MK, who is nearly 9, comes to visit one afternoon. It’s the third week of my confinement month. It is quite remarkable to see how close he is to his Ah-Mah, my mother. He is contented just hanging out in our house, specifically, lounging in B’s room, while Ah-Mah takes a siesta break and B takes a short snooze. Of course, he has his game-boy with him.
As for me, I am in-between feeds. Somehow I can’t seem to nap today, and with a combination of Providence and relaxation, I start to sketch and my sketches seem to be coming together.
As I sketch, MK and I chat. Casually, yet, we both know we are having a deep and meaningful dialogue. We talk about school and how he doesn’t enjoy primary school as his teachers are the “scolding-sort”. We also talk about little things, insecurities, that he finds difficult to talk to his parents about. He rationalises, “God makes it difficult for children to tell their parents things so that parents don’t have to worry.”
Throughout the dialogue, he never once lifts his eyes off his game-boy.
It hit me how important it is for older children to bond with other trustworthy adults, aside from their parents. “But my mummy tells me I can always tell her anything and everything,” he counter-rationalises.
I invite him to sketch. He hesitates, stating that his teacher had said he sucks at art, his eyes still trained on the game-boy. I try one more time, “Your teacher is wrong about you and art.” I hold out my pen to him; holding my breath, I paraphrase Joseph Beuys, “Everyone can draw.”
All of a sudden, he puts down his game-boy and takes the pen.
Ponder With PEK 
This is beautiful pek… really…
Can i share with my wife, Patty?… we started to get noelia our daughter to draw… 16 months… it s fascinating
it is fascinating also to see how adults create so much limitations to what children can do…
Buddhists – if i am not mistaken – believe that children were born divine… indeed they struggle so much coming down to our own level. Stupidity was born out of this ignorance that there is much to learn from the divine and the Children…
of course a 16 month old with a marker or a pen in her hand is a moving hazard – carpet, walls, … – but a bit of time to create the right space and she is soon into another world … focusing in coming up with whatever her fingers, the mind, the imagination are leading to…
a French philosophe was comparing our hands to man’s second brain… it is striking to see the hands of the small baby drawing… it is like a modern ballet of falls and rise, random moves and decision, struggle sand flow… there is so much happening
cheers to all