Why Kids Draw Funny Pictures: What Your Child’s Silliest Drawings Mean for Development
I was dumping out my 7-year-old Milo’s backpack last Tuesday, picking out a crumpled juice box and a sock that’d gone missing after soccer practice, when I hit the stack of art from that week’s class. On top was a drawing of me: round, bun-shaped, covered in squiggly brown ketchup stripes, with stick arms sticking out the sides and my signature round glasses perched on top. It was labeled “MOM HOT DOG.” I snort-laughed so hard my husband came in from the living room to see what was wrong.
A few drawings down was one of his first grade teacher, Ms. Lopez, with 12 stick arms, every single one clutching either a marker or a mini goldfish cracker. Next to that was our golden retriever, Max, drawn as a giant tennis ball with four stubby legs. I texted both drawings to Ms. Lopez, who replied with a laughing emoji and said she’d hung the 12-arm version on her own fridge too.
Later that week, I was volunteering in the school’s art room to help set up for the upcoming art show, and I heard another mom leaning over her 6-year-old’s table say, “Honey, why does my head take up the whole page? That can’t be right. People don’t look like that.” Her kid just shrugged and went back to coloring his blue sun, and I realized I used to do the exact same thing. When Milo first started drawing, I’d gently point out that people have two arms, not five, that our front yard doesn’t have purple grass. I thought I was helping him learn.
Then I took a mandatory early childhood development class for the PTA volunteer training I do, and the instructor said something that stuck with me: little kids don’t draw what things look like. They draw what things mean to them. All those funny, lopsided, totally absurd drawings aren’t a sign that your kid can’t draw, or that they’re developmentally behind. They’re a sign that their brain is working exactly how it should. At 5 to 7 years old, kids’ observational skills are shifting from seeing the whole object to prioritizing the parts that matter most to them, and that comes through in their art.
After the class, I went home and tried it out with the hot dog drawing. I sat down next to Milo while he was building Legos and pointed to the drawing, asked “Tell me why I’m a hot dog?” He didn’t even look up from his bricks before he said, “Because at the neighborhood cookout you ate three hot dogs and you said it was the best day of your whole life. You’re the hot dog queen.” It clicked then. The most prominent thing in his memory from that weekend wasn’t what I wear, or how tall I am, or any of the details I would’ve prioritized if I was drawing us. It was the silly, specific moment we’d had eating too many hot dogs together. The drawing wasn’t a mistake—it was a story.
The 12 arms for Ms. Lopez made sense too, when I asked. He told me she always helps everyone tie shoes and pass out snacks and write names on papers all at the same time, so she needs a lot of arms. That’s exactly how he experiences her, every single day at school. A lot of parents I talk to worry when their kid’s drawings don’t look “right.” They compare them to other kids’ more realistic drawings hanging on Pinterest, or worry that the silly stuff means something’s off. I’ve even heard parents get a little hurt—one friend told me her 5-year-old drew her husband as just a pair of walking headphones, and her husband was offended that that’s all the kid notices. But what that drawing actually says is that dad works from home at the kitchen table every day, and he always has his headphones on for calls. That’s how the kid experiences him. It’s not an insult—it’s an observation.
You don’t need to overhaul how you talk to your kid about art to put this into practice. The small changes I’ve made take almost no extra time. First, instead of laughing and moving on or correcting the drawing, I just point to the weirdest part and ask, “Tell me about this.” It takes 10 seconds, and it almost always gives me a peek into what’s been on his mind that I would’ve otherwise missed. Second, I don’t correct his drawing unless he asks for help. If he draws me with three arms and a square head, I don’t sit down to show him how to draw a “correct” person. That just makes him think his own ideas are wrong, and he’s less likely to draw for fun later. Third, I leave a stack of blank printer paper and a box of cheap crayons on the kitchen counter, instead of filling his art bin with tracing workbooks that force him to follow specific shapes. The best funny drawings come when there are no rules to follow.
Last week, Milo drew a new picture of our whole family, all of us different kinds of french fries. I’m a curly fry, my husband is a waffle fry, Max the dog is a tater tot. It’s taped on the fridge right next to the hot dog drawing. I’ve been thinking about getting a nice family portrait for our holiday cards this year, and part of me wants to ask Milo to draw a “nice” one for me. But so far, I haven’t. The french fry one is way more us, anyway. Some days I still catch myself overthinking whether he’s hitting all the right milestones, whether his drawing skills are where they should be for his age. Then I look at the 12-armed teacher, the hot dog mom, the tater tot dog, and I remember: the messy, funny drawings aren’t mistakes. They’re just how kids show us the world, through their eyes.
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