Fun, Low-Effort Things I Do With My 7-Year-Old Niece That Seem To Make Her Braver
Last month, Lila showed up at my door after her first ever soccer practice, scuffing her neon pink cleats on my doormat and refusing to make eye contact. She dragged her unicorn canvas duffel full of 12 stuffed animals behind her, and spent 10 minutes picking at a loose thread on my ratty gray couch throw after she sat down, wouldn’t even touch the strawberry fruit snacks I laid out for her. My brother texted me earlier that day that she’d spent the whole practice hiding behind the coach’s legs, wouldn’t even go near the huddle at the end. She’d been like that for a few months now—wouldn’t raise her hand in class even when her teacher said she knew the answer, would cry if my sister-in-law made her go grab something from the store cashier by herself.
I don’t have kids of my own, so I was a little out of my depth. She’s over every other weekend, and I didn’t wanna be the aunt that just plops her in front of YouTube the whole time. I also didn’t wanna do that cringey thing where I sit her down and go “today we’re gonna work on your confidence!” That’d just make her uncomfortable, right? Kids can smell that forced lesson stuff from a mile away. I just started messing around with small, low-stakes stuff that was fun for both of us, and it turns out a lot of it ended up making her bolder without me even trying.
The first thing that worked wasn’t planned at all. I’d had a bad cold a couple days before, my throat was still scratchy, and we went to the little diner down the street from my place—the one that has a jukebox in every booth and serves chocolate milkshakes thick enough you need a spoon. On a whim I just said, “Ugh, my throat hurts too bad to talk to the waitress, can you order for both of us? I’ll even let you put an extra cherry on my shake if you pull it off.” I fully expected her to say no, to hide behind my arm. But she thought for 10 seconds, twisted the end of her braid, and nodded.
First time she mumbled so quiet the waitress leaned in and asked what she said. I didn’t jump in. I just looked at her and waited. She took a breath and said it again, loud enough that the whole booth could hear. When we got our shakes, she didn’t stop talking about it for an hour. I didn’t gush or give her a big speech about how brave she was. I just said the extra cherry was perfect, which it was. That’s it.
After that, I started looking for other tiny ways to let her be in charge. I have a million tiny broken things in my apartment that I’ve been ignoring for over a year: a wobbly end table leg, a loose handle on the bathroom drawer, a weird sticky spot on the fridge from an old magnet that won’t come off. I saw a tiny kid-sized pink tool set at the dollar store on my way home one week, grabbed it on a whim for five bucks. I asked her if she wanted to help me fix all the dumb little broken stuff, because I’m garbage at fixing things.
We spent three hours on that project. The wobbly leg ended up needing a shim, I didn’t have a real shim, so we folded up an old vet clinic postcard I got in the junk mail and stuck it under. It worked. She tightened the bathroom handle with the little screwdriver from her set, and it’s still tight a month later. When my brother came to pick her up that night, she dragged him straight to the bathroom to show him. “Auntie couldn’t fix it, I did,” she said. I didn’t even have to say anything. That’s the part that surprised me, honestly. It wasn’t a big planned activity, it was just messing around with stuff that was already broken in my house.
I did try one of those fancy Pinterest activities once, by the way—the confidence journal where you write down three things you like about yourself every day. I bought sparkly pens and everything. She colored all over the “What I’m Good At” page, crumpled it up, and said it was boring. I didn’t push it. We threw it away and ordered pizza instead. Not everything works, that’s fine.
One of my favorite things to do now is let her lead our neighborhood walks. We go almost every Saturday when the weather’s nice. I used to just pick the route, head to the park, that’s that. A couple weeks ago I told her she could pick every single turn, no matter what. So we walked past the same blue house with the big hydrangea bush three times. We stopped for 15 minutes to count every snail on the sidewalk after the rain. She ended up leading us all the way to a little free library I didn’t even know was on the next block over. She picked out a beat-up Junie B. Jones book, and when we got back to my place, she read the whole first chapter out loud to me on the couch. She messed up half the big words, but she never stopped. She never asked me to take over, even when she stumbled. That was the first time I realized that just letting her be in charge of small stuff matters way more than any big speech or fancy activity.
Last weekend, she came over after her second soccer game. She didn’t hide behind the coach this time. She actually ran after the ball once, got close enough to touch it with her foot. When she got to my place, the first thing she did was drag me to the bathroom to check the drawer handle. It was still tight. “See?” she said. “I fixed that. I can do hard stuff.” Then she asked if we can go get ice cream at the new shop downtown tomorrow, because she wants to order both our cones this time.
I told her that sounds great. I don’t know if she’s gonna be super outgoing and confident forever, or if next week she’ll hide again when it’s time to order. I’m not even sure what I’m doing half the time. That’s okay. I’m just her aunt. We’re just messing around, having fun, and that’s enough for me right now.
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