Find Yourself Wanting to “Fix” Your Students’ Creations? (Help inside!)

This blog is a bit of a reflective one.

Before you read on I want you to ponder these two questions:

⭐ Do you battle to LET GO of control when crafting with kids and find yourself wanting to “fix” their creations?

⭐ Do you have a child or student who struggles with perfectionism?

Okay, we’ll get back to that... Let’s back up to the mid-eighties for a moment:

As a kid I was free and wild. Spontaneity fitted me like a glove…

I made mud baths, chased pigeons and my hands (and let’s be honest) my face was constantly covered with paint!

My nickname was “Nina in die bos”, which roughly translates to “Free forest child”. 


(👆🏼Yup, that’s me and my siblings’ mud bath shenanigans!)

Fast forward to adult and motherhood… I'm pretty much still the same, minus the mud baths (unless I'm at a spa ;-)).

So with this in mind you can probably imagine how I reacted the first time THESE things happened in the early years of teaching arts and crafts to kids:

• A mom (attending a class with her daughter) turning over a page because her 2 year old scribbled on it and “messed it up”
• A 5 year old crying because another child accidentally splashed paint on her project
• A grandmother completely TAKING OVER and giving her grandchild a snack to keep her busy whilst she completed the child's craft on her own
• A 9 year old asking me to do his project FOR him (because then it will be “perfect”) and then breaking down when I encouraged him to rather give it a go himself

To say the least - The “free forest child” in me was completely out of her depth!

And I needed help!

I was lucky enough to have a dear friend (an Occupational and Play Therapist) who I could consult.

She gave me fantastic PRACTICAL advice on managing controlling adults and perfectionism in kids.

This advice was so effective that it has become CORE to how we teach as well as our Creative Crafting Club lesson structure.

Since we’ve been getting a lot of questions related to this topic we thought there would be huge value in doing a series to talk about it with an expert…

Occupational and Play Therapist, Marlene van den Berg, joined me for a LIVE 4-part series titled 'How to Let Go and Manage Perfectionism when Crafting With Kids (and the harm if you don't)'. 

Click on the links below to watch the episodes:

1. What the HARM is to children if parents/ teachers don’t learn to let go
2. WHY we as parents or teachers struggle to let go
3. How parents and teachers can learn to LET GO of control and perfectionism when creating with kids
4. How you can help your perfectionist or anxious child or student to let go and the huge BENEFIT thereof!

If you’ve ever struggled with letting go of creative control or perfectionism or have a child that does, then this series is a must-watch!

"Forest child" out,
Christelle
XO