The Quesadilla Plot: Co-writing with a 5-year-old

Mason* (4 ¾ years old) sits in a restaurant, ignoring his largely-uneaten quesadilla and looking for the next interesting thing.  Until – with no warning! – a hungry creature comes out of nowhere and sneaks toward the quesadilla!  His honorary aunt (me!) laughs with evil glee as the hand-creature closes in on its next meal…

The drama of attempted quesadilla theft and defense proceeded to play out on the table and on paper – with me illustrating the highly-debated plan of each character – until the quesadilla had been eaten by Mason (and the strawberry eaten with Gollum-like reverence by his younger sibling).

What held his attention?  It wasn’t the quality of the art.

With children and adults, I’ve seen a pattern with this type of conversational drawing. There’s something captivating about seeing your ideas appear on paper; of knowing that someone is really listening to you because it’s captured right there. 

There’s a bunch of research about the benefits of visual thinking and graphic facilitation for adults – from boosting engagement to supporting mental load to enhancing creativity – and I expect some of the same things are at play here. It’s not about how pretty a drawing is but what it allows you to do.

And that’s the beauty of “ugly” drawings. Yes, there’s real delight and power to be found in aesthetically pleasing images, but there’s an underrated magic in ideas translated from mind to paper regardless of “artistic” quality.

So the next time you and your colleagues are trying to work through something together, embrace the humble scribble or the messy Google Doc.  Get your ideas and theirs documented in a shared space to same-page (literally) and help everyone feel heard.

*For privacy I’ve changed the name of the child in this story.