The child draws black: what does it mean

When a baby picks up pencils or a brush and paints, it always causes emotion and delight from parents. The first "kalyaki-malyaki" many mothers and fathers are trembling and tenderly all their lives. But crumbs' drawings often raise a lot of questions from relatives who have at least heard something about psychological “color” testing. Concerned parents are especially often wondering why the kid is painting the world in black and what does it mean?

The color test developed by Dr. Max Luscher is a method for diagnosing the psychophysical state of a person. It is based on color preferences. By what color the subject chooses as a loved one, one can determine his level of stress resistance, mental state at this moment in life, activity, ability to establish contacts and even preferences in professional orientation. Luscher argued that the choice of color is our “unconscious”, and his diagnostic method is “deep”, that is, coming from the subconscious, and therefore the most accurate.

Max Luscher is undoubtedly an outstanding psychologist, and the test he invented today is one of the most important for professional testing of the military, police officers, etc. But is it applicable to children? How reliable will the results be if we analyze children's drawings using the method of Dr. Lüscher?

To begin with, children see the world a little differently. A newborn does not distinguish colors at all, perceives only contrasting combinations - black - white, for example. From 6 weeks to 2 months old, the baby begins to see the outlines of objects and its first color is red. Gradually, he becomes able to perceive other bright colors. By 3 years old, the baby perfectly distinguishes blue, green, yellow, at 3.5 years old - black, gray, brown.

But neither in 1 year, nor in 2, nor in 3, your crumb, when drawing, chooses paint purposefully. In other words, the child doesn’t care what color to paint the house, the typewriter or the portrait of the mother, so long as the paint is contrast to the sheet of paper. And what color is best seen on white? Right! The black!

Therefore, drawing with black paint to a certain pore should not alarm the parents and cause them fear. And Luscher's test is practically inapplicable to kids' drawings. Psychologists recommend starting color testing by age 8. After all, the child’s final “color vision” of the surrounding world is formed at about 8-10 years.

To diagnose any problems of a psychological or worse psychiatric nature in a child, only according to a picture, not even one of the most ingenious psychologists will undertake. All experts know that You can make a more or less intelligible picture only by combining several techniques: the Luscher test and the talk-description, for example. It is not enough of one children's drawing in black paint, he has to tell what and why he portrayed.

What could be the reasons for a healthy child to draw pictures in black?

• Crisis 3 years. At this age, babies begin to show incredible stubbornness, denial and even negativity. If the crumb before noticed that his creativity in black paint does not cause his mother delight, puzzles or even scares her, he can decide for himself that his mother does not like this color.Then he will intentionally paint the picture with black.
• A beginning disease or inclement weather. In children from 1 year to 5 years the sensual sphere is very developed. But not all the baby can express with the help of words, as adults do. If the child feels that he is starting to get sick, he is unwell, he, not yet really understanding what is happening, may begin to express his well-being in the drawing. And if there is dirt, slush outside the window, and gray, black, brown colors predominate, then it can simply depict everything as it is - dirty, black, gloomy. Neither in the case of a beginning disease, nor in the case of a reaction to the weather, it is impossible to talk about the psycho-emotional sphere disorders in a child if he paints in mourning tones.

• Developed fantasy. Often children, drawing, inspire the picture. They sincerely believe that the house depicted is real, or something can be stored in a drawn box. If the kid paints the picture with black paint, he is probably trying to hide something in the house or box. To understand this, it is enough to ask him what is hidden behind the black? For a child it is not the color that matters, but the informative content of his picture.
• Dark clothes. Kids that moms buy practical dark things that do not get dirty less often depict the world in black in their drawings. Why it happens? Yes, they just like to draw black, because they are accustomed to associate themselves with the dark, and drawing for the crumbs - a piece of themselves. By the way, psychologists say that children whose wardrobe is dominated by a dark gamma are sick more often than their brightly dressed peers. There is only one recommendation - change the color of clothes to the child, and the general tone of his artistic delights will certainly become brighter.

• If, in addition to the black paint, the child demonstrates other oddities in behavior. For example, a son or daughter draws “blackness”, and at the same time has little contact with peers, adults (except parents), suffers from nightmares, shows aggression towards animals and people.
• If your child is already 10 years old, and he continues to paint with black paint, This can speak about psychological disorders.
• If in pictures of the child aggressive plots prevail - war, killed people, crossed black faces, repeated combination of black and red.
• If the child has always painted bright pictures, after some certain unpleasant situations in life I began to use only black in my work, it may be a manifestation of post-stress syndrome.

Each children's drawing, as well as its author, is unique and inimitable. "Comb" all children with the same brush can not. Adults should understand that there are no good and bad colors in the world. These are just colors. What matters is a combination of factors. To understand why the kid draws this or that, it is important to know in what mood he picked up pencils, what he thinks about at the moment of creating the picture, how he feels.

Often, color tests are trying to be carried out in kindergartens by “smart” and “educated” psychologists with “numerous recommendations”. If I could, I would ban such experiments at the legislative level. Because, everyone who has studied age psychology at a university, knows how to test preschoolers using the same Luscher method - twice as informative, as two and two times. And even more so to make some negative conclusions based on the preschooler's black and white creativity!

Video counseling psychologist about why the picture draws black, see below:

The only admissible diagnostics according to the drawing has the right to exist when preparing for school. A school psychologist may ask a six-year-old child to draw his family, for example, or himself. And the conclusion will be made strictly limited - does the kid know how to draw proportionally, and whether his hand is well developed for the subsequent letter. And no you "draws black - it means a maniac!".

If a child paints his mother in black, himself, Vaska and her neighbor aunt Katya, and at the same time remains a cheerful and positive child, loves his mother and cat, is not afraid of the neighbor, nothing terrible, as we have already found out, no. He just likes it better. But if the crumbs of a conflict with someone from a family member, and depict black, he begins exactly this person, you should seek advice from a child psychologist or art therapist.

How to find out what the child meant by creating a black picture? Yes, very simple. Ask him in detail about the plot of the picture. Find out who, why and why are depicted on it. Ask leading questions so that the child can more specifically formulate thoughts. And if the child is able to tell, it’s not worth worrying about the unconscious choice of black paint.

However, if the kid began to draw black after some kind of stress, do not rush to write it down among depressed, suffering people. Drawing for the child - a way to release internal energy. It is possible that after a few days the gamma will change to a brighter one. If the "dark period" in the work has been delayed, and there are physical signs of trouble for the baby, consult with experts. With the help of additional techniques they can find out what happened and how to help the young artist.

Watch a video in which a psychologist expressed one of the opinions about why a child can paint in black: