When your child brings home an artwork and says, “Look what I made today.”, what might you say? It is helpful to the growth of your child to validate and appreciate their artwork without using value judgments. By describing the elements of the work and listening to what your child is saying, you are supporting their unique expression and helping your child grow in self-confidence in his/her visual response to the world.

For example: Take time to first look carefully at the work with your child. What do you notice about the color? What are the lines doing? Are they in a configuration that suggest an animal or a person or a house or are they marks that are long, short, fat or thin going in an up
and down direction or zigzagging side by side? You might say, “I notice those long shapes and that small circle look like a person. I can see those long shapes in blue make the legs and I can see those lines in brown look like the hair.”

For an older child, you might say, “I notice that person is running because I see how you made the legs bent and the arms out.” You might ask your child what they would like to tell you about the work or if something was particularly challenging and how they solved that. You and your child can become visual detectives together by noticing how visual clues convey meaning. “I really can tell it is autumn in your painting because the color of the leaves on the
trees are orange, red and yellow.”

By using descriptive language when responding to your child’s artwork you are creating a dialogue for continuing discussion about your child’s growth in art and growth as a person.