Activity 8
8. Draw your family and all the important people and pets in your life, or make a scene of the important people and pets in your life using one of these things (stone, buttons, miniatures) to stand for each person or pet...don't forgot to put yourself in. Put them down on the page carefully to show how close everyone is to each other, or how some people are not feeling close to others. Give an example, such as ‘…like last week I fell out with my brother/sister so if had been making a scene of my family then I would have put me here, and my brother/sister right over there.’ Once complete ask your child to talk you through it and ask permission to annotate the drawing or scene to help you remember who’s who. Suggest they draws lines connecting people one the page who love each other a lot, and different sorts of lines for those who are not close at the moment. Explore how those differences in relationships have come about, and how they would like it to be, and how to move towards that. What would it be like if it was different. Put marks of a type the child decides (e.g. red dots, zigzags, ticks) beside different characters in the family scene to indicate who is happy, angry, worried, sad, and do a key so that the meaning of the marks can be remembered later. Explore what is making those feelings occur in the different family members and what changes they would like, and how to bring those about. Discuss the appearance of the family members, checking out the meaning in the symbolism used, e.g. ‘I notice your dad is a shell and the others are small stones…’ Finish with offering an opportunity to make any changes to the scene so that it feels okay to stop and leave it or pack away. Talk about the changes or acknowledge that it’s okay to leave it as it is.
