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Using Art to Teach Emotional Literacy

How can you use art to get kids to express their feelings?

Start by asking them to draw how they feel, suggests Carol Deach, illustrator of several Parenting Press books, including the new My Grandma Died: A Child's Story about Grief and Loss.

When children have difficulty getting something on paper—and some will—here's another tack recommended by Deach.

Ask a child to:

• Draw a picture (or two or three) that makes him feel good (or sad);
• Draw a picture of her mother or father; and
• Explain the drawing to you.

When children draw people who are important in their lives (parents, for example), the pictures usually clarify the child-adult relationship. Children traumatized by domestic abuse may show parents fighting. For Deach, one child drew his father alone in a boat and explained, "He'll like it there because he'll be alone and won't be bothered by our noise."