Self Portrait Kids

Ever wonder why toddlers tend to draw stick men? Only later as they grow up, their drawings start to take the human form. Once a stick leg now has knee, foot and toes. The eyes have brows and lashes, nostrils replacing the one lined nose. And lips, teeth and tongue, rather than the wide letter 'U'.

It is very crucial for kids to be able to identify their body parts and being intentional about using them at the same time. The ability to integrate the brain and body helps them to reach automaticity that we as adults benefits from.  Thus, the brain can stop working so hard to control movement as simple as reaching out your arms just to grab something. The brain can then focus on more complex tasks. One of them is learning new things.

There are many activities to make them more aware of their body parts. And this is one activity that you can do at home with your kids. 

You need to have a large paper, well, it really depends on the size of your kids. We used two mahjong papers, glued at each end because the kids are going to have to trace themselves on the paper.

AM tracing her sister. 

AZ was pretty serious with this tracing business.

Having the most fun while tracing the fingers. They were a lot of giggles and laughter because it can be quite ticklish.

   

Once finished with the outline of their body, comes the detailing part. For the face, they need to look in the mirror and transmit the exact same reflection that they see onto the paper. It may sound easy and pretty straight forward but I realized that it is a big deal to some kids. 

AZ had no problem doing the task. She is really comfortable with herself. But it was a different story with AM. He needed a lot of encouragement to simply do it. Oh, it was never about the drawing part. We always knew that he is good at it. It is the taking-time-to-look-at-yourself-carefully part. Nevertheless, he finished it. I was so proud of him. He even said at the end that "I look really good, ibu."

The outcome. 

I found this activity to be very beneficial for my kids. I knew that I need to encourage AM to be more comfortable in his own skin. 

It is important to note that knowing about how one looks like, will encourage them to feel good about themselves. From acceptance, it builds self esteem and most importantly, love and respect to one self and other people who are different from them.