Revista de Psicologia e Psicoterapia
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Looking through the Arts: Examining Children’s Feelings Expressed in Drawings Made while under Home Quarantine

Marissa C Esperal

Art activities like drawings serve as a mode of response, especially among children and can provide rich data around interests, fantasies, and socio-emotional experiences of children. This study attempted to examine the children’s feelings expressed in the drawings made while they were strictly under home quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. It further, ascertained if there are significant differences in the feelings expressed in the drawings of children in terms of age and sex and assessed the impact of drawings on their emotional well-being. The null hypothesis that there is no significance difference in the feelings expressed through the drawings of children in terms of sex and age was tested. The Participatory Action Research (PAR), which is a qualitative approach, was employed in the study. Participation of 174 children from a suburb community was made possible through the assistance of their respective parents who served as co-facilitators of the researchers. These children were provided with drawing materials, written instructions for drawing activities and food packs through the help of their parents. Facilitation of drawing activities and gathering of outputs took about 6 weeks. Qualitative data were analyzed through thematic analysis while numerical data was analyzed through the use of chi-square. Findings revealed that the top 5 most common feelings expressed in the drawings of the children are desire and longing (223 or 20.4%); happiness, joy and excitement (100 or 9.13%); followed by the feelings of appreciation and gratitude (74 or 6.76%); love (50 or 4.57%) and fear and nervousness as well as boredom (which both got a frequency of 37 or 3.38%). It was further revealed that there is no significant difference in the feelings expressed in the drawings of children in terms of sex (chi- square=.165<.864); however, a significant difference was noted in terms of age group (chi-square=81.509>.00). Both the parents and children-participants confirmed the positive impact of drawing activities on emotional wellbeing of the children. The parents rated the activity as Excellent in all aspects of evaluation: in terms of relevance during this pandemic period (WM=4.70), in terms of the benefits it brought to the participants (WM=4.83) and in terms of the time allotted to it (WM=4.65). Likewise, the children- participants manifested significant increase in positive feelings and notable decrease in negative feelings as they participated in the drawing activities. Before joining the drawing activities, majority of the children, 145 (83.33%) experienced sadness. However, this significantly dropped down to 4 (2.3%) when drawing activities started and almost 100% lost as the activities continued (1 or 0.57%). On the other hand, there was an increase in percentage of children experiencing happiness, from 14 or 8.05% (before participating in the drawing activities) to 167 or 95.98% (when it started) and more enjoyment during the period of art activities (173 or 99.43%). It was then concluded that drawings can be used as a barometer of children’s emotional wellbeing because the children’s drawings revealed their feelings, thoughts, and inner experiences. It was further concluded that drawing activities can improve the emotional wellbeing of children. Several recommendations were forwarded to concerned entities to promote the children’s wellbeing.