I want to add something to my last post.  ( Please go to "older post" after this one- if you do not see it.  If you are new, keep doing that and you will get more information about the classes.  Sorry- not perfect layout-yet).
 Sometimes I will suggest your child, or you, look at the work of an adult artist.  Sometimes I will show that work to the students.  This is not the same thing as teaching a style, and asking the children to utilize that style.
Why do I do it?
1.To give the child confidence.  That I have read his or her work- on a formal level.  And show them that it is shared.
2. To introduce a formal concept further.  Such as Alexander Calders use of line drawing, and the way that was taken further in wire.  This is a concrete example of how line is used 2 and then 3 dimensionally.
3. Like all of us, children respond to sensitive well executed work- they can read it.  Exposure is good.  Mimicry is not.
4. When I ask you, not your child,  to look at adult work, it is to show where your child may be formally.
There is a tendency to look at adult work more objectively, with more distance, than the work of children.  If similarities are found, a childs decisions can be seen- like the adults-  to be formal; philosophical (yes), and artistic.  expressions of who they are and how they think.