What Fun Confidence Building Activities Can I Do With My 7 Year Old Niece?
Last month, I pulled up to my sister’s house to pick up my 7-year-old niece Lila for our regular weekend stay, and she didn’t come bounding out to the car like she usually does. Her mom waved me inside, and I found Lila hunched behind the living room couch, one hand twisting the frayed end of her too-big unicorn hoodie, the other crumpling a small participation ribbon from her class spelling bee. She’d come in second, missed the last word—gingerbread turned into “gingerbred” with one n instead of two, she told me later—and spent the car ride to my apartment staring out the window, picking at a hole in her sock. I’d originally planned a trip to the local bounce park, but when I asked if she still wanted to go, she just shrugged and said “I don’t want to race anybody.” So we pivoted, and over the next two days, we messed around with a handful of low-effort activities that ended up doing way more for her confidence than any pep talk I could have given.
The first thing we tried was “you’re the expert.” I’d seen her drawing cartoon cats in the back of her mom’s grocery list the last time we were over, so I pulled out my old beat-up sketchbook and a pack of colored pencils and said, “I’ve been trying to learn how to draw these forever and I’m terrible at it. Can you teach me?” Her head popped up immediately. She dragged my wobbly coffee table over, climbed onto the couch next to me, and got all business. She showed me how to start with a big oval for the head, not a circle, because “cats are long-faced, not round like pancakes.” I messed up the first ear on purpose, drew it all stubby, and asked what I did wrong. She leaned in, took the pencil from my hand, and re-drew it slow, talking me through every step. By the end, we had a whole page of cats, hers way better than mine, and she was laughing at how lopsided mine were.
What I didn’t say out loud then was that this works so well because 7-year-olds spend almost every minute of their day being taught something. They follow directions at school, get corrected on their math, told to sit still, keep quiet, color inside the lines. Putting them in charge, even for 20 minutes, lets them feel what it’s like to know something someone else doesn’t. It’s not hard to pull off: just pick whatever your kid already loves—drawing, jumping rope, sorting Pokemon cards, anything—and act like you’re the one who needs help. You don’t have to be good at it, you just have to follow their directions.
The next day, we did a junk craft project. I’d been saving empty cereal boxes, old wrapping paper scraps, and a bag of bottle caps in my closet for months, so I dumped it all on the floor and told her we could make anything we wanted, as long as it was something she’d actually use. She decided right away she wanted a pencil holder for her desk at home, where she keeps all her sparkly gel pens. She cut the wrapping paper to size, but it ended up an inch too short on one side, and she immediately crumpled it up and said “It’s wrong, I suck at this.” I didn’t reach over and fix it for her, like I almost did. Instead I just said, “Huh, that didn’t work. What do we have around here that could cover that gap?” I pointed to the roll of sparkly washi tape I keep on my desk, and she thought for a minute, then grabbed it. She ended up wrapping washi tape stripes all the way around the whole holder, covering the gap and turning the mistake into the best part of the whole thing. It’s lopsided, the lid doesn’t fit quite right, but she carries it everywhere now.
The small takeaway here is that when we jump in to fix kids’ mistakes right away, we’re accidentally telling them they can’t fix it themselves. You don’t have to let them struggle for an hour if they’re really upset, but instead of automatically taking over, just ask what they think they can try next, and hand them extra supplies if they need it. Most of the time, they’ll come up with something way more creative than you would have anyway.
That afternoon, we went on a neighborhood treasure hunt, and she got to make all the rules. She drew the map before we left, marked where the big oak tree was and where the golden retriever named Max usually sits on his porch, and made the list of treasure: one cool shaped rock, one red leaf, one pinecone that’s bigger than your thumb, and one “secret thing” that only she gets to pick. We found a tiny green frog sitting on a rock by the creek a few blocks over, and that was her secret treasure. She pulled out her map after we got back and added a big X where we found it, labeled it “FROG SPOT.” This one works because it gives her full control of the plan, no adults changing the rules to make it easier or shorter. She got to stop and watch ants carry a crumb for 10 minutes even though I was ready to keep going, and that was okay.
By the end of the weekend, we wrote all the little things she’d done on slips of paper and stuffed them into the pencil holder she made: “I taught aunt to draw a cat,” “I fixed my pencil holder,” “I found a frog,” “I led the treasure hunt.” She took it home with her, and my sister says she pulls out a slip whenever she’s nervous before a test or a soccer game.
It’s not like Lila never gets nervous now, or never feels like she’s not good enough. Last week she sent me a voice note through my sister saying she was scared to play her first soccer game of the season, because she was afraid she’d miss the ball. She brought her pencil holder with her to the game, and ended up scoring one goal. She still hides behind my leg when I introduce her to my friends, she still cries when she can’t spell a word right for homework. Confidence isn’t something you build in one weekend and it’s done. These activities aren’t magic fixes. They’re just small, fun ways to let a kid feel capable, in control, and proud of the things they do, without any trophies or grades or winners and losers. Right now, that’s more than enough for us.
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