The Scribble Interview - Part 2 - a conversation with Crayola

"Don't expect your child's artwork to look like a photograph" says Cheri Sterman, Director of Child Development at Crayola. According to this expert; representational art presents itself around the school age years.

Instead, expect your child to use art to get the Aha! experiences. When our Parent Club test panel sampled the Crayola Ta-Doodles paints the general feedback was -- simply -- too messy. We put this problem to Cheri who smartly noted that it was a beautiful problem solving moment. The child has paint on their hands...there is the Aha! moment. They see their parent wipe their hands and with that they have learned to problem solve.

Through learning children foster cognition. They achieve experience. Their scribbles soon turn into symbols which leads to writing letters. A 3 year old may scribble across a page, but when you ask them about the scribbles they can quickly decipher "it says; My name is Jill." According to Cheri, children learn major cognition through this activity.

Sometimes as parents, we just focus on the mess...focus on the scribbles. It is hard to step back and appreciate the greater learning. Sometimes, we just see the paint on the hands as one - more - thing to put on our already too-busy schedules. The scribbles are quickly picked up and put in a pile to go to the recycling bin. In our parenting efficiency, perhaps we don't appreciate the greater good of the experience.

Talking about scribbles with Cheri has inspired me to create a mess - have fun - and call it art.

This is Part 2 to the series - The Scribble Interview - a conversation with Crayola.