“A heart that once was warmed with goodness, will never cool down!”

I was inspired to write this article when I saw the books published by one of Ukraine’s best children’s literature publishing houses in our editor’s office (our editor-in-chief had bought them for her goddaughter). They were little masterpieces with great texts and wonderful illustrations — kind, positive, featuring fairytale and heavenly characters. When there are no national television products for children, the books balance those foolish animated movies, which I see when I turn on the TV. Those cartoons frequently have very simple plots, with the characters being space aliens, resembling computer games. On the whole, they focus on action. Apparently, not only our country’s adults, but also children are being fed second-rate productions. So the question arises, how can we protect our children from violence, the failures of consumer mentality, simple-mindedness, and lack of taste. Moral values, creative thinking, imagination and taste should be developed instead. Psychology even has a separate concept for this: art therapy.

This was the focus of a discussion with artists Kost LAVRO and Vladyslav YERKO, graphic artists at the A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA publishers, as well as psychotherapist Kateryna OVCHARYK.

“My son is 24 years old now,” Lavro said, “He is an adult. He majored in architecture. When he was growing up, I wanted to raise him in the traditional system of values, and develop good taste in him. Therefore I read books for him, old ones; they were bought in Soviet times, but they were children’s classics, with great illustrations. That was a time when stories with characters created by the Walt Disney Company acquired immense popularity, but I wanted my child to develop based on high-quality literature. However, I did not establish any limits: my son already then had firm moral and ethical grounds. As a result he learned from childhood not to waste his time, so he does not watch TV series, those empty shows that overrun our TV space.

“It is a usual thing that hot summer frequently follows an early spring in Ukraine. The same thing refers to our children. From their ABCs they frequently move immediately to computer games. However, there are few games that develop independent thinking or imagination. Besides, there is another problem: computer addiction. I know many children with such dependency, including the sons and daughters of my acquaintances.

“I have never fallen for messianism. Simply when I created illustrations, I wanted to develop good taste and enrich the child’s world, to fill it with content. A child’s inner world should be kind and happy. According to Shevchenko, the heart that once was warmed with goodness, will never cool down.”

“For a children’s artist the most important rule is to draw himself in childhood,” Yerko continued, “I mean, you should come back to your own childhood, when you were, for example, about five years old, and create an educational and exciting book. I thought a lot about my illustrations. They were born out of my consciousness. For example, the book Child Roland and Other Knight’s Tales is full of metaphors. Now, as time has passed, I think that probably there are too many knights’ symbols — those codes are not clear for children aged 7 to 10. Apparently, I drew them for my own pleasure and to show off my knowledge. The same inner revision takes place concerning all of my creations, because I want my pictures to nurture children’s minds and hearts.

“Once there was a store with foreign literature in Kyiv called Druzhba, where my mom bought Polish publications (she had a command of Polish and taught me this language). I remember clearly a winter tale about a courageous sparrow which had amazing illustrations: a bare December forest, the first snow. Besides it I had several favorite books. Specifically, those included Jules Verne’s works with Paul Gustave Dore’s illustrations. Those black-and-white engravings opened ocean spaces and impenetrable forests. I greatly enjoyed getting to know the world in such a way.

“In my opinion, children should be limited in their access to television. In the middle of The Day it can show ads of drugs increasing sexual potency. Half-naked beauties say that these medications are any man’s dream. If I saw such an ad as a child, I would have lost my guidelines. Then it seemed to me that a true man should resemble Ivanhoe who performs heroic deeds. And now they are telling me that a true man performs heroic deeds in bed. ‘Ukrainian’ television is imposing values turned upside down. I can’t imagine how poor children can survive in our times. Apparently, parents should make efforts in order to make their children read books, listen to Mozart, Bach, or at least The Beatles. I am living in such inner emigration myself.”

“Visuals are the first thing that shape the child’s personality before he or she begins to speak,” Ovcharyk summarized, “Even when the child already speaks, you should pay great attention to this. I will tell you a story from my own experience. I really like Indian culture. I was thinking, why? Suddenly I remembered that when I was very young, I constantly feasted my eyes on a nice-looking can of Indian tea, which depicted dancing Indian women. This can would always be present during our meals. The Indian tea came to an end long time ago, so we put Georgian or Krasnodar tea there, and placed it on the dining table as an element of dishware. Parents should pay attention to what books they buy, what animated movies they allow their kids to watch, what performances they attend with their children. You should always keep in mind that a character from a fairytale, cartoon or movie can scare you son or daughter. Therefore you should talk with them, see how they understand the images they read about or saw and on occasion explain what they mean. As for information we cannot protect them from, like billboards in the street or music in a marshutka… Apparently, from the information stream you should choose things that would evoke pleasant feelings in children. I mean psychogymnastics, preventing therapeutic methods aimed at developing positive emotions, which are recommended for pre-school children and primary school pupils. These can be listening to music, then asking the audience what feelings the music produces, about the understanding of these feelings, their differentiation, images that the music evokes. Psychogymnastics should be applied like a preventive measure for a child’s perception. At the same time we can conduct art-therapeutic (art therapy is handling conflicts via artistic means, like painting, music, dancing) micro sessions, so that the children, for example, paint their desires, fears and favorite characters. Then there will be a connection between perception and understanding.

“That is why parents, grandparents, and hired nannies should be very responsible, especially when shaping the personality of a child.”