As grown-ups, we tend to force children to reveal their feelings to us. We ask questions, look for explanations. We wait for words. But children are living in a world a long time before language is able to follow. Emotions come in first, in the body, in behaviour, in silence, and in most cases on paper.
In my practice as a therapist, and a Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, I have been taught that children seldom tend to conceal their feelings. They only use other ways to say it. They attract it long before they can speak of it, of feeling scared or feeling unseen.
And those drawings can give us all, where we know where to find them.
Children experience what they know not before understanding.
Children experience everything hard. Fear may present in the form of a stomach ache. Joy may lighten the body, make it noisier, faster. The child can be abruptly frozen under the influence of shame. Childhood might appear to be merry and active on the surface, but, inside, children are always scanning their emotional landscape.
By the time they get a chance to name them, they are already learning how to handle them.
Emotions in caring families are received with interest and composure. A child gets to know that it is safe to express feelings. However, in households where there is emotional neglect or emotional volatility or a persistent urge to act like they are supposed to, children respond differently. They get to know what kind of feelings are welcome and which are not.
This is not an intentional decision. It is survival.
And there those emotions do not fade away. They lodge into the nervous system and await a release.
Why art is the first language to a child.
Provide a blank piece of paper and a few colours to a child and something wonderful will occur. No explanation, justification and performance are necessary. Art is a language of soliloquy.
Children, who are unable yet to express the inner experience in words, and can draw it with great vividness, are frequently seen in the therapy. A child can also sketch himself tiny at the page. The other can play with heavy colours that are dark in repetition. There are those press crayons that are so hard to the point of breaking and there are those that might be barely touching the paper as though they are attempting not to occupy space.
All these details must not be seen separately. Children are experimental and playful. However, once patterns are repeated they start to make an emotional story.
This is the point of convergence of Trauma therapy and creative expression. The trauma is not held on as a narrative it is held on as a sensory, an image, and an emotional sensation. Sketches usually disclose what language is not able to reach yet. The aim in Trauma therapy is never to forget these experiences, but to assist the child in processing these experiences safely.
Fancy danger is danger to the body nonetheless.
A lot of parents react logically to the fears of the children.
“There’s nothing under the bed.”
“That can’t hurt you.”
“You’re safe.”
Logic does not immediately inform a nervous system.
When children create monsters, storms, shadows, figures looming they are usually creating emotional realities. The monster might not be there on the room–but the terror is there in the body. The drawing is transformed into an emotional map.
This is critical in the modern world where children have never been subjected to more stress than they are now, due to the dynamics of their families, pressure in school, academic demands and even anxiety heard by adults.
Rejection of the image rejects the message.
The truth about what is sought by professionals in drawing.
The art of the child is never regarded as a diagnosis during the process of therapeutic work. It is done with respectfulness. One drawing is insufficient to describe the whole story. It is the repetition and variation with time.
Professionals may notice:
- Constant motifs of alienation or loneliness.
- Using heavy colours or dark colours in repetition.
- Too many pressure strokes or too light strokes.
- Sketches which become abruptly smaller, narrower, more restricted.
It is also important where something is placed and its size. An emotional child can fill the page with the effect of the feeling having swallowed up the room. Changes in drawing, more closed, less moving, fewer colours, are a common indicator of changes within a period of time.
During my clinical practice, which involves relationship therapy with parents and caregivers, I tend to remind the adults: drawing are invitations and not conclusions. They are not interrogated, but they provoke pondering.
Curiosity is the most potent reaction.
The easiest questions to ask are those which are simple:
“Tell me about this picture.”
“What’s happening here?”
“Who is this person?”
What was it like as you were drawing this?
These questions enable the child to lead. They tell something that matters: Welcome to your inner world.
This practice is similar to what I highlight in CBT Couples Counseling Services too, safety breeds honesty. People talk when they are perceived, not when they are being judged, whether it is adults or children.
Patterns can be used when they may indicate the necessity of assistance.
It is a normal development as many children will draw storms, battles and imaginary creatures. There is concern when drawings are consistent with apparent behavioural changes, such as chronic withdrawal, depressedness, sleeping difficulties, anxiety, or deterioration of school functioning.
In this instance, asking for assistance is defensive. The developmentally appropriate environment where emotions can be expressed with the help of art, play, and stories is usually offered by a child psychologist or a play therapist. A child psychiatrist might come into play in specific circumstances when emotional difficulties pose a tremendous impediment to normal living.
Being an employee all over the world and having been requested as a best couple counselor several times to help the families go through emotional changes, I would like to make everything very clear: A request to help is not a failure. It is usually the most sensitive reaction that a parent could offer.
The most important thing for adults is for children.
Once an adult looks at the drawing of a child with compassion, he/she tells a child the message that many children badly need to hear:
- You matter.
- Your feelings are real.
- Your story deserves space.
- You are not alone.
This is my message that I discuss in writing and my therapeutic activities. I express this in my book, Love That Was Meant for Me (read it here: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8199171219), about the connection between unspoken feelings and love and how they form our relationships, attachment styles, and sense.
Final reflection
Children speak long before they speak in words. They speak in colour, space, pressure, and image. When we learn to listen—to drawings, to patterns, to silence—we offer them something invaluable: safety.
And safety is where healing begins.
For more reflections on emotional wellness, relationships, and healing, you can connect with me through my social channels and ongoing writing.
