How to boost your kid's confidence.

A while ago I read this article on the site Kidspot.com.au that questioned whether kids were born confident or if their confidence (or lack of) was a result of their upbringing.

I was interested to read the article and see that the author's elder kids were more confident than her younger one.  With our two girls, they are the other way around. Our younger daughter has more confidence - particularly in social situations as compared to our elder daughter.  

We have often put this down to us perhaps being more over protective of our elder daughter in her early years due to us being first time parents. With our second daughter, perhaps we allowed her to do more things independently at a younger age and so her confidence grew more.

It is always good to hear stories from other parents about their experiences with their kids. It helps you put your own experiences in perspective a little.

Whatever the reason there is a difference in confidence with our two girls, we do consciously try to help them both gain confidence as they grow.

The aforementioned article on Kidspot does have 5 great tips of how to nurture a confident kid.  Basically you have to let them do more and more things independently - showing that you have trust in their abilities; make sure they try things, and let them figure things out rather than stepping in to help them.

Sometimes not helping a struggling child is hard - particularly when the tears start - but the rewards when the child finally figures something out, or manages to do something they didn't believe they could - are definitely worth it.  We have done this countless times with our girls in so many different situations from something as simple as opening a new bottle with a tight lid, to crossing roads, solving puzzles and distance running.

Another thing we also try to do is encourage our girls to do more of things that they are good at.  For example for our elder daughter, this is swimming. She has stuck to her swimming lessons since 3 months old and is now racing in swim meets and winning medals and ribbons.  We can clearly see her confidence grow as each medal or ribbon gives her proof of her ability - and so her self belief grows. (Mum or Dad telling you you're good at something doesn't seem to have quite the same effect!)

Every day we encourage independence in our girls, and as they grow this is often harder for me as a mum to step back, let them go and leave them be, than it is for them to do things by themselves.

Do you have confident kids?  Or were you a confident kid yourself perhaps?

Do you believe confidence is a result of nature or nurture and how do you help your kids grow in confidence?

I'll make you one!

For me growing up - there was a lot of DIY in our house.  Dad was always very handy around the house and garden, making all sorts of things out of wood and metal.  Mum was a whiz with the sewing machine - able to make anything and everything you could imagine.

The preferred option was defnitely to make it ourselves if we wanted something. Mum made lots of soft toys for my brother and myself, endless clothes, funky fun rubbish bins for our bedrooms, bags.... and Dad made tables, a TV turntable, a dolls house for me, a castle for my brother......  It was great!

Now I myself sew and love making things for the girls.  They seem to like anything and everything I make - even the disasters!  Their friends also like handmade gifts for birthdays, which is brilliant as it means you know you're giving something unique!

On our recent holiday, the girls spotted an arcade grabber game which was full of cuddly Angry Bird toys to win.  They both wanted to play the game and try to win - but instead agreed that I could make them their own Angry Birds .

So on our return from holiday, I found a tutorial online and made a red bird to test the pattern.

Both girls loved it and then chose which birds they each wanted.

They then spent the next few days gradually making and adding to 'homes' for their soon to be made Angry Birds!

Today I finished the birds and so they can be welcomed into their new homes.

The girls are slowly learning to sew too - and as you can see from these Angry Bird Houses - are already little budding DIYers!

I think it's good that the girls are growing up knowing there's an alternative to just buying things you desire.  The Angry Birds they wanted to try and win - may have cost $2 each if they had been successful in the arcade game first time.  But those games are not designed so that everyone wins every time. So it could well have been a lost $2 each and no Angry Bird toy!  Or you can find Angry Bird toys in the shops for a few more dollars.

The Angry Birds I made for the girls cost nothing but a little time and scraps of fabric that I already had. Making things yourself also lets you personalise and make things that extra little bit special and unique!

Do you ever make things for your kids? Or did your parents, aunties or grandparents make things for you when you were younger?

Tangrams and Dissection Puzzles

Yesterday our eldest daughter was telling me that they had been studying tessellation at school.

A tessellation is created when a shape is repeated over and over again covering a plane without any gaps or overlaps.

Another word for a tessellation is a tiling.

 (source: http://mathforum.org/sum95/suzanne/whattess.html)

This led me to think about a puzzle that we had in the cupboard which was as yet unused: Tangrams!

A Tangram is an ancient Chinese art consisting of a set of 7 flat shapes that you put together to form other shapes. No gaps are left between the shapes as they fit together - just as in tessellation.

The Tangram set we have has the added difficulty of the 7  basic shapes needing to be first constructed using smaller jigsaw puzzle pieces. This is a great mathematical problem solving activity.

Having not done any jigsaw puzzles for a while, the girls enjoyed fitting these together - and then trying to make the initial cat and dog shapes with the resulting larger squares and triangles.  It was surprisingly difficult to put the shapes together as in the picture on the box!

