# Kid keeps drawing on the wall **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615 "2011-10-24T10:37:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/21 "2011-10-24T16:11:20Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > I would lurk in wait for her to start, then jump out with a can of pennies and rattle them loudly to alarm her. No wait, that’s what you do with cats. Crap, I’m no help. 😃 It could still work, just don’t be surprised if she freaks out, runs up the stairs and pees on something in your bedroom. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/22 "2011-10-24T16:54:18Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Fry, don’t take it that seriously. I doubt you’re intending to inflict damage on your child, and I’m just agreeing with the others. I had awful parents, they were just ignorant, and badly parented themselves. Relax OK. It’s not a comment on you. I was only giving you an extreme “Don’t do this” example, which I’m sure you had not ever considered as a solution. You’ve seen my posts, do you think my parents succeeded in their wrong-headed attempts to rein in my behavior? I don’t see anything all that awful in your child’s behavior, except for some gray hair showing up sooner than you expected. Okay. It was hard to understand your post since you told me to “take everyone’s suggestion” when in fact it was my suggestion in the first place… ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/23 "2011-10-24T17:00:06Z")
My daughter loved her [easel](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=easel+child&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=12592948020001163138&sa=X&ei=XJmlToTOCMi9tgfes_ShBQ&ved=0CG8Q8wIwAA), might be worth a try. Just don’t tell her about spray paint whatever you do!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sally\_Mander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@Sally\_Mander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sally_Mander)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/24 "2011-10-24T17:10:52Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > My daughter loved her [easel](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=easel+child&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=12592948020001163138&sa=X&ei=XJmlToTOCMi9tgfes_ShBQ&ved=0CG8Q8wIwAA), might be worth a try. > > Just don’t tell her about spray paint whatever you do!😃 That’s the one I mentioned earlier. One side has a chalkboard, and the other is for paper. If I’m remembering correctly, both sides have a clip for paper. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/25 "2011-10-24T17:26:38Z")
Does she know how to get paper? Techniques aren’t obvious to kids–you need to teach her how to find you and how to ask, and she needs to feel confident that when she does that, it will work. ---
**Author:** ![Petrichord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Petrichord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrichord)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/26 "2011-10-24T17:34:36Z")
Throwing in my vote for the easel idea. My nieces have one, cleanup is super easy, and they love it. I guess it allows them to satisfy any “_draw on a vertical surface!!_” urges without resorting to architectural structures. On the other hand (you know, if you want to go in a different direction), I drew on the walls as a kid. But it only happened once, because a day spent scrubbing can be a pretty big deterrant for a five-year old. And I tell ya, these days a sponge and a bucket of soapy water is much cheaper than one of those fancy easel things. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jonesj2205](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecc23a/32.png) [@jonesj2205](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonesj2205)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/27 "2011-10-24T17:42:02Z")
Easels/white boards are a good idea, but echoing others who said have the budding artiste help clean the wall with you. At 4 she should be more than capable of rubbing the Magic Eraser on the wall next to you. Granted her effectiveness at cleaning is likely to be limited, but the real point is to get her to connect drawing on the wall leads to unfun work of cleaning wall. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/28 "2011-10-24T18:29:48Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Sorry to hear about that. Glad you survived. I’m sure many had it much worse than I did. While my parents weren’t awful parents before I reached puberty, I can’t even imagine the shitstorm that would have ensued were I to draw on the walls. My parents were not “time-out” and “reason with the kid” type of people! 🙂 There wouldn’t be any explaining, my hand would have been slapped every single time. My parents ran their house with Fear. I like pretty much all of the suggestions in this thread. But I also think you should make her clean it with you. I just feel like otherwise you’re setting up for a lifetime of “Well, of course I knew that” every time she makes a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/29 "2011-10-24T19:59:10Z")
> [@chela](#): > > YOu really don’t have to paint the wall. get the big roll of paper and then award her with “drawing on the wall” but on the paper. Bust out some new crayons, you’ll soon learn her favorite colors to use. Mine loved brown. ? She’ll get the message. She may still stray on occasion and doodle wherever she is with a pen in hand, even on herself. I have one of those kids… I did that with my daughter - just lined the walls with paper up to her usual drawing height. Ikea sell these huge rolls of paper very cheaply. Nothing else worked, and we did try everything, including sanctions; I’m not a laissez-faire parent. I once caught her drawing in her sleep. Chalkboard paint is not the easiest to paint over, it’s quite expensive, and it’s only usable with chalk - anything else will mark it permanently, even moreso than on other surfaces. If she’s drawing on the wall next to her bed then you’ll end up with crushed chalk all over everything. I know this because, like I said, we tried everything. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/30 "2011-10-24T20:26:42Z")
She does have easy access to paper when she wants to draw, right? Ideally, without having to ask you for it every time. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/31 "2011-10-24T23:27:01Z")
As a former child, I do have to say that there is something sublimely awesome about drawing vertically. It allows you to get your whole being into the process. Stepping on tiptoe to get some detail at the top right is something I remember fondly. I don’t remember how old I was when I was drawing on walls, but I was old enough that I remember what I drew. (My favorite was a family portrait, with everyone as stick figures, including the dog. Everyone’s head, arms, and feet were the same, but the length of the stick figure was roughly proportional to their height. My father must have been about two feet.) Anyway, even as a relative grown up, in college, I would often go to an empty classroom, and puzzle out my math homework on the board. It’s a big space that just seems open to endless possibilities. Anyway, the long and the short of this is that your child likes to draw, so I hope that one of the possibilities offered works out for you. Contain the drawing to one place, of course, but please don’t stifle this entirely. (I know that you don’t intend to.) An advantage to paper is that you can keep some of the child’s work. ---
