Many of us parents spend messy mornings making art with our children at home. We delight in watching them swirl finger paint across a page or squish dough in their tiny hands. However, making art is only the first step in the creative process.

Art includes many subtle stages: contemplation of what to make, preparing materials, creating, cleaning up. Yet there is another important step in the creative process we often miss: unfolding meaning from the image.

Art therapist Janie Rhyne once said that form leads to content, which is to say the images any artist (aka: your child) makes contain the stories, emotions, intellect, and worldview of the artist. Don’t miss the opportunity to engage in uncovering the gems embedded in the lines, shapes, and colors that come from your child’s imagination. Not only will you learn something about your child, but this step often makes the unconscious conscious for the artist, meaning it can help your child’s idea come full-circle and be integrated into his or her everyday life.

Here are some respectful approaches to talking with your child about art:

Active Observation
While your child is making art, support the process by reflecting back only what you see happening on the page. For example, reflect verbally by saying something like, “I see yellow lines across the top of your page.” Respond non-verbally by mirroring the child’s affect and posture. You may also choose to respond graphically, by making art alongside your child. When doing this, you might try copying the child’s artistic “handwriting” – so to speak – as a way to communicate the idea: “I see you. I am paying attention.”

Decoding Symbols
Approach the image with humble curiosity, never assuming you know more than the artist about what it means. I often describe this mindful way of talking about art to be the opposite of a dream-decoder book. You know, the books that say, “If you dreamt of a pig, you are greedy or stubborn.” Nonsense. Art symbols, like dream symbols, are unique to the artist. For one kid, a pig might represent the scary boar he saw at a state fair. For another kid, a pig could mean the sweet, soft, cuddly stuffed animal friend he hugs when he goes to sleep at night. Sure, there are symbols that reflect your child’s ability to tap into the universal, collective unconscious, but it is safe to err on the side of letting the artist speak for his or her own work first.

The Phenomenological Approach to the Image
To keep this objective attitude about art, you can try to visualize the art object as a separate entity that has entered the room and engage in conversation with your child about it. For example, ask your child the simple question, “What do you see?” to begin the discussion. Trust the artist’s words about their own art. If you have a younger child who may not yet have the ability to describe the art, you can plainly tell about what you see. Be careful not to interpret what the image “must be” or what it means. Merely describe the lines, shapes and colors that you see. In describing the image, meaning comes. (Again, form leads to content.) So, now your conversation may lead into a story from the child about who is in the picture and what is happening on the page. Allow meaning to arise organically. You don’t need to translate art play into what it must mean in the life of the child, at least not out loud.

Dialog with Art
Another fun approach is to talk with the art itself. Kids are great at using their imagination to pretend in this way, so suspend any adult self-consciousness and disbelief and go for it with them. For instance, one way to begin might be to say, “If the duck you drew could talk, what would he say to us?” (Only after the child has identified that her picture is, in fact, a duck.) Then you, your kid, and the duck can engage in a conversation. Stay within the metaphor, behind the safe veil of play. This sort of imaginal dialog with art allows the art to be projected upon by the child, which can externalize the child’s internal world, thus expressing feelings s/he may be harboring.

Sublimation through Art
Try to curb your own inclinations to change, brighten, or smooth over content that may seem angry or violent or negative — art is a safe playground. Art provides an opportunity for sublimation of the darker side of being human. The ability to sublimate shadow material through art is a sign of health. If your child seems to be looking for a way to ameliorate a dark situation in the art, you might follow his/her lead and provide assistance in moving the story along. Allow space for the child to exercise internal resources to arrive at his or her own unique solution and make choices. Curbing your parental instinct to “save” the situation here fosters confidence and autonomy in your child.

Withholding Opinions
When looking at someone else’s art, always check in with your own biases and opinions. If you were a child-centered art therapist or a play therapist, the convention would be not to criticize and not to (get ready for it) praise the art. Though as a mom, it’s understandably difficult not to say, “That’s a beautiful flower you drew, sweetie!” While it is most important to be your authentic parent-self, keep in mind that as nurturing as approval can be, compliments alone do not provide the solid type of positive reinforcement the examples above can give to your child.

Being witnessed and feeling “seen” are huge confidence-builders for any human being, especially our little friends who are forming their sense of self in relationship to the world. Reflecting upon the art process allows parents a concrete way to give children the affirmation they need.

For more information, visit Jen’s web site at jenberlingo.com and her blog on art ideas for kids at paintcutpaste.com.