FROM THE MOMENT that they grasp their first pencil, children’s personalities show in the way that pencil hits the paper. That this is so is revealed by graphology — the study of personality or character from handwriting — an increasingly popular tool in the understanding of children.
Take eight-year-old Henry Williams, a bright child from a middle-class family, who found it difficult to settle at his private school and was attention-seeking at home. His mother, Maria, a civil servant, was astonished — and sceptical — when Henry’s teacher recommended that she take him to see a graphologist.
“His writing was quite laboured, and I suppose a bit babyish for his age,” Maria admits. In one session the graphologist was able to deduce that Henry had low self-esteem because he wasn’t doing well at school. “But she also said that he would be gifted at languages and art. I was reluctant to increase the demands on Henry, but we enrolled him in a Frenchlanguage club and a Saturday art class. Amazingly, since neither his father nor I is good at either, he turned out to be good at both — and because he had found something he was good at, his confidence soared and he settled down and started doing better at school.”
Martha Stone, a television producer, was alarmed when she noticed that her nine-year-old daughter’s writing had changed quite dramatically, becoming jerky and angular. “Emma had told me that there was nothing wrong, but a friend had recently taken her son to see a graphologist so I decided to give it a go.” All qualified graphologists are trained in psychology so that a session is part handwriting analysis and part counselling. “The graphologist we saw said that there was a lot of stress there — and eventually we found out that the girls who used to be Emma’s friends had turned against her and were giving her a hard time,” Stone says. “Once the school had dealt with the bullying, Emma’s writing went back to normal.”
Ann Nimmo, a teacher at a private school, was struggling to cope with difficult children when she asked permission to bring in a graphologist. “We gave her examples of the children’s writing and she immediately identified the poorly adjusted ones. She was able to suggest where their strengths might lie, which gave us strategies for handling the children.”
Not that a child needs to be having problems to benefit from seeing a graphologist, says Elaine Quigley, the chairman of the British Institute of Graphologists. “It is particularly useful when choosing the right A levels or university course. Parents and children sometimes have different career ideas, and a family session is a way of exploring why a child might be good at one subject rather than another, or want to study a particular subject whereas the parents want them to choose another.”
“I couldn’t decide what to study at university,” says Ellen Davies, 20. “I showed a graphologist samples of my writing throughout school, and was amazed when she spotted a really bad patch I had been through when I was 14 — it was when my parents divorced. She also told me that I would be good in a caring profession which hadn’t crossed my mind, but now I’m doing psychology and I love it.”
While he agrees that it is particularly useful for identifying a child’s potential, Nigel Bradley, of the Graphology Information Centre, and a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, says that ideally teachers should be trained in graphology so that they can combine their specialised knowledge of children with the insights offered by the field. “In France and Italy graphology is taught in universities,” he says, “ and many of those training in it are teachers. In Europe it is more likely to be used within the school system as one of several tools for analysing child development.”
“In French schools there is always a graphologist on hand to call upon,” says Monique Stirling, a Frenchwoman who lectures at the British Academy of Graphology. “A popular tool is the graphometer age test that determines if children are developing properly for their age.”
This test can be used at any age, Stirling says. “For example, a nine-year-old who still makes two separate strokes when forming ‘b’, ‘d’ and ‘g’ would be considered to be behind and we would need to look at why. A child who is forming these letters carefully and properly — what we call a dominance of form rather than movement — and without a pen-lift in the middle, is probably well adapted and likely to do well at school.”
Children’s writing styles begin to emerge in their preschool scribbles, and fall into two basic groups: those who make straight, short strokes, and who are relatively assertive, outgoing, with realistic instincts; and those who make longer, more rounded movements, who are more emotional, compliant, and have a more fanciful imagination and random work habits.
As soon as a child has learnt to write (which in graphology terms means being able to reproduce letters correctly from memory) he will gradually alter the shapes and sizes of his letters but display the same natural inclinations shown in prewriting scribbles. Even when teenagers try out different styles of writing, basic elements will remain the same until their handwriting is fully developed in their early twenties. If you were to lose the use of your writing arm and had to learn to write with the other hand — or foot or mouth — the same characteristics would appear.
Although a sudden change in a child’s writing, or jerky irregular writing, might signal a cause for concern, Stirling advises against do-it-yourself analysis. Handwriting is made up of various elements: form, pressure, speed, direction, layout and continuity, and any diagnosis needs to take in several factors. “For example, heavy writing might mean a child who puts in a lot of effort, or a lot of energy: heavy and fast implies energy, whereas heavy and slow might imply difficulties,” she says.
If graphology is an increasingly popular tool — according to the British Institute of Graphology more than 3,000 companies use it for recruitment purposes, while an increasing number of colleges are offering training in the subject — it is not without its detractors. “It doesn’t work,” says Professor Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths College, University of London. “It sounds very plausible and, unlike astrology for example, handwriting is at least governed by the brain, so that you can see how it might reflect aspects of character. But it fails to meet any of the tests for validity and reliability that psychological tests should meet. If you want to know if someone is depressed or stressed, the best way is to ask them.”
“Of course we are not crystal-ball gazers,” Stirling says. “Graphology has its limits, but it is very good at indicating a person’s emotional state and natural talents.”
However, Emma Bache, The Times’s resident graphologist, advises against parents rushing off to have their child’s handwriting analysed. “Although you can tell a certain amount about a child, children’s handwriting is constrained by the way they are being taught to write at school and how much creativity they are allowed, so it may not be fully developed. Before the age of 18 or 19 I would be cautious about using it to determine an adolescent’s character. We are developing a terrible obsession with children and getting the best results out of them, so unless the child is clearly having problems parents might want to ask themselves why they want to have their child’s handwriting analysed: is it to put more pressure on them to fulfil their potential?”
GRAPHOLOGY LINKS
British Institute of Graphologists
01753-891 241
www.britishgraphology.org
British Academy of Graphology
020-8788 3289
www.graphology.co.uk
Graphology Information Centre:
www.graphology.ws
Emma Bache:
www.emmabache.com
