I'm not raising Van Gough

It's true, I'm not too sure I see a future famous artist in my little booger. At 7yo though, who knows what's in store for him! So, as a parent, how do you decide what to hang up and what not to? The paranoid voice in my head is constantly scrutinizing my decisions when it comes to how much to encourage J. If I encourage him too much is he going to grow up to be dependent on someone's affirmations or become entitled? We've all seen those kids on TV! You know, the kids/adults who can't sing worth a damn but their parents bought their way to the top, or the ones throwing a fit on MTV's "My Sweet Sixteen". I am terrified of parenting my booger in a way that would screw him up like that! On the other hand, will too little encouragement turn him into a crazed serial killer because he didn't feel loved?!

Parenting is hard. No one wants to royally mess up their kid. 

As a team, my hubby and I decided that we would have to take each picture as a case by case basis. Sometimes artwork can be hung in our craft room, in J's playroom, on the fridge or on a little cork board we have. We really like to encourage him when he does something above and beyond, so sometimess his artwork gets framed and hung. We have a pretty nice house and don't feel that we need macaroni art on every wall so here as the things we consider with each "piece".

1. Time. How much time did the little guy put into it?? This is probably our número uno consideration. If J spent weeks crafting each aspect of a piece of art work, it means a lot more then something he scribbled in 5 minutes before lunch. The quality is clearly better, and besides the point, we don't want to teach him that half-ass work gets the same credit as a job well done.

2. Subject. What is the picture of? Sometimes, boys don't always draw things that are exactly "wall hanging material". It's awesome of he spent a whole week on a cool drawing, but we aren't really going to frame and hang up a picture of army guys blowing up bloody bad guys in our living room. If it's that special, save it in a box, but the subject really does make a huge difference. 

3. Medium. What form of art is it -- crayon, paint, pencil, sculpture...??? Maybe when he's older, he may come home with a really neat charcoal drawing that I can frame, but for now at this age, pencil drawings get the boot. As always, if it's still something he worked hard on, we'll hang it on the fridge or cork board for awhile and save it in a box. Crayon and paint really depend on the time he spent, a quick crayon drawing or a quick painting can be sloppy and not really cause to go out and buy a frame. I know it relates back to the time he spent on it, but sometimes bad paints/crayons on bad paper just don't work out. 

4.House. Do we have room or a perfect place to hang up children's art work? If it's really that special, we can usually find a place, but we also don't want to rule out that one day there will be a good piece that just doesn't fit in our home. It also makes it hard when they start making clay sculptures -- sometimes it just has to become a piece that's not on display for guests and maybe goes in a bedroom or storage to save for later. 

These categories really make us think hard about our decision to hang our little boogers work around our home, and we think makes it even more special when he does earn it! I'm not sure I'm raising the next Van Gough, but we are going to try to encourage his hard work while being semi-realistic. Hopefully this way he values quality and knows that quality takes hard work and skill. It's a tough world out there, but I think we're putting him on the right track!

Do you think extreme parenting styles can alter a kids behavior (either too encouraging or too realistic)??? How do you balance between the two styles?

-C