This post came from my second Kickstarter Campaign — and I’m giving it a permanent home here — enjoy!
About a week ago, one of our kids found a random fidget spinner in the car. And they decided they wanted to do some sort of trick with it.
Whuuuuurrrrrr. Vrrrrrrr. CRASH! Whuurrrrrr. Vrrrrrrrr. CRASH! Whuurrrrrr. Vrrrrrrrr. CRASH!
This repetition started driving another one of our kids absolutely b a n a n a s and they started trying to give unsolicited advice.
"No. Leave me alone. I got this." the spinning kid said.
Whuuuuurrrrrr. Vrrrrrrr. CRASH! Whuurrrrrr. Vrrrrrrrr. CRASH!
Fidget spinner expert got exasperated and started raising their voice. "Ugh!!! Let me help you!"
"No, leave me alone" the spinning kid said again.
"Mom, this is going to take them WAY longer than it needs to! They need to listen to me and I'll make it so much easier!" the expert tried to convince me.
"But baby," I said, "they aren't asking you for help. They're trying to figure it out."
"But that's so frustrating!!!! They could be done right now" the expert continued. "Well, fine I'm not watching this. I'm done. Oh, and also, wait, Mom it's not fair! It's not fair that later when they're tired of trying that I'm going to have to teach them!"
"Baby," I told them, "the great part is, you don't have to teach them now or then. Remember how important it is to always ask before giving advice? We all need space to figure things out. They aren't asking, so keep your thoughts to yourself. And, just because someone asks you to do something, you don't have to say 'yes' to everything. If they want your help later, and you aren't up for it — just tell them 'no.'"
To be honest, the ongoing sounds were boring a hole in my brain too, but I believe it's super important to protect space for experimenting, learning and creating. And what's crazy is how much all of this translates whether we're talking about keeping siblings from combusting — or about creating a safe space for sharing creativity.
If you were around during Lulu's first Kickstarter attempt, you might remember me talking about the pains our kids had in sharing their artwork and my own struggle to put my creative work out there. I no longer entirely feel like I got locked out of the house on the front porch in my underwear! So, I guess that's progress, right? Ha!
Uncovering our ideas, creations and dreams at any age leaves us vulnerable. But part of how Lulu learns to confront fear and self-doubt, and ultimately decides to bravely share her gifts, came in part through her friend's encouragement and stories. It also came in part through uncovering the truth that the critters who truly loved her were, in fact, a great place to unveil her gifts. This is a topic I care a lot about and thought some of you might have feedback for me on — so, here are the guidelines we have in place to keep our house a safe space to share creative work/ideas:
1 BE POSITIVE — Find one positive thing you can comment on about their work/idea
2 ASK BEFORE GIVING FEEDBACK — Find out where they're at before giving feedback — questions help.
Where are you at in the process?
Is this in-progress or do you consider this final?
Are you looking for feedback?
Do you just need some encouragement? etc
3 ASK QUESTIONS — When we're creating stuff, probing questions are one of the most helpful forms of critique we can give! We equip our kids to solve their own puzzles simply by helping to shed light on where the holes are.
What exactly did you mean when you had this character do/say this?
What are you hoping to communicate by using color this way?
If you really were to build that waterslide you just drew, what sort of support do you think it'd need?
These are the tip of the iceberg! Do you have any guidelines that you use at home, work or anywhere to create a safe space for sharing? If so, feel free to shoot me a message. I'd love to hear!
Thanks again to each and every one of you for continuing to back and share this project — moving another 6 bundles will help us hit our next stretch goal of adding those drawing prompt pages to the activity book and we have more than a week to do it. So, if you have someone in mind you'd like to share about Lulu with, now's a great time! I can't wait to see kiddos connect with Lulu — and you're making that possible. I'm so thankful!
