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Because I believe strongly that coloring books stunt creative growth and increase passivity. I allow my son to add color to his own line drawings, paint, etc., but the forms all come from him.

I don't decide what to give my kid just on the basis of what appeals to him. Lots of kids like playing shoot-'em-up video games. Some people like smoking crack. I'm just sayin'.

As coloring books go, the one to which you linked is not bad. I will probably never buy it for my son, but I will allow that it is not the sort of thing I'm really concerned about either. If those sorts of subjects were often seen in coloring books, I wouldn't have such a problem with them. I have also seen some other ones that aren't in the "He-Man vs. Skeletor Battle for the Universe" vein: mandalas and other geometric designs, etc. In the end, I think it best to just condition him to avoid them.

I doubt that anyone near me here in New Hampshire, within the school system or without, would offer a random kid a coloring book like the one you've pointed out. My kid will continue to be instructed to firmly refuse if he's offered a coloring book by anyone when I'm not there. If it's a good one, I might consider it.

It wouldn't personally for me have been worth coaching the child to refuse because I can't think of a single situation prior to middle school when it ever came up and then only in the form of something like the botany coloring book. I must say I have a bit of envy for a childhood with so few worries or challenges that coloring books would be one of the biggies worth coaching the child about. And, I mean that in a serious way, it is a happy comment on life that this can rank as an issue.

In K last year, our DS was given a "cut the poem apart and put it in order, glue it down, and color it" assignment literally every day. The kids were told what order to put it in several times, the right answer was up on a board that they could copy directly, and the pieces were numbered so that a kid who could count could just put it in numerical order.

IMHO, with a kid doing 3rd or 4th grade math in his head, it was at least as bad as coloring that his job *every day* was to put numbers in order.

That's amazing to me, that someone would offer a botany coloring book (unless it was in a private school setting, in which case I can understand and am envious). Today coloring books are offered everywhere-- at the doctor's office, restaurants, even recently at the bank. They appear to be the "shut the kid up" toy of choice at all sorts of establishments.

It's not that raising my kid is free of other challenges-- far from it. It's that I just don't want to dull his mind with coloring books, in addition to all the other challenges. Children are naturally very creative, in a way that is quite often dulled by adulthood, sort of the way many people learn to do math badly. Cookie-cutter "art" projects, coloring books, etc. can all combine to stunt a child's artistic development.

At a preschool my son was at around the age of 3, they used to do a lot of "art" projects, really carbon-copy crafts projects. They were along the lines of gluing eyes to egg cartons in the same places, painting things in exactly the same way, etc. They were pretty obviously designed to show the parents some output, not to encourage creativity or anything useful like motor development.

At the preschool my son was at last year, the same thing happened. Meanwhile there was a slavish adherence to multiple intelligences theory (which was not pushed so obviously in the initial information session or I probably would have taken my son elsewhere), and a complete lack of understanding of how to teach gifted children, how to foster a love of art, or anything else I would prefer my child to learn.

When someone offers a generic coloring book to my kid, I take it as a warning that they are simply trying to make my kid shut up and go away for a while, and/or that they don't know how to teach art, or what it means to be creative. Coloring, though it may develop some motor skills which can be developed in other ways too, is pretty much a non-thinking activity.

Please, please, please rethink your position.

While i'd agree you have an issue if coloring books were the only offering in lieu of classwork, I have to say that coloring books were a savior to me as a kid. I could easily get lost coloring. I learned all sorts of techniques for shading, complimentray colors, texturing, etc. and just the sheer ability to color something how I WANTED to was a creative freedom that was allowed on a world where kids were supposed to listen rather than think. That was one of the few things that kept me sane.

What a sad place the world would have been had I not been allowed to color.

As far as the carbon copy aspect of art. Here's a little story for you... My daughter applied to the fashion Institute in NYC and I remember the portfolio review of her designs. The woman was quite excited and gushed that they usually don't get applicants with such a well defined "voice" (a unique sense of style all her own), saying "People just don't do work like this!". Needless to say she was accepted. What does that have to do with carbon copy art? My daughter told me that her art ability was woken somewhere like 3rd grade when she had to do a soap sculpture. She had no idea what to do so she and I sat at the kitchen table and she decided she wanted to carve a fish. So we sketched a design and i had a block of soap and she had a block of soap and she copied what I did. I didn't hold her hands, she did it herself, but she had an example to follow and it just opened her eyes as to what she could do. You never know when a spark is kindled.

Poppa

This article might be helpful in explaining our perspective:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080422143529.htm

I still think it is better for our mental health to limit contact with certain people.

My son remembers the positive as well as the negative. I don't think he dwells on the negative, but he also doesn't forget. He remembers that a few things in kindergarten were fun, but he also remembers lots of coloring when he hated coloring, especially having to color the letter of the week and listen to very boring lessons when he could already read at a 5th grade level. He remembers talking to the teachers on playground duty instead of actually playing because there were bullies on the playground who were much bigger because they were older, having been redshirted, which is the custom here, and he didn't feel safe when they were around.

Teachers seemed to be blind to the bullying or maybe they were just thinking positive--bullying is not really that bad, it builds character, and boys will be boys, etc.

Luckily, a few teachers with a more balanced view of the reality at that school recommended that we homeschool.

Lori, i think you've done right. I happen to live in THE town that has been spotlighted nationally recently and it's literally torn the town apart. I don't even want to get into the issues being raised but I will say this: A parent needs to do what they have to to ensure that safety of your child. Period.

Clay... thanks for the input. I agree that CBT isn't (today?) the whole solution and should be used in conjunction with other things, but I do think based on my own learning style it could have been a much larger part - for me.

I think at a minimum, CBT Based assessment might help to provide snapshots of where our kids are in school and why. Surely it can't be the only tool but gosh! what a step in the right direction it would be if every kid could bee assessed at least once a year!

We didn't run into this, but as I said our child is a teenager. When he was younger we typically brought along our own stuff like puzzles and books so if there were "shut up kid" options we didn't use them.


Yes, I agree that can be a huge problem. We toured schools like this but fortunately had also saw other preschool options that were much more appropriate. I really appreciated the art options at our son's preschool. It was definitely open ended access, process not product oriented. While we did plenty of messy stuff at home too, it was a treat to know that at school he spent happy time with paint, clay, without the home clean up.

My kids love getting the crayons and coloring sheets at restaurants. They just turn the placemat over to the blank side and draw their own stuff.

No one is suggesting you have your child in a situation where he's bullied Lori. I'm a homeschooler and a big advocate for putting the emotional health of kids at the center of educational decision making.

The article you posted contains this passage: "Behaviorally what starts happening is you avoid interactions and situations that could be quite positive for you."

This is what I'm getting at. How do you acknowledge the negative and move on in a way that allows you to engage in more positive and meaningful relationships with other people. Dwelling on every small negative comment or imagining an "Oh" contains shunning is not helping a child build the sorts of social connections that are protective against anxiety and depression.

The question is can we find ways in our lives to nurture optimism and positive feelings of goodwill and security in relationships with other people. How can we find ways to acknowledge challenges but also keep them in perspective by focusing more of our energy on nurturing the positive aspects of our relationships with other people?