It is approaching breakfast and this is a campervan: weather, drawings and grandparenting in North-West England

Abstract

An account is given of a series of drawings done by two boys (four and six years old) while staying with their grandparents. These are considered within a child development framework emphasising the place of context and the socio-cultural theory of Wertsch. Context is explicated through looking at how household, local culture, mediated action and children's drawings can be connected. Links are made with the Early Years Foundation Stage and the championing of parent–teacher links within effective practice. Grandparenting is partly located within the generativity–stagnation arguments of Erikson in adult development.

Keywords:

• socio-cultural theory
• contextualism
• children's drawings
• grandparenting
• household
• mediated action
• generativity
• stagnation
• meaning making

Notes

1. While these three categories produce some helpful order in dealing with the sheer volume and diversity of child development research, such contemporary researchers as Tomasello (2008) are less easy to hold in this framework.

2. I will call the human figure here a hufie to help us pick it out as something small and dynamic.

3. ‘Bog’ is a term these boys share to refer to any frustrating experience, a kind of expletive!