Category: Parenting

Encouraging imagination is important for kids’ mental growth, especially nowadays where information and entertainment are spoon-feed over screens. One of the fun ways to put our kids’ imagination into practice is through woodworking projects. It’s a balance between creativity and cognitive skills, plus kids are able to create something unique and personal.

Whether for home schooling or working on group projects in a school classroom, these ideas will challenge kids to stretch their brains as they think about making something original using mostly wooden objects. Kids may also be encouraged to search for wooden objects that could possibly work for their woodworking projects ideas.

Train and Tracks

We know how young kids love to play with trains – and this one is super easy to make. All you need are three wooden boxes, a wooden spool, and six pasta wagon wheels. But before going ahead with the assembly, let your little ones have a little fun with paint and ask them to color the blocks.

Once the blocks are nice and dry, use wood glue to attach the pieces together. Glue on the wooden spool to be the train engines smokestack. For the tracks, popsicle sticks on a piece of cardboard would do the trick!

Personalized Boxes

Adult supervision may still be needed for some easy wood projects for kids, especially those that require power tools.

If your little one wants to create a box for storing crayons, marbles, or any other personal items, he may need your hand in building one.

The box can be any size he wants – wider, taller, smaller, bigger. The lid could be sliding too. Kids would need wood, a pencil, tape measure, sandpaper, hand drill and assorted bits, speed square, and a saw for cutting the wood into the right pieces. If you want it to be simpler, you can also use wood glue to attach the pieces together.

Play Tent

Kids absolutely love the idea of building forts in the backyard. Like many woodworking projects, although larger than the previous ones, this one is a breeze to create. Built in just 10 minutes or less, your kids will be playing with their toys or reading books under the tent in no time!

You’d need four long pieces of wood (about 42” each), a long dowel piece, fabric, and drill. Note that the drill bit should match the dowel size for a secure fit. All it takes is drilling a hole on each end of the wood, inserting the dowel, attaching the fabric, and the tent is complete!

Robot Buddy

It’s more like creating a friend than just a simple wooden toy. For this project, you’d need an assortment of wooden blocks, heavy-duty string, wood glue, drill, and a wood burning pen.

Before you drill in the holes, make sure it’s a perfect match for the string size. The string should fit snugly inside.

Drill one hole in the head block and one in each limb block. The body block needs two holes on the side and two holes on the bottom, one for each hand and foot. Once the holes are ready, fill them with glue and stick in the strings using a nail.

Assembly takes a few minutes as you have to let the glue dry as well. Don’t forget carving the eyes and mouth with the woodburning pen. After that, your kid will now enjoy the companion of his robot buddy.

Benefits of Woodworking For Kids

Woodworking is a great physical activity. It will bring some benefits that go beyond the physical of kids.

• Develop good skills creativity
• Help build a positive mentally
• Teaching patience
• Help with mature emotional and communication

Kids’ woodworking projects are some exciting projects and easy to do. Also, if you spend time working out with kids on wood projects, they will get develop skills better with time. Eventually, they can do projects without any help.

There was a time when bullying was something we all had to endure in school, on the bus, and hanging out with friends. It was always unpleasant. The next generation, our children, have an even worse type of bullying to deal with… and it’s so much more common than what we suffered!

About CyberBullying

Remember how frustrating it was in school when somebody was upset and reacted passive aggressively, usually by spreading a rumor? How the victim of a bully (maybe it was you, maybe it was one of your friends) would feel singled out, how hard it was to go to school and deal with the drama.

Your children deal with passive aggressive bullying all the time… because the internet brings out the passive aggressive in almost every young person. From shy kids to the straight forward, outspoken kid… cyberbullying can happen by accident. But as you remember about being the victim of a bully… the wounds never heal.

What’s even worse about cyberbullying is this. When a direct conflict among friends is resolved, you can forget and forgive the hurtful things that were said. However, you can never erase them from the internet.

With that in mind, it’s important to be very sensitive when talking about cyberbullying with your child. And yes, if your kid is using the internet than you do need to talk about this!

Teaching Your Child How To Not Be a CyberBully

As mentioned before, the internet brings out certain behaviors in young folk. Of course, your child knows not to pick on somebody in person, but do they know not to rant and rave on social media when what they say could unintentionally hurt somebody else?  You may discover they are participating in cyberbullying, even if the catalyst for it is succumbing to peer pressure and following the crowd.

Watch for passive aggressive behaviors, and teach your children to face their problems (directly) rather than taking their frustrations out on others.

If your child is 13 or younger, you should have their social media log in info, and don’t share the password with your child. This way, you can easily check in on them and you can also protect your child from being the victim of a “hacker” cyberbully by preventing anyone else from finding out how to log into their account.

Cyberbullying is even more common with older teenagers (age 14-18), especially when they have a smartphone that allows them to post on impulse. Teach them to think before they post, and make sure they understand how important it is to never post anything that could hurt somebody else… or could come back to haunt them.

Bullying and Addiction

Addiction in children has many root causes, including trauma.  It’s not always the case but when studying people who suffer with an addiction, more of those people have some level trauma in their past history or current situation than those who don’t.  Bullying at school or even at home, as well as cyberbullying through social media, can most certainly cause trauma and greatly hinder the emotional well being of a child.  The earlier it happens, the more damage can be done.  Regardless of age, kids are developing mentally and emotional well into their early twenties so a parent should not take lightly the effects a bully can have at any age.

Whether the bullying is physical, verbal or social, a turn to addiction or to any destructive behavior can happen at any time and can be a sign of something going on that the parent is not aware of.  If you notice that something is troubling your child, gently seek answers from them in order to seek solutions.  There is help from those where the major cause of addiction has been a result of bullying.  Even if you only have a vague idea of what may be wrong, seek help from a school counsellor or a professional within your community.

What To Do If Your Child is the Victim of a CyberBully

Be the parent that a child can feel comfortable talking to if they are being harassed or directly attacked online. Be kind and understanding, and be sensitive to their needs. The rest is really up to you, as a parent.

If the harassment is severe enough, you can involve other authorities (the school or the police.) As you may remember, this could backfire on your child so it shouldn’t be your first choice. One needs to evaluate closely determine the immediate and long term effects of the bullying your child is enduring.  If the bullying has started over personal drama, discuss with your child whether or not they should confront the person in real life and come to a resolution. Do not “feed the trolls” or respond to cyberbullying online… bring it back to real world interaction.

To protect your child from becoming the victim of a cyberbully, encourage them to make friends with other children who are kind and respectful. Teach your children that friends who are always “surrounded by drama” can be dangerous… you never know when you’ll get sucked into it!

What can a child or teen do to empower themselves against a cyber bully? Have them read our article on CyberBullying: for Kids and Teens.

Bullying in School and on the Playground

While cyberbullying can be much more invasive by allowing bullies to virtually enter your home and harass your child online, we must not forget about traditional bullying in school hallways, the lunchroom, on the playground.

Whether ‘on’ or offline, parents who know the signs of bullying in their child’s behavior can be proactive no matter what form it takes.

Here are the red flags to look for and what to do with aid your bullied child.

This infographic was created by Kids Car Donations, a local car donation

Common Signs Your Child Might Be Getting Bullied