Children’s Drawings with Genitals: Art Works from Children Who Co-Sleep with Adults

Abstract

Children’s drawings have been used by several therapist as a rare window into the subconscious of the child. One area which has benefitted much from this is sexual abuse of children. Several therapists agree that the presence of genitals in a child’s drawing is a strong indication of a possible abuse. However, these recommendations do not speak much of the social background of the child who produced the drawing. It was therefore necessary to find out whether the presence of genitals in the drawings of children who are in environments where mother showed breasts in the open during breastfeeding; and grandmothers seldom covered their chests. The study was conducted in two metropolitan areas in Ghana, one in the northern part and the other in the south. Children were asked to draw their families and these drawings were screened for genitals. Those which had genitals were separated and these children were taken through processes to understand the why genitals were present in their drawings. The study concludes that environment has influence on the drawings of children and when parents expose genitals to children in the environment without abusing the children, these genitals will find their way in the drawing of the child.

Keywords: co-sleep, human figure drawing, kinetic family drawing, genital