A Little Perseverance Goes A Long Way!

Children can do hard things!

It’s up to us as parents, caregivers and educators to give them ample opportunities to try and the encouragement to keep going.

Have you ever carved your own spoon?

I haven’t.

But this 8 year old has! Over the course of 3 weeks, she has worked diligently on carving out this spoon. She chose the wood template and chose the “hardest” wood, cherry. This made the carving more difficult but she was up for the challenge.

She began with long steady cuts narrowing the handle, and then shorter cuts to shape the rounded part. The trickiest tool was the one that was shaped like a hook, used to carve out the hollowed part of the spoon.

Once the spoon was to the dimensions she wanted, she used sandpaper to smooth it all out.

She was delighted with how it turned out. She was very happy that the “hexagonal” handle was now round, made this way by sanding it.

This spoon, her first carving project will be a treasured keepsake.

My invitation to you is to encourage and offer ways for your child to do hard things. This looks like different things for different children. It is completely dependent on the child. Hard things for a child is to:

• walk up and down the stairs by themselves

• walk up the hill

• walk through the forest

• tie their shoes

• climb up onto and jump off a rock

• carry firewood

• ride a bicycle

• get themselves dressed

• deciding and ordering their meal at a restaurant

• make small talk with the grocer

As we help to prepare our children to become independent, we are in fact, giving them opportunities to do hard things. Hard things are just that hard. So remember this as you ask them to do the “hard” thing. It will require lots of practice and patience. They may need reminders on how to do it but not to be confused with doing it for them.