**Author:** ![surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/surrounded_by_literalists)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/32 "2011-10-25T03:14:17Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > When my daughter was much younger we covered the area in plain newsprint and swapped it out when it was full. She was only 2 though, but it did minimize the impact. She still draws incessantly, at 13, but manages to keep it off the walls. But not her notebooks, shoes, hands, homework… 🙂 I have one of these too! She is 18 now and will be starting college next fall. She a talented artist with a fan club at her old High School. Some of her teachers have framed homework assignments, notebook covers and hung in their classrooms. A pair of her decorated sneakes hang from a light fixture in the school entryway. When the custodian removed them, the faculty and students protested and he put them back up. Her ADHD therapist says the the constant drawing on any and all surfaces is actually a coping mechanism for a racing mind. If her hands and eyes are occupied with drawing, it lets her brain focus on what is being said and taught. I do remember an article from some parenting magazine from a parent with a similar problem. She designated the kid’s closet at a ‘draw all you want to’ zone. Every so often, she would repaint the closet to give the kid a clean ‘canvas’. It worked great for her. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/33 "2011-10-25T04:09:25Z")
It could be worse. Check out this [Chris Miller story from National Lampoon](http://www.paprikash.com/lou/tp.html). ---
**Author:** ![MissesA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@MissesA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissesA)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/34 "2011-10-25T04:35:11Z")
How about you go to the Art store and buy a big roll of paper and line the walls in her room with them? ---
**Author:** ![PandaBear77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@PandaBear77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PandaBear77)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/35 "2011-10-25T15:46:02Z")
What MissesA said. She may also, as someone else mentioned, get WAY into having an easel 🙂 Whatever you do, encourage her to develop her gift 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jbone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/58f4c7/32.png) [@Jbone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jbone)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/36 "2011-10-25T19:16:06Z")
The only thing that I’ve found is supervised drawing time. I have a four and a two year old. I’ve tried giving them as much paper to draw/color on to keep them busy, but if left unsupervised the colors always ended up somewhere else - couches/walls/clothes. The whiteboards and such are a good idea, but I would fear the same results. I can only say to try and keep them out of reach and setup times to sit and draw with them. ---
**Author:** ![Butterscotch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dc4da7/32.png) [@Butterscotch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Butterscotch)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/37 "2011-10-25T19:48:28Z")
My nearly three year old has graffitti-ed the entire house. Every wall, all furnishings, mirrors, doors, floors, tiles, cabinets and my special favourite, the radiators which she did with wax crayon, while they were hot (very theraputic as it turns out…). She did it over a period of months, in quick bursts, conjuring markers from nowhere. At one point I took everything away, anything you could write with was locked up. She became miserable and on the second day took to decorating the glass door with strawberry yoghurt and chocolate pudding. We got her an easel which really helped and playground chalks for drawing on paving stones outside. The next great discovery was Crayola Magic pens which only work on Crayola paper, everywhere else they leave a wet line which dries invisibly. Yes they are quite expensive but they seem to last forever and the paper is replaceable. We keep these especially for restaurants etc now. We only buy washable markers and they are great, they really come off of her, clothing and walls with just a little water. She has a big box of markers, pencils and pens as well as a good supply of notebooks, scrap paper and rolls of newsprint. She’s got better, but will draw on any paper she finds, so important paper-work and letters have to be kept on top of the fridge. One thing she does love is to paint with water, using a fine brush and watch it evaporate in the sun. Now it is colder she likes to paint with water inside. I can live with that, YMMV. She spends hours playing with colour and drawing, she also grabs a pen and paper if she is really upset and calms herself down by colouring. I’m putting off redecorating though, until it really is all over (she has the occasional go at a wall or furniture, mostly for effect now I think), or perhaps until she can do it herself 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/38 "2011-10-25T20:11:20Z")
> [@Butterscotch](#): > > She’s got better, but will draw on any paper she finds, so important paper-work and letters have to be kept on top of the fridge. Ours is a fan of “helping” with our half finished crosswords. Erasers don’t last long around here. ---
**Author:** ![surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8baadc/32.png) [@surrounded\_by\_literalists](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/surrounded_by_literalists)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/39 "2011-10-25T22:31:17Z")
Mr. Clean Magic erasers are the 20th century’s greatest invention. Sharpie comes off with alcohol. Paint will cover anything. Part of what your seening is an inability to control the impulse to draw. This could be something that will develop over time. The best you can do for yourself and your artist is damage control. Soon your creative baby will be moving across the country to college, making poor food choices, forgetting her coat, and possibly talking to strangers! (sob, sniffle, worry, worry) ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615/40 "2011-10-25T23:24:54Z")
I forgot about playground chalks, but I had a lot of fun with them. My daughter also had a lot of fun with them. I liked them on a chalkboard, but drawing on the concrete outside was the most fun. White is OK…but spring for the big bucket of colored chalks, the thick ones, and maybe invite a friend or two over. Or get out there yourself, it could be great quality time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kid-keeps-drawing-on-the-wall/600615.md?page=3)