Any older, and she begins to internalize the concept of an ideal family, which could then influence her drawings. Any younger, and a child can't control her pencil. Six years old is the "sweet spot" for such a test, says Mills-Koonce. The drawing usually took 10 minutes or less. Researchers sat the children down with markers and paper and asked them to draw their families. To be clear, Mills-Koonce did not blame parents or caretakers but called this kind of stress in the home a "function of poverty." Their drawings were a reflection of this simple fact: Chaos at home meant parents were interacting with them less and, in many cases, the interactions that were happening were shorter and interrupted.Īs a result, kids ended up with a depreciated sense of self, says Roger Mills-Koonce, who led the study with Bharathi Zvara at UNC-Chapel Hill. In some cases, these kids drew themselves with drooping arms and indifferent or sad faces. In a new study, researchers found that children who experienced chaos at home - including high levels of noise, excessive crowding, clutter and lack of structure - were more likely to draw themselves at a distance from their parents or much smaller in size relative to other figures.
Not because of those purple unicorns or pinstripe dragons but because of how kids sketch themselves and the very real people in their lives.
When children reach 6 years old, their drawings matter. Examples of a family drawing assessment: A drawing from a child scored with minimal indicators of family dysfunction (top), and one from a child scored with elevated levels of family dysfunction (bottom).
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