Your five-year-old has colored the triceratops purple. Bright purple. Lavender legs, aubergine belly, a little flick of lilac behind the eyes. She is extremely proud of this. She has not consulted a single paleontologist.
And somewhere, somehow, a voice inside you — a voice that sounds suspiciously like a second-grade teacher from 1987 — is preparing to say, "But sweetie, dinosaurs weren't really purple."
Don't. Please don't.
A short history of what we actually know about dinosaur colors
Here is what paleontologists have confirmed, with reasonable certainty, about dinosaur coloration across the 165 million years these creatures roamed the Earth: almost nothing. We have fossilized pigment evidence for a small handful of species, mostly small feathered ones. The T-Rex? We genuinely have no idea. The triceratops? Also no idea. Could have been grey. Could have been blue. Could, statistically speaking, have been slightly purple.
The correct-sounding answer — "green, brown, probably grey" — is based almost entirely on the fact that those are the colors of modern reptiles we find familiar. It is not science. It is vibes.
The "realistic" dinosaur colors adults reach for are just the colors of modern lizards. Your kid, coloring a purple triceratops, is closer to the truth: we don't know.
What actually matters, coloring-wise
But okay, let's say it doesn't matter scientifically. Why else should you let the triceratops stay purple?
Because your five-year-old is not, at this moment, trying to accurately represent the Late Cretaceous. Your five-year-old is doing something much more sophisticated, which child development researchers call symbolic play — using available materials to express internal states, preferences, and stories that don't have other outlets.
Purple feels right to her because purple is her current favorite color, because the dinosaur reminds her of a character in a book, because she wants the page to feel like a party and she knows, intuitively, that parties are purple. All of these are legitimate reasons. All of these are, in the language of early childhood development, executive function in action.
What you're actually interrupting when you correct the color
When an adult says "dinosaurs weren't purple" — even gently, even with a smile — here's what the child's brain processes:
- The choice I made was wrong
- Someone is watching my choices and grading them
- There is a "right" color for things, and I don't know it
- Maybe I should ask an adult before I pick, next time
None of those are things you want a five-year-old to be learning while they color. The whole point of coloring as a developmental activity is that it's one of the few things in a child's day where there isn't a right answer. It's freedom in the shape of a picture. Don't accidentally take that away.
What to say instead
If you feel yourself itching to comment, try one of these:
- "Purple! Tell me about why purple."
- "I love how you made her stand out on the page."
- "What's her name?"
- Nothing. Sometimes nothing is the correct response.
The first two are especially good because they invite the child into her own thinking without judging it. You'll sometimes get a shrug. You'll sometimes get a fifteen-minute monologue about how the triceratops is purple because she's secretly a princess and her mother was also purple and they live in a purple castle. Either response is a win.
A thing we've learned, making these books
When we design doodloo books, we design the lines very carefully — composition, pacing, character personality. We design the colors not at all, on purpose. The page is blank because the color is the child's territory. It's the one place in the book where the adults have no say.
The purple triceratops is correct. The pink T-Rex is correct. The rainbow bear in the forest is extremely correct. If your kid has strong opinions about how a dinosaur should look — you're raising someone who will, one day, have strong opinions about much bigger things. Keep the purple. Keep the pink. Keep the whole rainbow.
Dinosaurs were, in fact, every color she wants them to be.