Fun Confidence-Building Activities for Your 7-Year-Old Niece: What Actually Worked For Me
My sister dropped 7-year-old Lila off for a three-day weekend last month, and I found her perched on my stained microfiber couch picking at a loose throw blanket thread, refusing to look up when I asked what she wanted to do. Her teacher had emailed my sister a week earlier saying Lila had started hiding behind her hair when called on in class, and I’d seen her cry after her rec soccer game two weeks before when she missed an open goal and a teammate sighed loud enough for everyone to hear. I didn’t want to just park her in front of the TV for three days, but I also didn’t want to drag her to some cheesy “confidence workshop” that would feel like school. I wanted low-effort, fun stuff that would let her feel good about herself without her noticing that’s what we were doing.
First, we made a “My Win” billboard out of an old cork bulletin board I’d had in my garage since college. I dug out a pack of sparkly markers, old magazine clippings, and a half-dried glue stick I found under the kitchen sink, and dragged it out to the back patio. I told her the only rule was we only put things on it that she thinks she does well – no input from me allowed. She stared at the blank board for five minutes, then wrote “I CAN DO 3 CARTWHEELS IN A ROW” across the top in neon pink marker. Then she cut out a picture of a hair brush and glued it next to that, added “braid hair without tangling” underneath. By the time we stopped for lemonade, she’d added beat Auntie at Uno, identify blue jays vs cardinals, and make mac and cheese without help. That night after dinner, she snuck out back and added “can make toast without burning it” after we made breakfast together. I used to think building confidence meant sitting a kid down and listing all the things you love about them, but this was different. This was her naming the things that mattered to her, not me telling her what she should be proud of. If I’d made the list, I would have put “good at drawing” at the top, but that’s not what she cared about right then.
After the billboard, I asked her to help me fix my wobbly entryway bookshelf. I’d needed to tighten the screws for two months, but never got around to it. I let her pick the screwdriver (she grabbed the pink one I got at the dollar store for bike repairs) and put her in charge of counting the screws and holding the shelf steady while I worked. She was so serious the whole time, kept leaning in to remind me I’d missed the bottom left screw, and fussed when I almost dropped a screw behind the heater. When we were done, we restocked the shelves together, and she insisted on arranging all my small succulent pots on top. She patted the side when we finished and said “See? No more wiggles.” It was such a small thing, but I watched her walk out of the entryway with her shoulders a little higher than they were when we started. A lot of people assume kids this age need fancy planned activities to build good feelings about themselves, but Lila’s got a 2-year-old brother at home, and almost everything gets “kid-proofed” before she can touch it. She never gets to help with real jobs that matter. Giving her a real, useful task that wasn’t pretend made her feel like she contributed something, which hits different than a bunch of empty praise.
One rainy afternoon, we did no-rules art. I had a stack of leftover canvas scraps from a friend who used to rent my spare room to paint, and I dumped out all my half-used paint tubes and glitter glue. I told her there was no right or wrong here – we could make whatever we wanted, it didn’t have to look like anything. She started drawing a picture of her cat Mochi, then crumpled it up and said it looked stupid. I told her I was making a picture of what my morning coffee smells like, and proceeded to splatter brown and yellow all over my canvas. She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, then decided to make a picture of what her hamster’s wheel feels like when it spins, all wobbly blue lines and glitter. We taped both of them up on my fridge when we were done, and I didn’t tell her it was the best picture I’d ever seen – I just said I really like how the glitter makes it look like it’s still spinning, which was true. 7-year-olds are just starting to learn that there are “right” answers and “good” art and “bad” mistakes, and it makes them scared to try anything they might mess up. Taking all the rules away for an hour takes that pressure off.
The night before her mom came to pick her up, we were waiting for pepperoni pizza, and she brought up forgetting her one line in the upcoming school assembly. I didn’t give her a pep talk about how she’d be fine. I said let’s practice, but every time anyone forgets a line, we have to do a silly dance. I forgot my fake line first and did the chicken dance, and she laughed so hard she could barely stand up. Then she forgot her line on purpose just to do a cartwheel dance across the living room. By the time the pizza got here, she wasn’t even talking about being nervous anymore.
When my sister picked her up, Lila dragged her straight out to the back yard to show off the billboard before she even grabbed her suitcase. Last week, my sister sent me a photo her teacher took of Lila raising her hand to answer a question in class. She’s still quiet, she still gets upset when she messes up a skill at soccer, and she still hides behind her hair sometimes when she’s nervous. It’s not like these activities fixed everything overnight. But all of these things took 20 minutes to an hour, used stuff I already had in the house, and didn’t feel like work for either of us. The thing I didn’t expect was that confidence doesn’t come from big speeches or telling kids they’re amazing. It comes from small, ordinary moments where they get to lead, contribute, and mess up without anyone making a big deal out of it. Right now, this is working for us, and that’s enough.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Fun Confidence-Building Activities for Your 7-Year-Old Niece: What Actually Worked For Me