5 Fun Confidence Building Activities To Do With Your 7-Year-Old Niece (From A Caregiver Who’s Tried Them)
Last month, I pulled into the parking lot of my niece Lila’s elementary school to pick her up for our regular weekend stay, and she climbed into the passenger seat with her shoulders hunched all the way up to her ears. When I asked to see the unicorn drawing she’d texted me about that morning, she mumbled “it’s bad” and crumpled it deeper into the bottom of her backpack. At 7 years old, she’d just started comparing her work to her classmates’ at school, and suddenly everything she made was “not good enough” before she even finished it. As someone who has her every other weekend while her mom picks up extra nursing shifts, I wanted to do more than just tell her she was great. I wanted fun, low-effort things we could do together that would actually help her feel more sure of herself, no forced self-esteem speeches required.
The first thing we tried that weekend was reverse show and tell. I’d stumbled on the idea a few days before, and it worked far better than I expected. Instead of Lila bringing something to show me, I pulled out three of my own imperfect projects to share first: a lopsided mug I made at a paint-your-own-pottery shop that leaks coffee all over my desk, a half-finished knit scarf that came out too narrow for my neck and too wide for a belt, and a doodle of my golden retriever that makes him look like a potato with ears. I explained the rule: each of us gets to share a messy project, and we brag about one good thing that came out of the mistake, even if the project itself isn’t perfect. I went first: “My mug leaks, but I learned I hate painting straight lines, so next time I just get to do blobs.” At first Lila wouldn’t bite, but after a few minutes of prying, she pulled out her crumpled unicorn drawing. She stared at it for a second, then said “The horn is too small, but I got the sparkles right.” That small win was enough. The best part of this activity is that it normalizes imperfection from my side first. Kids only ever see our finished, polished work, so they think adults never mess up. Sharing my own duds takes the pressure off them to be perfect to earn praise.
The next day, we went for a neighborhood walk, and we did a kid-led scavenger hunt. I’d originally pulled up a pre-made list on Pinterest, but I closed it and handed Lila a blank sheet of construction paper and a pack of crayons instead. I told her she made all the rules: she draws or writes what we have to find, and if I can’t find all of it before she does, she wins. She stared at me like I’d just asked her to fly a plane. “What if I pick stupid things?” she asked. I told her any pick is the right pick—that’s the whole point. She ended up with three items: a dog that looks like a sausage, a house with a purple front door, and a leaf that looks like a T-Rex. I wandered around for 25 minutes and never found that T-Rex leaf, so she won. She did a little victory spin on the sidewalk in front of the mailboxes and talked about her win all the way home. 7-year-olds follow other people’s rules almost every minute of the day—line up for lunch, color inside the lines, sit crisscross on the rug. Letting her make all the rules for a low-stakes game lets her practice trusting her own ideas, which builds way more confidence than me telling her she’s smart ever could.
That night, we did kid-led baking for dessert. I had a boxed yellow cake mix, a half jar of peanut butter, a bag of sprinkles, and a few stale marshmallows leftover from summer s’mores. I told her she could add whatever she wanted, no measuring, no following the recipe except baking it at 350 for 20 minutes. She added three full handfuls of sprinkles, the entire scoop of peanut butter, and all six marshmallows. It came out lumpy, way too sweet, and the middle was a little underbaked, but we ate it with vanilla ice cream anyway. That night, when she called her mom to check in, she bragged “I made the whole cake by myself” before her mom even asked what we’d done. I used to step in and correct her when she poured too many chocolate chips or messed up the mixing, but stepping back means she gets to own the whole thing, good and bad. Her pride wasn’t in the cake being perfect—it was that she did it all on her own.
We ended the weekend with a compliment swap with one simple rule: you can’t compliment how something looks or how naturally good someone is at a thing. You have to compliment a choice they made or an effort they put in. I went first: “I like how you always remember to give my dog a cookie every time we come in the house, that’s such a kind thing to remember.” She thought for a minute, then said “I like how you didn’t laugh at my drawing when I said it was bad.” That stuck with me. Most of the compliments we give kids are about looks or natural talent—“you’re so pretty,” “you draw so well”—but that stuff feels out of their control. When you praise their choices and effort, it reminds them that the things they do matter more than being perfect.
It hasn’t fixed all of Lila’s self-consciousness. Last week at a family barbecue, she still refused to get up and do the dance she learned at school when everyone asked. There are still weekends where she hides all her drawings in her bag and says she can’t do anything right. But these activities don’t require big commitments or expensive supplies, they’re just small bits of our time together that shift the focus from being perfect to having fun and being in charge. Last night, her mom sent me a photo of a drawing Lila did after school. It’s three lopsided hearts and a cat that looks more like a potato than a cat, and scrawled at the bottom in crayon it says “this is my mess up I learned I like drawing hearts.” It’s taped to my fridge now. It’s not perfect, but that’s kind of the point.
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