4 yr old doesnt want to colour in....

Just to add - I gave him different medium to work with - coukies, crayon, pencils, paint etc.

My son also wasn't much interested in colouring in untill the age of 4 y 6 months - when the teacher actually took his hand and show him how to do it! And we made a real effort at home to colour pictures etc - even did some dot-to-dot activities that he loves now!

I can't believe that they want to punish him for not wanting to colour in at age 4! I would have been furious. I can only imagine how you must feel.

Children express their feelings through drawing, where they sometimes struggle to do it with words or actions. This expression of feelings is vital to a childs emotional development and wellbeing.
If a child does not get enough ways to express his emotions safely, they bottle up and become unruly kids. But telling a kid he must express himself in "this way" or "that way" is not a good idea in my opinion.

I agree with the other ladies to spend time with him but not to force the drawing.

It really is terrible that so many schools and especially in this case a pre-shool puts so much pressure on kids to start "performing", teaching them that the basis of life is your ability to perform succesfully and compete with your peers and shoud you fail you are an outcast. They are training kids to become expert capatilists in my opinion and not a healthy balanced view of the possibilities of life.

The teacher has told me that she tells him if he doesn’t want to colour he must sit on the naughty matt and she has also told me that 2 little girls were teasing him that he scribbles. I was very upset on hearing this and I did tell her that I don’t agree with the way she is handling his not wanting to colour.

We do sit at home with paper and crayons and we draw! he is happy to draw and I try to encourage him to colour in the drawings but I don’t want to force him so if he wont he wont... im so upset about all this cause as I single mother I am paying the highest school fee’s of all my friends to have him in a good school which I love ... just got stuck with a teacher that just doesn’t seem to b for us...

Im not saying he is an angel! he is a mischievous little boy and gets bored very easily I accept that criticism that he does disrupt his friends some times... but dont they all have thier days? I feel he is just a typical little boy and he is ONLY just 4!

Teacher want to start a chart in the new year and reward him for every picture completed... we will see how this goes... Tait is a very sensitive boy and I hope there is no lasting damage because of this... I was just so worried as the teacher said that this would negatively affect his development... I was so stressed! Feel so much beta for having discussed this with you all!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Jozie

This reminds me of a conversation I was having with a friend recently, there are loads of studies now that are proving more and more that kids learn mostly through playing independently and she was saying that waldorf priciples believe that you can for example teach kids to read in 6 weeks, so it's not neccessary to spend so much time on the 'basics'. Not wanting to colour wont slow your child down developmentally.. lol.

OK now what if he was not going to pre-school and there was no pressure on him to colour in? What then? In my humble opinion, there's nothing wrong with a 4 year old not wanting to colour in. Maybe he gets bored? Kids are so different. I wouldn't pay too much attention to it. My daughter never went to nursery school. She started Grade R and was a bit 'behind', especially with cutting out and colouring. But only for the first term - after that she was on the same level than all the other kids that's been going to nursery school since they were babies. She is in Grade 2 now and top of her class.

I think there is too much pressure on pre-schoolers to perform. And yes maybe someone said something to him, or maybe he is being forced and now he does not like it or maybe he gets really bored. My daughter is one of those kids that wants to work fast and get it done with, so she gets bored with colouring in. She also does not like building puzzles whereas my 3 year old will sit with a puzzle for nearly an hour.

Try find out what the route of the problem could be? It could be something such as the time spent colouring-in in class is too structured for your LO. He might not be developmentally ready for that much structure and conformity.

Or as the other ladies have said the teacher may be correcting him and this has created an issue surrounding the activity.

Try make it as fun as possible, remove the idea of colouring-in for now. Get down on the floor on his level and put some big paper out for yourself and put one in front of yours for him but dont ask him to come over. (Maybe draw circles and squiggles on the pages with black koki). Draw on your page and colour in the design. Tell him what you are doing. "Oooh, what colour do you think would look good in here?" "What could I draw in this space?" "I like the way I have done this section. What do you think?" "I dont like like this colour that much." Speak to him a lot to get him interested in what you are doing even if he doesnt join in at first. If he wants to join tell him you have a spare page he can draw on if he wants. Use as many opened ended questions as possible, that way the issue should come up. Make it as positive and as fun as possible. But NEVER force him to join in.

You can slowly move back to more structured pictures. But there is no real developmental reason for children to colour-in as such. they need practice with pens and crayons, for pre-writing skills. So do as many drawing activities as possible. He should want to colour-in his own creations. Again say to him what colour can the 'alien' be? prompt him to do it with out forcing, If he wants to praise but dont over do it. If he doesn't want to just accept.