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 Happy
Face
Whenever
my daughter draws a picture of a person she always makes sure they have
a happy face. That seems to be a good indication of her state of mind
and also seems to indicate that she sees a lot of happy faces around
her. She is only four, but I don't think I'm reading too much into her
preference. I have seen her draw a scary monster face and even a sad
face on occasion. However, her preference truly seems to be for a happy
face.
Sometimes when I'm deep in thought, I'll tend to stare off into the
distance. In this pensive state I tend to forget how my face might
look, and perhaps my daughter sees somewhat of a scowl. I know this
because she’s asked me where my happy face has gone, and I'll
be somewhat startled, surprised that my face had assumed a darker
scowl. I'll quickly put on a happy face once again and assure her that
I was only thinking. She'll look at me doubtfully and then continue
playing.
When my daughter was quite small we used to read a book called Copycat
Faces. In that book we would see all these cute little children making
a whole range of faces. Her favorite page was the happy face page where
it said: If you're happy like this king, you will smile at every thing!
My little daughter was grin and laugh with glee whenever we came to
this page. (I hope that the fact that the king was the guy with the
happy face didn't instill in my child a belief that riches equate with
happiness... but that's another topic!) I really enjoyed reading that
book with my daughter because it seemed to portray all emotions as
having their place, rather than enforcing the idea that everybody has
to have a happy face all of the time. In real life, sometimes mommy is
happy and then you will see her happy face. And yet at other times,
perhaps mommy is somewhat sad. This little book had a lighthearted way
of showing a whole range of emotions and teaching children the
importance of looking at a person's face to figure out how they are
feeling. I think that books like this, while seemingly simple, can have
very definite impacts on a child's social awareness and help them to
realize that life doesn't been being surrounded by a happy face at
every turn.
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