Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Frustrated 3-year-old

My previously mellow 3-year-old has been having some major freak-outs recently when trying to draw and write. He actually has great fine motor skills for his age, but of course his drawings do not match up with his visions of what he wants to create. He has really intense crying fits--his body shakes, and he throws his pencils and wails piteously and screams "I can't do it." My older DD is intense in many ways but has never been like this about stuff, so this is pretty new.

He does not want me to trace for him and him to go over it. He does not want to draw cooperatively. Admiring what he does produce does not help. I affirm that it is frustrating and tell him I know it's hard when you're drawing and things don't look exactly how you like, but I am out of other ideas. It is sad and a little disturbing to see my normally mellow little dude go through this--these are actually probably the worst tantrums he has ever had in his life.

Thoughts? I have considered taking the drawing implements away when this happens, but that seems overly punitive. We do not ask or encourage him to draw/write--this is all his own initiative.

Hi U
I had a mellow one until 3.5. In the summer before he turned 3.5 he would through tantrums and became stubborn in a way we had not seen before. My DS overall has an awesome demeanor and behavior but around that age also started to express frustrations that his body couldn't do what he wanted. I think for gifties it's how the growth gets expressed because they have expectations for themselves that other kids might not. My DS was terrible at writing we even took him to OT at 4.5 because he was so frustrated and we needed to break the cycle of attitude about it. But 3.5 is way too young for that. I went for calm - talking in a soft voice, I know this is difficult - and if you can see it escalating, before it blows, can you head him off with some suggestions. Oh you want to make a robot, let's do a rectangle for the body. DS at this stage began asking us to draw for him and we did and do, but I think that might have been the wrong move because it made him further frustrated that his stuff didn't look like ours. In retrospect I would have done more sharing, I'll draw this part, you draw this part to make it look more like what he wants but still keep him in the game.

The bright side, after a year of frustration and resistance, between 4.5 and 5.5, he is now much better and much more willing to do it on his own. Although still comes up. Truthfully I am now glad of the issue, it's the only thing he cares about that hasn't come easy, so he has to work. Of course it would have been nice to have that lesson without the fuss!

DeHe

My boy just got a cheapy paper little stencil given to him somewhere and the novelty of it entertained him with a marker and a pad of paper. Also he likes the dot to dots. They're just a satisfying addition and instant gratification. He likes to pretend word searches right now (he's not really doing it).
Also, I know some people don't like people posting brags about their own kids in other people's threads, but here's a place to bring up this George Washington again. . (which one's mine & which one's his, right? lol)
The book is Draw Write Now. I took one legalpad and gave Wyatt3.5 the other. I drew each step on my paper. I told him to do each step with a pencil, then after each step told him to go over the same step with a marker "to make it darker". Use the same process, you'll get the same results. the results being an impressive picture to show for it, not the instant ability to draw what's in your mind the way you want to. That takes time.

I'm trying this but he doesn't go for it.

Dot to dots might be a good idea or they might be a disatser, but heck, it's worth a shot.

My 3.5 year old daughter also has these kind of tantrums if she cannot figure something out immediately or if it does not live up to her vision. The other day she pulled one of her fits and I told her that she was done with her pencil for now and could choose something else to draw with. Changing to another medium (markers in this case) seemed to clear her mind and help her start anew.

I like the dot to dots idea!

We took a break from drawing somewhere in that age range for just about exactly that. Starting maybe around 2.5. If I would try to help his feelings in any way DS would take it wrong and feel worse. For him it was better to just have a break from it. He was okay with playdoh being imperfect, and with cutting and pasting (where he would tell me very specific stuff cut and then he would glue them on paper how he wanted them to go) -- so he still did artsy stuff, just more crafts than drawing.

Interestingly a large gap of time improved his drawing skills some (brain maturation I guess) and he's happier with how things come out. For DS, chalk, dry erase markers and pencils, window crayons are still the best options and he erases quite a bit.

Polly

A this age, we used collage a lot to help my son get over his frustration with the lag between motor skills and conceptual abilities, which was even greater for him than for most HG/PG kids because of his hypotonia and coordination problems. He had a big box full of little plastic bags filled with colored construction paper cut into different shapes and sizes - triangles, complex curves, circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, spirals, you name it. He would paste these together into an incredible variety of scenes to illustrate his stories. Sadly, his creations were all pretty much destroyed during the 2004 hurricanes, so I can't post photos to show you.

Another thing that he liked was using stencils and "swipes" to create his own art works. He would use tracing paper and a clipboard for the swipes and trace small sections from a variety of photographs or drawings that had part of a shape that he wanted to make and combine those lines to make his own compositions. Some of his favorite books to pull swipes from were these coloring books.

big foam stamps were great for my youngster...he used tempra paint to paint a background landscape (water or grass, sky) and then he used stamps when the background was dry....fish, animals or whatever stamp on top.

I have one of the ocean/fish ones framed.

Look at Ed Emberley's books, my ds loved those. On Emberley's website you can find some pages you can print out and see how your ds feels about them. I am very thankful to the teacher who introduced my ds and us to Emberley's books.

What about letting him choose one of those velvet pictures to color in?