What I’ve Been Doing With My 7-Year-Old Niece To Help Her Feel A Little Braver (No Fancy Expert Stuff)
My sister texted me three weeks ago, all soft and worried, saying Lila’s been turning down invitations to classmate birthday parties because she’s scared no one will want to play with her. Won’t raise her hand in art to show her drawings, even though her teacher said she’s the best one in the class at drawing unicorns. I’ve got Lila every other weekend anyway, since I live 10 minutes away and work from home, so I said I’d mess around with some stuff that might help her feel a little more sure of herself. Full disclosure: I don’t have kids. I read one TikTok thread about confidence building and then winged everything. So take this with a grain of salt, and a side of sprinkles.
First thing we tried was baking sugar cookies, which I thought would be basic and fine. Turns out I forgot I lent my rolling pin to my roommate last month and never got it back, so we used my half-empty bottle of pinot grigio I got for a dinner party that never happened. It worked fine, except the label fell off in the flour, which we just added to the counter mess. Lila kept pouring sprinkles on, like, three tablespoons per cookie, and I caught myself about to say “Honey, that’s too many, save some for the rest” before I remembered why we were doing this. Instead I dumped half the bottle of sprinkles on one giant cookie and said “Beat that.” She stared at me for a second, then cackled and poured the rest of the bottle on her lopsided blob of a cookie. When she said “Is this bad? It doesn’t look like the cookies on Instagram” I showed her the chocolate chip cookies I burned the week before that were still sitting in the trash can, black around the edges, and said “I mess up baked goods every single time. No one cares. This one’s yours, you can do whatever you want with it.” She brought that blob cookie to show her teacher the next day. My dog got half of it on the walk to the car, and she didn’t even cry. Just said “Max needed a snack more than the teacher did.” That’s the first time I thought maybe we’re onto something.
A couple days later I thought of this thing I called the Bad Idea Museum, set up right on my coffee table. It’s just for all the stuff that’s “wrong.” The drawing where she colored the sky neon purple instead of blue. The half of the lumpy sprinkle cookie the dog didn’t eat. The friendship bracelet I tried to braid that ended up with three extra knots and is too big for any human wrist. The paper airplane she folded that just nosedives straight into the carpet every time. We write silly little labels for each thing on index cards—“Lopsided Unicorn Who Forgot His Horn” “World’s Messiest Cookie” “Airplane That Hates Flying” —and then we charge all my old stuffed animals (and Otto, her otter that goes everywhere with her) one penny to get in. Otto’s the head of security, by the way. Last weekend I knocked the whole table over when I reached for a soda, and before I could apologize she started yelling “NEW EXHIBIT! THE GREAT MUSEUM COLLAPSE OF 2024!” and added the pile of bent index cards and crumpled paper to the display. I think before that, she thought every mistake was something you had to throw away and hide. Now she just adds it to the museum.
I tried the classic “let’s have you order the ice cream” thing at the little shop down the street, because everyone says that’s how you build confidence talking to strangers. It went exactly wrong. She grabbed my hand and hid behind my leg, buried her face in my hoodie, wouldn’t say a word. I almost did that thing adults do where they go “Oh come on, just say it, it’s easy” and then I remembered how much I hated that when I was shy as a kid. It just makes you want to hide deeper. So I just ordered both our cones (vanilla with sprinkles for her, coffee for me) and didn’t say a word about it after. On the walk home, she stopped to pet a stray cat that was sitting on a fence, and she told that cat every single detail about the Bad Idea Museum, all the exhibits, what Otto had for lunch that day, everything, clear as day, no shyness at all. That’s when I realized I was being dumb. Confidence isn’t checking boxes. It’s not being able to order ice cream if you don’t want to. It’s okay to be shy around strangers but loud as hell around cats.
We do bad karaoke every Saturday night now. She loves Encanto, won’t stop singing it, but wouldn’t sing in front of anyone but her mom and me a month ago. So we do a contest: whoever sings the worst, most off-key, makes up the dumbest lyrics, wins. Winner gets to pick the next movie we watch. Last week we were yelling “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” so loud my next door neighbor knocked on the door to complain. I was so embarrassed, I started apologizing, and Lila just marched right up to the door, opened it, and sang the entire first verse at the top of her lungs. Neighbor laughed so hard he went and got a lemon popsicle out of his freezer and gave it to her. We still haven’t had a repeat noise complaint, so that’s a win.
Last weekend at the family BBQ, my uncle asked her to draw a unicorn for everyone, and she hid behind my sister’s leg and said no. I didn’t nudge her or say “oh come on you’re so good” or anything. I just handed her a chip and ate mine next to her. I don’t think this stuff is supposed to turn her into a different person. I don’t want it to. We’re not curing shyness or turning her into a public speaker or anything. We’re just messing around, eating too many sprinkles, and making museums out of mistakes. I don’t know if it’s “building confidence” the way the experts say it should be. But she’s been bringing home new bad ideas to add to the museum every time she comes over, and last week she agreed to go to a birthday party, just to get the goody bag. That feels like enough, for now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » What I’ve Been Doing With My 7-Year-Old Niece To Help Her Feel A Little Braver (No Fancy Expert Stuff)