Why Kids Refuse To Draw Themselves And One Simple Shift That Works
The heater in my 4th grade art room was rattling last month, and the whole space smelled like dried glue and cherry-scented crayons, when I rounded the corner to Mia’s table and saw three crumpled sheets of paper peeking out of her trash can. Her pencil hovered over a fresh sheet, and the reference photo of her face—we’d taken them that morning for the self-portrait unit—was face-down on the table. “What’s going on?” I asked, leaning against the edge of her table. She pushed the photo farther away, hoodie string tucked into her mouth. “I don’t want to draw me.”
I’d complained to our school counselor after class the day before, that half the class was holding back, erasing so hard they tore holes in their paper, and wouldn’t turn anything in. She’d shrugged and said, “Stop asking them to draw the face they see in the mirror. Ask them to draw a face that’s them. Doesn’t matter what it looks like.” I didn’t think much of it at the time, just nodded, but it stuck with me.
I repeated the idea to Mia, soft and casual. “You don’t have to draw the face in the photo. Just draw a face that feels like you. Whatever that means.” She blinked at me, then shrugged, turned her photo back over but didn’t look at it, and started drawing. I went off to help a kid who’d glued his shoe to his poster board, forgot about it for 10 minutes, until a small hand tapped my elbow. Mia held up her paper, didn’t meet my eye, and said, “I took your advice and I drew a face for me.”
It was nothing like the actual Mia. Her real hair is fine, straight blonde that she pulls into a tight ponytail every day. This hair was curly, bright purple, and spilled all over the edges of the paper. Her real mouth is full of new braces she hides behind her hand every time she talks, but this mouth was wide open in a grin, dimples poked deep in both cheeks, and she’d colored the braces pink. Big round blue glasses sat on her nose, even though Mia has 20/20 vision. There were silver sparkles all around the outline of her head.
“It’s the me I feel like when I’m reading in the library at recess,” she said. “And the me I want to be when I’m 16, when I can dye my hair and get pink braces and big glasses if I want.” I just nodded, said “That’s really cool. Thanks for showing me.” I didn’t make a big deal out of it, didn’t hang it up in the hall without asking (she said yes later, by the way). That’s when it clicked for me what the actual problem was all those years kids got stuck on self-portraits.
For years, I assigned self-portraits the same way every elementary art teacher does: take a photo, copy what you see. I’d tell kids “it doesn’t have to be perfect” when they got stuck, and I thought that was enough. But that line doesn’t fix the real problem. Starting around 8 or 9, kids become hyper aware of the things they think are “wrong” with how they look. They get braces, they start to grow faster or slower than their friends, they get their first pimples, they hate their new glasses, they’re embarrassed to be taller or shorter than everyone else. Asking them to put that exact face—the one they’re already picking apart every time they pass a mirror—on a piece of paper to show the whole class? That’s not an art assignment. That’s an invitation to feel exposed.
I’ve tested this small shift out for a month now, with different kids at school and my own 10-year-old at home, and it works way more often than not. It doesn’t require any special training or extra supplies, just a few small changes to what you say and do. First, when a kid says they can’t draw themselves, don’t push them to tell you what’s wrong. They might not even be able to put that quiet self-consciousness into words. Just say the line: “You don’t have to draw the face that looks like you. Just draw a face that is you. Whatever that means right now.” That’s it. No big speech, no pressure.
Second, don’t force them to share it if they don’t want to. My son tried this last week, when he had a homework assignment to do a self-portrait for his “get to know me” poster. He crumpled four sheets before I remembered the trick. He ended up drawing a face with a soccer ball for a nose and a game controller sticking out of his mouth. When I asked he said “The nose is because I can always smell the grass before soccer practice, and I chew on my controller cord when I’m playing.” It was way more him than any boring drawing of his actual face would’ve been, but he didn’t want to put it on the front of his poster, so he taped it inside his notebook instead. That’s fine. The point isn’t the finished product for other people, it’s giving them space to show up how they want.
Third, if they do show you, don’t lead with “that’s so good!” Just ask “Do you want to tell me about this face?” That gives them control, and you don’t have to guess if you’re saying the right thing.
It doesn’t work every time. Last week, a boy in my class sat for 45 minutes and never drew a single line, even after I offered the same permission. That’s okay, too. Some days kids just don’t want to put anything on paper, and that’s their right. Mia still pulls her hood up over her head when we take class photos, and she still hides her mouth behind her hand when she laughs. But that drawing she did is taped to the inside of my desk drawer, and I look at it when I start worrying too much about following the lesson plan exactly. I don’t need every kid to turn in a perfect self-portrait that matches their photo. I just need them to feel like they can show up as they are, even if that’s just on a piece of paper, one purple curly-haired face at a time.
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