Let’s pause for a moment.
When a child hands you a drawing and waits, what are you really looking for?
A house that looks like a house
A person with the right number of fingers
A picture that makes sense to an adult mind
Or are you willing to witness a mind that is still discovering how reality works?
I recently read Frank Gehry and the Art of Drawing, and I felt a strong urge to show his drawings to parents of my students.
Frank Gehry’s early sketches for the Walt Disney Concert Hall look confusing to many people. Lines overlap. Shapes collide. Nothing is neat. Nothing is obvious. If you didn’t know who drew them, you might wonder what they were “supposed to be.”
Frank Gehry, drawing for Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, ink on paper
And yet those sketches became one of the most iconic buildings in the world.
Gehry did not draw to explain.
He drew to explore.
He drew to let imagination move before logic arrived.
Children draw the same way.
Drawing Is a Process, Not a Product
When children draw, they are not trying to impress you.
They are not trying to perform.
They are not trying to prove anything.
They are thinking with their whole being.
Drawing is how children process emotions, yes.
But drawing is also how they practice imagination.
And imagination is not optional.
Imagination is how new ideas are born.
It is how empathy develops.
It is how children learn to see possibilities instead of limits.
Before children can explain the world, they must be allowed to invent one.
When a drawing does not make sense, it does not mean something is wrong.
It means something new is forming.
The Lesson of an Unfinished Sculpture
Think of Michelangelo’s sculpture The Rebellious Slave.
The figure appears to be emerging from stone.
Part free, part trapped.
Not finished, not polished, not resolved.
Michelangelo believed the figure already existed inside the marble. His job was not to force it out, but to release it slowly.
Children are like that sculpture.
Their ideas are still freeing themselves.
Their identities are still finding shape.
Their imagination needs space, not correction.
When adults ask children to make their drawings clearer, more realistic, or more logical too soon, we are not helping them grow.
We are asking them to stop emerging.
What Children Hear When We Criticize
When adults say
What is this supposed to be
That doesn’t look right
Try harder
Make it clearer
Children often hear
My inner world is wrong
My imagination is messy
I should draw what makes adults comfortable
Little by little, imagination learns to hide.
Not because it disappears
But because it no longer feels safe.
How to Truly Admire a Child’s Drawing
Admiring a child’s drawing does not mean understanding it.
It means staying present.
You can say
Tell me about this part
What were you imagining when you drew this
This feels very alive
This looks like a world I have never seen before
You do not need to correct.
You do not need to label.
You do not need to judge.
Your attention tells the child
Your inner world matters
You are allowed to explore
You do not need to make sense yet
From Scribbles to Futures
Frank Gehry’s sketches became a symphony hall.
Michelangelo’s unfinished forms became timeless truth.
Your child’s drawing is not a test.
It is not preparation for school.
It is preparation for life.
When we admire children’s drawings without demanding meaning, we teach them something essential:
You are allowed to imagine before you explain.
You are allowed to explore before you perform.
You are allowed to become before you are defined.
This is how creativity survives.
This is how confidence grows.
This is how children learn to trust themselves.
And this is the quiet power of simply saying,
“I see you.”
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