How New Projects Build Confidence in a Child

Miss T and I spent Friday after school making high heel cupcake for her ninth birthday party. A fairly complicated project, it took us until dinnertime to finish.

From crafts to cooking, we’ve embarked on many projects together since she was three. And it occurred to me that mastering new projects is a great way to build confidence in a child.

Today’s post isn’t a lesson on making cupcake shoes. The idea is from the wildly creative team of Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. If you follow “Call Me Grandma!” you know I’m a huge fan. The instructions for the cupcakes can be found in the book, “Cupcakes, Cookes & Pie, Oh, My!” (c 2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.)

Instead, my post is about how to plan such project and the benefits it can provide if you want to build confidence in a child.

Build Confidence in a Child with New Projects

The goal is to ensure a successful result from projects, under your guidance.

• First, assess the child’s abilities. Plan new projects to fit the child’s current capabilities, then gradually increase the complexity so they have to stretch. Miss T has always had good fine motor skills. So, building confidence in this child through craft and food projects is easier with her, since she is likely to succeed faster, without getting frustrated.

• Second, you, yourself, need to have the skills to be able to do the project, to ensure that you can guide the process to completion.
• Break down the project into its component parts and decide if there is any prep work you should do in advance. You don’t want the child to be bogged down in an activity that knows no end.
• To determine how much to prep, consider each step and determine if there’s a learning component to it that you want the child to master. If not, it may be better to do that work in advance, so you can get right to the fun part.
• Make sure you have all the ingredients and tools needed before you start.
• Finally, if the project doesn’t turn out as you had imagined, don’t be critical; just appreciate the effort.

How I Broke Down the Cupcake Project

Having read the instructions in advance, I knew there were many steps. 1) Bake the cupcakes. 2) Cut graham crackers to form the soles of the shoes and dip them in candy melts. 3) Cut the chocolate cookie sticks in half and angle the cut. 4) Frost the cupcakes and roll the tops in decorating sugar. 5) Cut out the vamp of the shoes. 6) Assemble the shoes . 7) Decorate.

That’s a lot to do and it’s hard maintain a child’s interest for such a long period. So, I made the cupcakes in advance, using my favorite easy recipe, The Best One-Bowl Chocolate Cake from the book, Sinfully Easy and Delicious Desserts by the phenomenal Alice Medrich (c 2012, Artisan).

I also determined that there wasn’t anything particular to learn from making the graham cracker shoe soles, so I did them also in advance. And I cut the cookie sticks so we’d be ready to begin.

I saved the fun part for Miss T, staring at step 6, when we would begin to assemble the high heel shoes and decorate them.

Setting up the Workstation

I grouped all the sprinkles on one quarter sheet pan and all the candy decorations on another so we would have everything we needed at hand, neatly sorted.

When Miss T arrived after school, we got to work! We followed the instructions, step by step. Any time the going seemed difficult, I would take on the task myself. But at each such juncture, Miss T would ask, “Grandma, can I do that, too?”

Miss T wanted to use the paring knife to trim the excess candy melts from the graham crackers. She wanted to cut away the part of the cupcake to make the vamp of the shoe. Then she wanted to assemble a shoe herself, which takes a bit of dexterity.

I never caution her that a task is too hard for her to do or that she’s too young to do it. It’s important to always let her try, unless the activity is actually dangerous–this is how you build confidence in a child. I knew that if she wasn’t up to the task, I could always take back the work and reassure her that she just needs more practice. But each time, to my amazement, Miss T accomplished each step perfectly.

What She Learned from this Project

Projects such as this are great fun to do together, and we were blown away by the results. According to Miss T’s dad, “The kids at the party were super impressed and wondered how the cupcakes were made. Everyone was quick to pick their color.”

Finally, here are the extra benefits–beyond having created the best-ever birthday party cupcakes:

• Mastering such challenging projects builds confidence in a child. It instills in her that she is a capable person. And if she is capable of doing this project, she’ll be primed for the next challenge that comes her way.
• Making the high heel cupcakes is a creative act. She determines what type of sprinkles to use and what colors work best together.
• Reading is a gateway to learning. Miss T was tasked with reading the instructions out loud to guide us through the project.
• Miss T also learns by watching what I do. She sees me take a skewer to remove small bits of frosting to clean up a shoe. She learns to be exacting; to do good work. It instills high standards.

By enabling her to try different things and by being there to support her if she needs help, Miss T gains confidence that grooms her for success. I see this child growing more capable every day and she has full faith that she can accomplish anything she sets out to do.

In any case, these projects are wonderful bonding moments–grandma and granddaughter working together to build enduring memories of a lifetime.

Grandma Note:

While this is a single, self-contained baking activity, you can include this project in a more comprehensive summer vacation activity program for the grandkids.

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