Dissection puzzles like this help develop logical thinking and shape awareness, so they are a good educational tool as well as being fun.

Our tangram box has several shapes for the kids to try and create:

We have another couple of dissection puzzles in the cupboard that I shall have to get out to have a try at.

There are plenty of Tangram puzzles online and printable versions too.

Have you ever tried a dissection puzzle or Tangram before?

The speed of change - don't get left behind.

This morning I received an email about a package I've been waiting for.  It was a swimsuit for our daughter that I'd bought from ebay.

Now I was until now, unaware that packages could be tracked quite so accurately!

The first email I received told me that the package had arrived in Cairns and was currently "onboard with driver".

The second email I received a few hours later said the parcel was 'delivered'.

 I was sitting at the computer when the email arrived, so I went straight out to the letterbox and sure enough there was the parcel!

Now being told via email that there's something in my letterbox is just a bit weird.  I also find it strange and amazing to look at our own house and others on Google Maps- where you can effectively 'stand' at your front door and see what it looks like as you turn in all directions.

I am still constantly amazed at the advances in technology since I was a kid, and I reflect upon how different the world our kids are growing up in is to the one we grew up in.

Do you remember cameras that used film rather than digital cameras?  I grew up with cameras like that. I remember the excitement of waiting to collect the photos from the shop to see what they looked like once developed.  I also remember the embarrassment of paying for blank photos after opening the back of my camera to see what it looked like inside!

For our kids - we take a photo and they immediately want to see what the photo looks like - as you can with a digital camera - there is no need to wait!

Cameras, mobile phones, the internet, these have all made our lives faster, more instantaneous and removed a lot of the suspense of waiting for something. Or rather the suspense might still be there, but the resulting end comes much faster.

Now we can text or write emails to our friends, and receive instantaneous replies from anywhere in the world.  We don't have to write a letter, post it, wait for it to travel to its destination then wait for a reply to be written and be posted back.

Do you think this shift in speed is reducing our patience levels?  Kids these days just aren't used to having to wait for things in the same way we used to.

In the world today - a short attention span may not necessarily such a bad thing.  Kids with 'grasshopper minds' may actually be at an advantage to cope with the increasing speed that information is being made available to them.

We do try to encourage our kids to do a lot of things a more 'traditional' way I guess, rather than turning straight to technology.  Play outside and play board games rather than play games on computers; to work sums out in their heads rather than reach straight for the calculator;  to read a book rather than just watch the movie.

We want our kids to have the skills of patience, knowledge, mental agility and physical ability - all of which we can see them gaining from doing things 'the old way'.

To exercise by playing outside rather than playing games in the lounge on the Wii-fit, seems much healthier and more beneficial to our kids. On the other hand - using computers, mobile phones and other technology arguably increases different skill levels in our kids - perhaps more relevant ones to life in the future?

I do sometimes wonder, if we place too much emphasis on doing things the slower, older way.  We try to encourage our kids to use technology but I think compared to some other kids their age, they don't use that technology nearly as much.

Since the jobs our kids could be doing in the future could well be ones that don't even exist now - should we put more of an emphasis on moving with the times and accepting that things are changing rapidly now and to stay ahead in the world today, our kids need to be at the forefront of technology too?

As with everything I always come back to the importance of finding a balance in life.  Being up to date with current technology doesn't mean being stuck in front of a screen inside the house; technology is becoming smaller and increasingly mobile.  But I still believe kids still need to learn basic life skills. They need to learn to use their brains and bodies first and then how to improve those abilities by making use of technology.

How about you? Are you moving with the times and keeping up with technology? How about your kids?

I've love to hear your thoughts!

Lets Gangnam Style for kids!!

So, we’ve just stopped shuffling and here we are with a foreign language dance craze the kids are dancing round the pool to!

The whole world and now Australia now know about Psy and his catchy, get stuck in your brain song - Gangnam style…. It is now even number one in Australia!

The kids didn’t know 99 Red or Luft balloons, they knew La Bamba as a “I want my lasagne’ parody and the ketchup song  is just plain weirdly named.

Psy, the cheesy Korean that has finally managed to bring K-Pop mainstream to Australia- and it is hilarious.  Even the lyrics, translated are funny:

English Translation:

Oppa is Gangnam style
Gangnam style

A girl who is warm and humanle during the day
A classy girl who know how to enjoy the freedom of a cup of coffee

ETC…….

So, when we heard the catchy tune, we looked at Youtube and then saw the moves- the kids were instantly hooked.

The moves are sooooo easy to do- ‘riding your invisible horse’, while lassoing followed by posing and being blown up- perfect!!!

And, it is far easier than trying to remember the words for La Bamba.  Maybe there is something to be said for just using the lasagne parody!

Now you know the moves, get the kids ready.

Watch it through once on you tube and ‘ get gangnam’ !!!

Enjoy……..

Euan