In my recent reflection on my daughter’s Presentation Ball, I mentioned a comment that a senior educator made about her success in colouring-in. There is a back story to this. For now, though, it’s probably enough to know that last year at school, we (being hubby and I) felt that she was doing far too much colouring-in, at the expense of other activities which we would have preferred her to be doing both in her free time and in class.
Her fine motor skills are weak, so on one level, colouring-in was helping to develop these. However, while the skill level of the pictures being coloured was probably right, the subject matter was far too young, more suited to primary aged children than sixteen year olds. We also felt that there were other, more age-appropriate things she could have been doing to help develop her fine motor skills. But that’s enough of the back story for now.
Dancing Wombat had a school fete last weekend. It was a great family occasion, full of the usual noise and commotion of a school fete. As well as the usual stalls, sausage sizzle and animal farm, the organising committee had arranged a great variety of kids’ activities. There was face painting, hair spraying and braiding, painting and – wait for it – colouring-in.
Yep, you guessed it. Dancing Wombat headed straight for the colouring-in table.
She sat there for nearly an hour, carefully colouring two pictures of the school mascot. (Last year she came home with about 7 pictures of said mascot in Term 4 alone. This did not fill us with joy.) While the other students were off chatting with their friends and inspecting the books and bric-a-brac, our Wombat was cheerfully engaged in this solitary pursuit. I rolled my eyes at my husband.
“But we won’t stop her, will we?” I said sarcastically, quoting back what had been said to us when we queried what we considered was a surfeit of colouring-based activities. “Because she’s successful at it.”
Right then, we couldn’t do anything about it. We both had jobs to do at the fete, and two other Wombats to vaguely keep track of. (Littlest Wombat was busily climbing trees, and I expected at any moment to be asked to get him down.) If Dancing Wombat was happy colouring in, well, it was the fete – why not? Besides, it was a colouring competition, so there was a bit more purpose to it. There were prizes! We were both happy to let her indulge, in the circumstances. And also, it was very noisy. This activity was probably helping her manage some of the sensory overload: she was sitting down at the edge of the quadrangle, not being buffetted by people, still being assailed by loud music, but perhaps able to block it out a little by concentrating so intently on her work.
Forty minutes and two colouring sheets later, we lured her away with the promise of a slushie AFTER she had done some exercise on the Jumping Castle. The lovely mother in charge of the colouring-in table told Dancing Wombat that she’d get the results of the competition at school the next day.
Fast forward to the next day. And guess what? Dancing Wombat came home from school with a lovely new backpack – her colouring-in prize. So, she was indeed successful at her colouring in!
Dancing Wombat prize…for…colouring in.
I still seethe when I think of the opportunities lost last year while Dancing Wombat was laboriously choosing colours, making her multi-coloured creations. I’m not against colouring per se. It’s a fabulous activity for fine motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination, relaxation, having a definite point of completion (as opposed to drawing your own picture) – look at the current popularity of colouring books for adults.
Quantity was the issue for us. There are other ways to develop fine motor skills in a 16 year old.
Nevertheless, it was lovely to see Dancing Wombat’s sheer delight at winning the competition. Winning gives us all a buzz. I don’t think that our special kids are any different in this regard, even though they mightn’t show it as much.
Our experiences have made us a bit more ambivalent about the use of colouring-in as an educational tool for our daughter than we were once. However, Dancing Wombat’s success in this competition is a bright page in this black book, and it will give us a laugh every time we think about it.
