The Power of Photography
Words by Tori Deslauriers.
“It’s because nobody likes me, Mummy.”
These are the six words from my then three-year-old that stopped me in my tracks last April near the beginning of the first lockdown.
My husband and I had, like parents everywhere, tried our best to deal with the massive changes to our son’s routine as best we could. We had thought, naively, it would be a few weeks at home. We filled our days, grateful for our garden, by making treasure hunts and obstacle courses, building tents and learning about flowers. Opting not to say too much about Covid, we simply explained there were germs around and we had to stay home for a bit until they cleared. He seemingly took it in stride. We patted ourselves on the back for a situation well handled. The days ticked on.
So, when he said these words completely out of the blue, while sitting on our lawnmower, a bereft look on his freckled little face, my heart shattered. Asking what he meant, he explained that he knew that he wasn’t seeing anyone because his friends didn’t like him anymore and nobody wanted to play with him EVER AGAIN. And I could see he was trying pretty hard to hold back tears.
Like me, my son gets a lot of his energy from others and is happiest when surrounded by friends. As an only child he doesn’t have the benefit of a playmate on hand at home. And I’m acutely aware that his need for company is part of his personality and how taking away his access to social interactions was shaking elements of his confidence and identity.
And it sucks watching your kid struggle and knowing you can do nothing about it.
So, I set to work. Nerd alert!
Obviously, I reassured my baby that his friends love him and wanted to see him but 3.5-year-olds just aren’t great at online communication. As a photographer, I naturally turned to what I love for answers - photography.
Here is the upshot of all the research I did.
Photography has a huge influence on our children’s self-esteem. And I think this is becoming ever truer in a world where we are living increasingly online, intertwined between reality and social media, forever trying to keep up with the Joneses.
Photography by Tori Deslauriers.
Why do photos have a positive effect on the self-esteem of children?
A 1975 study called the Murfreesboro Study was carried out where 10-year-olds with below average self-esteem scores were split into two groups. One group were thecontrol and carried on as normal. The other group were given Polaroid cameras and photography tasks like different compositions, emotions etc that they had to then scrapbook weekly.
After five weeks the self-esteem scores were remeasured in both groups and there was a 37% increase in self-esteem in the Polaroid group from seeing themselves in photos. To me this is just incredible that seeing yourself in photos for five weeks can increase your self-esteem so profoundly!
A sense of belonging and reassurance from photography
Children learn from the time they are born that their family is their unit of belonging. This was originally critical for herd survival but is now a social survival mechanism. Children learn this from visual cues (i.e. seeing people together in photos) long before they are able to verbally comprehend relationships from explanations from parents.
More importantly, of course as parents we all feel pride towards our children and deliver that message to them. However, we are also all guilty of often telling them that we are proud of their achievements. Having photos of our children shows them the basic, subconscious message that we are proud of their existence alone.
Professor Geoff Beattie, Head of School and Dean of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester says:
“We cannot underestimate the power of photographs to keep us feeling linked to others and belonging. They cement us into our networks. For children in particular, looking at photographs is part of the socialising process; learning who you are and where you fit into the family. By displaying photographs of our children at different stages of their lives, we are making a very public statement that we are proud of them.”
What is phototherapy?
Phototherapy is a type of therapy whereby that person’s photos are used to enhance memories and insights during counselling sessions that may not be possible using talk alone.
“Touching the photograph where a face is smiling, it is the same thing as touching a book when you read it. There’s a lot of stimulation of the brain when you have that sensory experience. That is a bit lost in the move to digital. You are touching a keyboard, mouse or a touchscreen but you are not touching the image.” says Craig Steinberg, a licensed psychologist who works with children ages five through 13 using phototherapy.
While having a photo in your home clearly isn’t therapy, I wondered if printing out photos and letting my son try the same might be a form of healing for him while he was missing people around him so profoundly.
Did any of this help my son?
Working on the principles of phototherapy I firstly made a huge wall of photos for my son. I included my son in a photo printing project. He got really excited about picking his frames and the photos for the frames. Because of my job he had a lot of photos to sift through – I photograph everything! He chose photos of him with his friends, his grandparents and cousins, his 3rd birthday cake and other random things. It was a very eclectic glimpse into the mind of my little boy.
Photography by Tori Deslauriers.
The frames are velcroed to the wall, all at his height. Over the last ten months, he has frequently pulled one down and hugged it or given his American-based family a quick kiss. I’ll wander into his room and find him telling one of his friends or relatives a story about something that happened. And sometimes he comes out with one of his frames in hand and tells me he is really missing this person and wishes he could see them
It seems to have given him a way to verbalise his struggles with his loneliness and feeling like he is somehow being personally punished by the pandemic.
I also used elements of the self-esteem experiment and started sending out photography related challenges to my mailing list. I created all sorts like indoor and outdoor photography scavenger hunts to do during lockdown and most recently a how-to on stop motion animation for kids. While it isn’t the same as the experiment, if it helps kids cope with the current situation in even the most minimal way isn’t it worth a try?
Photography by Tori Deslauriers.
So maybe it will improve your kids’ happiness and maybe it will improve their self-esteem. And maybe worst case, it’ll just make your house a lovely place to live with lots of lovely photos around you. Your child will grow up surrounded by wonderful photos of them self and gain elements of their growing identity as part of something bigger. The invisible threads of the generations that came before them, the ones that shaped the parents doing the difficult job of guiding that little human through the world now weave stories around them.
And on a micro level, how is my son doing? He still carries his photos around with him some days and he still chats to them on occasion. But as a now 4.5-year-old (don’t forget the half!) he talks more about the “pesky germs” and the day they’ll go away so he can see his friends in his photos more. He plans the things they’ll do together when they can come round and play with his toys or hang out in the garden. And there has been no chat of them hating him for months.
Did photos do that? I obviously can’t be sure. But my deep love of photos makes me think it might just be possible.
If you haven’t got any photos of your own to hang on the walls I’d love to help you out and there is a special offer on this link for you: https://torideslauriers.com/bnc/
Tori is a moth-hating, travel-loving, metaphorical plate-spinning Mum. You’ll usually find her eating her family’s chocolate and watching shows aimed at teenagers on Netflix.
She also happens to be an award winning photographer based in St Albans, Hertfordshire who is passionate about making sure every family has their story told and obsessed with getting Mums back in their family photos.
You can find her work at: https://torideslauriers.com
