Child Imitating His Father's Art

Dear parent,

Your husband didn’t draw for your son. They were drawing side by side. This is different than making art “for” the child who then does not do any of it. Still, side by side creativity can limit the child’s freedom of expression as you have wisely noticed. 

Since your child did not lose his desire to draw, he will most likely start creating his own artistic language. Imitating is one way of learning a skill. But creativity requires inner freedom.

I suggest that you give your son plenty of opportunities to do his own drawings without his father. Instead of seeing it as a loss, you can see the gain in your child’s freedom to create. Life is a constant change; we don’t have to preserve the way it was. We can find the joy in the next chapter as it unfolds. 

When you notice that your son has developed his own drawing style that differs from his father’s, and when he seems strongly rooted in his own creation, his father may be able to join again every now and then. When he does, he should make a point of creating something very different than the child does. 

Warmly, Naomi Aldort, http://authenticparent.com/index.html