Stop budding wall artist?

Question

My 26 month old daughter is a very energetic, fun-loving, wonderful kid who loves to learn letters, numbers and colors...unfortunately, that has translated into her artistic expression on my walls! Thank God for washable crayons! She scribbles all over the walls and then shows me proudly the "W" "M" "S" "O" "2" "1" "shark" bloop-bloop (fish)", etc... that she's made! I love that she's creative and intelligent, I just wish it wouldn't be on my walls! :( Yes, she has tons of paper and coloring books...it's that she knows their washable because she likes to help me use the wipes to clean the walls...what can I do to stop this? Any tips or personal experience stories? Also, she did it with pen once--how do I get THAT off? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks! :)

Answer 1

my son has done this as well.

What I did is I set up an "art station" in our kitchen. I got a plastic children's table and chair set and a Rubbermaid set of drawers to keep all his art supplies in. When he wants to color, he knows he has to ask mommy first and I will help him get his supplies out. This works great for us because all the artwork stays in one, supervised, easily cleanable area :)

He also really enjoys the freedom of sidewalk chalk :) Sounds like your daughter would too!

Answer 2

Do not allow her acces to the crayons on her own. Make sure she must ask for them and paper is handed to her to draw on. You might also try getting a child's size table, Little Tikes makes a very stable picnic table so that you don't have to worry about chairs tipping over, this will give her a comfortable place to sit and color right at her own height

Tell her that the rule is she cannot leave the table unless she puts the crayons back into the box, Use a school box that you can find at Wal-Mart that is plastic with a plastic lid so the crayons are easy to put away. A wipes box works well too.

You will need to watch her when you first start inforcing this rule, it's new and she will easily forget. I would not however put large sheets of paper on the wall and tell her she can color there, this has not changed the picture for her she will still be coloring on the wall and if she can color in this spot why not the rest of the wall?

If she still persists in coloring the walls then you'll need to take the crayons from her for a while, maybe only the rest of the day will work and when they are given back re-explain the rule that she must stay at the table with them and they must be put back in the box.

Also some art paper which is larger than construction paper may work a lot better Rose Art has a roll of paper with 3M glue (like the yellow stickies) on the back which holds the paper nicely in place and then you could put it up on the wall and praise her creation without all the mess, tacks and tape, on your wall. My kids have liked the extra large sketch books better than the constuction paper or manila paper.

Answer 3

EDIT: Seems others had the same idea I had and posted it while I was typing. Always late to the party I am...

My suggestion would be, rather than prohibiting her from doing it, just restrict *where* she is allowed to do it. Get her some washable markers/crayons/paint, etc and let her use them on her walls, in her room only. If you're able to, move everything away from one wall in her room to give her a single "canvas" to work on. However, make sure it's up to her to clean the wall when she's done (unless it's something she wants to save, of course).

I believe there's also a wall paint that, when dry, acts as a chalk board so she could use chalk on it if she wanted to. It erases in the same way and all you have to do to keep it clean is wipe it down with a damp cloth when there's chalk dust all over it. I think, but I'm not positive, that it comes in many colors and not just black.

If you do this--restrict her creative outbursts to her room--you're still encouraging her creativity while setting boundaries about what's acceptable behavior.

Good luck!

Answer 4

You can try an easel or a dry erase board (if she likes to wipe things clean). There are markers and finger paints that you use with special paper where they will not show up on anything other than that paper.

The Mr. Clean magic eraser was really good for removing stuff from our walls. Good Luck!

Answer 5

1. Get a doggy door. It will save you time and stress. Fence off a small area outside of the doggy door. If this will not work, take them out every couple of hours when they should have to go. When they go potty, reward them every time with praise and a treat. Also, I am not sure how you feed them, but you could give them meals twice a day, and after about an hourish let them out. 2. The chihuahua is probably overwhelmed and jealous. Give him lots of attention and extra love. 3. Never tried the fences. We have a doggy door and it is a blessing! We have 5 dogs. 4. We still have not figured out how to keep our dogs from barking so much. Lol. 5. Getting them fixed may help. But, some of our dogs still hump and are aggressive toward each other sometimes. It may help with the spraying. Good luck!

Answer 6

With my daughter I put the crayons up on the fridge so she couldnt reach them... that is how she stopped... Then I used Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to get the pen off the walls.

Answer 7

Mr. Clean magic eraser will get the pen off.
As for your daughter, I'd take her crayons, etc. and put them someplace so she has to ask you to get them to play, then limit their use to the kitchen table for a while. Any problems, a time-out with loss of use of the crayons for the rest of the day is what I'd do. It's not the crayons (and of course not her creativity) it's that she doesn't realize what she's doing is wrong since there have been no consequences for her actions.

Answer 8

Perhaps you could one wall with chalk paint & let her chalk it up since there's already a pattern established that it's ok for her to write on the walls. Restrict the chalk wall to chalk only and only to that wall. Or put an easel and simple retrain her that the easel is for paint & crayons...not the walls. Good luck!

Answer 9

Use magic eraser for the pen.

As for the artistry itself, you can't stop her unless you set up some consequences, until she is a little older, and simply understands it's not what she's supposed to do.

Answer 10

magic earser for the pen, and give her an art wall, so to a paper supply (news paper) store and get one of those huge rolls of paper and tack it to one wall.