When working with children, the psychologist often uses the means of visual activity: paints, gouache, plasticine. Creating images, children involuntarily share those problems that are not yet conscious and captured in their fantasies in the form of symbols. A child psychologist suggests that kids draw or create the characters in films, works, or their own fantasies that they like best. Often in the box is not enough green or brown plasticine, from which the character is created, and sometimes there are no shades at all that the preschooler would like to portray. Therefore, the specialist should know how to get brown or orange by mixing the available colors.
An example from the practice of a psychologist
In the process of psychological work with a closed girl of 7 years old, it became known that she had been asking her parents for six months to buy her a monkey as a pet. Mom’s persuasion and dad’s explanation that the brother was allergic to all kinds of animals did not help. The girl was offended and closed even more. In the lesson, the psychologist asked the girl to tell: what kind of monkey would she like? Big or small? Boy or girl? What will she do with the monkey at home? The girl decided to mold a plasticine monkey. The psychologist helped her by kneading plasticine and making the body or legs of the animal according to the recommendations of the baby. By the middle of the lesson, brown clay was over, and the work was unfinished. Together they came to a decision on how to make brown from the remaining bars of plasticine, and mixed red plasticine with a little black. In the process of sculpting, they talked a lot about different monkeys, about their lifestyle. It was clear that the shy and modest girl envied the monkeys - so free to express themselves, so active in movements and as flexible as gymnasts.
In the next lesson, parents complained that the girl was unusually capricious at home when she needed to go to bed, was offended by her relatives, and behaved aggressively if something was not pleasant. Together with parents, it was suggested that, dreaming of a monkey, but not having it, the daughter began to represent herself as a monkey, showing all the qualities that were listed in the last lesson. Together with a psychologist, she decided to continue modeling, but now there is a monkey on a tree eating bananas, jumping from branch to branch. The conversation was now focused on how to raise this monkey, who does not obey and does what she likes. In order not to be distracted from the topic of psychological work, I had to mix clay for making wood, since again a lot of brown material was required. By trial and error, not knowing how to get a brown color, we tried to mix red and green plasticine in equal proportions. Very quickly they got a big lump of brown color from which they could make a tree, and even a little more remained. Together, they praised the monkey for eating such wholesome and nutritious food (bananas and other exotic fruits) that it not only jumps on trees, but also listens to its hostess, and can show its flexibility and activity in a sports school.
Gradually, the girl learned to control her “internal monkey”, the image of which was sculpted and raised together, she became more active at home and more successful in gymnastics. In one of the subsequent classes, the need again appeared to sculpt a monkey, and here the psychologist was confused: there was no more red, green, or black plasticine, and the girl showed an impatience and quite acutely to sculpt a whole family of monkeys. Thinking how to get brown, we decided to mix orange and gray. The result was not as dark as we would like, but, adding a little blue, as a result, they still dazzled a whole family of brown monkeys. This time, the girl solved family problems by discussing the behavior of monkey parents and monkey children. The psychologist helped her to find the right approaches to communicate with her brother, father and mother without losing activity, without closing herself and not hiding in her room.
The psychologist does not set the task of teaching the child to mix colors, does not teach how to get the brown color of the paint when portraying large drawings or with a lack of colors. The main thing is to work with images that can be very attractive to the child and with the help of which he could solve his pressing problems. But still, this knowledge is involuntarily laid in children, and they, in addition to psychological work on themselves, gain additional knowledge on how to get a brown color or how to cut a snowflake, how to rain in a glass jar or how to fold a paper boat. Knowledge is repeated at home or in kindergarten, shown to friends, which additionally gives confidence to any child.