guide to Children's Drawings: Accessing Children‘s Emotional World through their Artwork. Michal Wimmer
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Figure 3-1:Family coalition
At first glance, the drawing in figure 3-1 does not seem to indicate the existence of any internal family coalition, mainly because all family members are drawn in the same color and all seem to be of the same height. However, the topographical location of the figures on the page (the form of the ground line beneath their legs) indicates the existence of a coalition nevertheless, with the eldest boy standing on the same plain together with his parents, while the 5½ year-old girl who made this drawing and her little brother forced onto a different plain, with added “grass” to compensate for their stature and make them as “tall” as the eldest brother and the parents. In this case, height of course represents dominance in the family system.
The behavioral approach and its view on family therapy (Cordova, 2003) may also be represented in family drawings. This theory focuses on family members’ social relationships and level of involvement. When a certain family member is more involved in a life of a child, the latter will tend to draw that member bigger and in a more positive way than other family members. Conversely, when they lack emotional communication, this will be represented by poor quality line and color selection.
Other issues such as criticism, positive evaluation, and trust relationships will also be represented in the way a child draws his family figures. The main focus in this case will be on the distance and relationship between figures: Is one figure distant from the rest? Are the figures holding hands or looking at one another? Do the figures have similar clothing accessories or other things in common? (Spigelman, 1992)
Temper Tantrums Directed at Parents
Most studies on temper tantrums (e.g. Waska 1990) view this as a common or even normative phenomenon at age two. However, as many parents know, reality is a bit different and temper tantrums occur also at older ages (Koch 2003).
Figure 3-2:Low self-esteem as an antecedent of temper tantrums
I recommend referring to the two following key aspects of this phenomenon:
1.Location – Some children are liable to throw a tantrum anywhere, while others make a clear separation between home and kindergarten. Such separation is important, because you may learn from it about a child’s ability to regulate his behavior.
For example, some children will throw a tantrum each time they fail in a task at kindergarten. Their frustration overwhelms them, so they react in rage. In such cases, as you may see in the following drawing, a dominant trend is related to low self-esteem and a weak sense of achievement. The parents of this 6 year-old girl, who started first grade, reported that she bursts in anger every time they point to a spelling error or when she mistakenly messes up the page.
Her drawing style combines trends of weak pressure with a shaky line with trends of drawing body organs such as the legs – drawn with a thin and fragile line, so that the entire figure seems unstable – or the eyes which are drawn without pupils, suggesting difficulty deciphering peer society behavior codes.
Other children will throw tantrums in situations such as social frustration due to unfair treatment by their peer group. For example, they would get angry and say “I didn’t get what I wanted… it’s not fair…”
2.Expression style – There are two basic types of expression: extraverted and introverted. Children with an extraverted expression style will usually react to their environment and beat, scratch or bite their parents or other children. Introverted children, on the other hand, turn their anger into themselves – they will bite their fingernails, smash their head against a wall, have tics or otherwise behave compulsively.
The parents of the 7 year-old girl who made the drawing shown below consulted me because of her temper tantrums, which occur mainly during family gatherings at her relatives’ homes. During these events, sometimes things would not go according to her plan – for example, when playing with her cousins, she would claim they are unfair to her and get mad, screaming and running out of the house in anger. In such cases, she finds it hard to relax, despite her parents’ attempts to calm her down.
Figure 3-3:Emotional overload and stress as antecedents of temper tantrums
My work with her family included the following stages:
3.Understanding the scope of the phenomenon – It appeared she would not throw tantrums at school or at home on a regular basis. Most of her temper tantrums occurred at her grandfather’s house during family gatherings. Therefore, my first assumption was that the source of her behavior was related to the parental dynamic at her grandfather’s house. My discussion with her parents confirmed my suspicion, as it seemed that when she is at her grandfather’s place, she is faced with multiple authority figures telling her how to behave. In other words, during such family events, her parents are left aside, letting other family member rebuke her, creating a confusing parental reality for her.
4.Accepting the phenomenon as natural – Many parents fear any manifestation of aggressive behavior because they think it’s the tip of the iceberg and that they will soon find out something terrible about their child. Despite your need to be politically correct and maintain a pleasant social atmosphere, you must not forget that aggression is a natural instinct. I recommend teaching your child how to behave and how to control his aggression, keeping in mind that it is a natural part of all of us. This point of view facilitates family dialog as it mitigates the fears related to the phenomenon.
5.Exploring the reasons for the tantrums through drawings – Among other causes, temper tantrums may be precipitated by
a.Regressed emotional development – In this case, the child did not have temper tantrums until a certain point in time, from which a regression was identified. In general, such behavior indicates stress – the child is stressed and angry outbursts offer the only outlet. Thus, a temper tantrum may also serve a positive emotional purpose for the child (albeit being unpleasant for his environment). In drawings, you will see regression in drawing stages, parallel to the behavioral regression. In this particular case, this possibility was rejected because the girl’s drawings were advanced for her age.
b.Temperament types – Parents with several children will be able to confirm that children have different temperaments since birth. A temperament usually does not change and characterizes a child’s behavior throughout his life. Temper tantrums will be more frequent in impulsive children with a “warm temper”. In such cases, a child’s outburst is not a sign of stress, but part of a natural expression style. However, this drawing was not made in an impulsive style – she filled the page areas meticulously, drawing slowly and patiently and attending to the smallest details.
c.Stressors – Based on Freud’s theory, we assume that a child’s behavior has a reason and that he benefits from his behavior, in this case, temper tantrums. Adler argued that each outburst has a purpose. This could be trying to get attention. The solution will then be to prevent the secondary gain involved. I prefer to focus on the cause for the temper tantrums more than on their purpose. In this case, you can clearly see that the reason for the СКАЧАТЬ