Why Do Kids Draw Funny Pictures? What Their Silliest Sketches Mean For Development
I was digging through my 6-year-old Mia’s backpack after school last Monday, prying out a crumpled math worksheet and a half-eaten pack of gummy bears that had leaked sticky blue all over the folder, when I hit it: a folded-up piece of construction paper covered in crayon. It was a family portrait. I have three arms: one clutches a coffee mug, one holds my phone, one is wrapped around our golden retriever’s leash. My husband has a giant, round belly filled in with red crayon, labeled “pizza.” Our dog Milo has five legs and is wearing my sparkly sunglasses. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
My friend who was dropping off a package stopped to look, laughed, then asked, “Is that normal? She knows you only have two arms, right? Should I be worried my 4-year-old draws our cat with a face on its belly?” That question comes up a lot, I’ve noticed. Most parents see these wonky, exaggerated sketches and either just laugh them off or quietly wonder if something is off with their kid’s development.
I used to work in a preschool classroom before Mia was born, so I saw hundreds of these funny drawings back then, and now as a parent I’m still collecting them. Last month, Mia drew a trip to the grocery store where the cashier had a head made entirely of bananas, because he gave Mia a free banana sticker that day. For Mother’s Day, she drew me with 12 feet because “you walk everywhere with me.” None of it looks like real life, but all of it makes perfect sense to her.
Most people assume these funny drawings happen because kids haven’t learned to draw “right” yet, or their fine motor skills are still too wobbly to get proportions right. And sure, hand control is still developing for kids under 8, but that’s not the main reason the drawings look so silly. Young kids draw what they know, not what they see. It’s not that Mia can’t count to two—she just knows that I’m almost always doing three things at once, so three arms makes more sense to her. Exaggerating the parts that matter to her is how she tells a story on paper, not how she makes a photorealistic copy.
I’ve seen a lot of parents accidentally shut this kind of creative storytelling down without meaning to. My own sister does this with her 5-year-old: when he draws something wonky, she takes the crayon and says “Here, let me show you how to draw a dog that looks like your dog” and redraws it with four even legs. Or she’ll say “That’s funny, but Mom only has two arms, remember?” What that tells the kid is that their idea is wrong, that only drawings that look “correct” matter. After a few months of that, my sister told me her son stopped bringing her his original drawings at all. He just sticks to coloring in pre-printed books and never makes up his own pictures anymore.
The good news is this is easy to engage with the right way, no special art classes or fancy supplies needed. The first small thing I do when I see one of Mia’s funny sketches is ask a specific question about the silliest part, not just the generic “What is this?” Instead of pointing out the extra arm, I say “Tell me about all your mom’s arms here.” When she drew the grocery store cashier with the banana head, that question led to a five-minute conversation about how he always slips her an extra banana when we check out, and how she thinks he must really love bananas as much as she does. That’s a whole conversation about what she notices when we go to the store that I never would have had if I’d just laughed and stuck the drawing on the fridge without asking.
Another small, low-effort shift: hang the funny drawings right alongside the neat, pretty ones. A lot of parents only display the drawings that look like what they’re supposed to be—the perfectly colored sun, the neatly outlined house—and tuck the silly ones in a junk drawer. That sends a quiet message that only “good” (read: correct) art is worth celebrating. I have Mia’s 5-legged dog drawing taped to my work laptop right next to a neat drawing of a butterfly she did at school, and it makes me laugh every time I open it.
If you’re worried about developmental delays, that’s fair, but you don’t have to panic over every wonky drawing. The simple check-ins are easy: by age 5, can your kid hold a crayon or pencil with their fingers instead of a fist? Can they draw a basic circle and a straight line? Can they cut a piece of paper with safety scissors? If they can do those things, the extra arms and banana heads are just storytelling, not a sign of a delay.
Last night I was sorting through a stack of drawings to put in Mia’s memory box, and I pulled out that first family portrait I found in her backpack a few months ago. I showed it to her, and asked if she wanted to draw an updated family portrait now. She got out her crayons, and five minutes later handed it to me. I still have three arms holding coffee, my phone, and Milo’s leash, but I got a fourth arm this time: it’s labeled “homework help.” My husband’s pizza belly is still there, and Milo now has six legs, because “he runs super fast so he needs more.”
It’s still funny, it’s still definitely wrong if you go by how real people and dogs look, but it’s also completely right for how Mia sees our family right now. I still have days where I worry I’m saying the wrong thing, or pushing her too hard or not enough. But for now, I’m just keeping the funny drawings, asking the questions, and letting her draw whatever weird, wonderful thing she sees. There’s plenty of time for perfect drawings later.
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