Share your tips on encouraging your children to learn new skills with the England and Wales Cricket Board - £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

As we know, children are constantly acquiring new skills and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are now launching their All Stars Cricket initiative, to ensure that children are learning sport and social skills across the UK. To help celebrate this, they’d love to hear your tips on how you encourage your DCs to always be learning new skills.

Here’s what the ECB have to say: ‘All Stars Cricket is a brand new initiative from the England and Wales Cricket Board aimed at providing children aged 5 to 8 with a great first experience in cricket. The programme is delivered across England and Wales at over 1,500 fully accredited All Stars Cricket centres. It is a fun and active way to develop your child’s skills, and through our 8-week programme they will learn lots – as well as make new friends – in a safe and inclusive environment. All girls and boys are welcome, and each registered child will receive a pack of cricket goodies including a cricket bat, ball, backpack, water bottle, personalised shirt and cap to keep so that they can continue their love of cricket when they go home.’

So how do you inspire your DC to start learning a new skill, and make sure they persevere and don’t give up? Do you make sure your kids join teams and group activities where they can be motivated by their peers? Or maybe they’re encouraged to keep trying by you always making sure to attend their events and competitions?

Whatever your techniques for making your kids feel like they can do anything if they keep practicing, share them with ECB in the thread below for your chance to win a £300 voucher of your choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

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We try to find a local group or classes related to a new skill they want to learn - there is almost always something on offer within travelling distance. For a few activities like ballet and cricket we're lucky enough to have a relative or family friend who worked professionally in those fields so we organised a taster day with them which was really inspiring for the dc.

Lead and be an example! I have flown on the zip wire above the Eden Project for Mother's Day and this weekend, mum and dad are busy body boarding in the 5 degree Ocean... I hope that what we are showing is: face your fears, go for things in life, achieve, grow and have fun. Young children learn from their parents first, we want to equip them with the confidence and self respect, ready to take on anything that life will throw at them.

My Uni friend is a registered coach at ACC, he basic advice wrt cricket was see ball - hit ball and throw with one (hand), catch with two. I use that advice wrt my DC although he hasn't taken to cricket, but he has to tennis (which has a lot of transferable skills sets). He has seen both sides of the argument, pushy parents and skilled kids who are lazy and need a kick up the backside. I don't have that sense with my own child to judge that well enough, so just tend to do the Indian Grandma technique (be in awe of everything I get shown wrt ability and talent).

I'm not sure it is always a good idea to push your children into sticking with things and persevering with skills. It can cause a situation where they are unable to deal with it when they can't master something. Success is as much about learning from your mistakes and failing to master something is okay, it doesn't mean you are a failure. My daughter, who is just about to take GCSEs was quite upset recently after being lectured to by a school friend who insisted that any mark less than 100% should be viewed as failure. I explained that this spoke volumes about the household in which this girl had grown up.

We encouraged our children to try new things when they were at primary school - all 3 had swimming lessons, went to gymnastics and had tennis lessons. Our daughters both did ballet and had tap lessons for a while, our son went to karate, cricket and football. They've also been kayaking and can all dive. We let them try whatever we could fit in time wise, it gives you confidence when you know you can do physical things and that is very important. My daughters both learned to wakeboard on holiday last year and my younger daughter plays a sport at a high level (beyond county). She has stuck at it, playing in all weather conditions and attending pre and post school practices.

My husband & I are both active, we've both taken part in running races and I swam at county level when I was at school.

By encouraging them and not pressuring them so that they have fun .

I find the best way is to make it fun, join in and offer lots of encouragement.

i try to encourage their hobbies by introducing them to clubs and getting them to socialise with other members however i dont push them to do things they dont like!

For DS who has autism, it's all about small staged goals and clear, brief instructions.
He really struggles with group and team sports because he finds the environment and competition elements challenging. He really enjoys one to one coaching to build confidence and enable him to focus.

Luckily, my son is a natural "joiner in", though this does not mean he is good at everything, or is an able athlete. He chooses activities that he thinks he will enjoy,and is currently a member of a climbing club, debating society, digital tech group, is a school librarian and theatre technician. I think he also gravitates more towards the leaders of the clubs and who participates, which helps with the "persevering" aspect, though if he talks about leaving, I usually set a target date (e.g. Half term) and nine times out of ten he has changed his mind by then and wants to stay!

I remind them of how difficult something was in the past or how nervous they were before trying something new and then talk about how they felt afterwards. I encourage a sense of pride in overcoming difficulties to achieve things, rather than being good at everything.

Plus, the thought of getting a certificate always motivates my two!

We try out a lot of activities but I don't force them to continue if they don't enjoy it.

I don't think children should be pushed, only encouraged. Give them the opportunity to try new things, let them know that they will need to keep practising something if they want to improve and be there to support them if they need help or want motivation.

We encourage them to join and do things that they are interested in so they are more likely to keep it up. My son was always interested in Martial arts so joined karate. We go to watch him every week so he can see we are interested too and we tell him.how well he is doing. We practise with him at home as well. When he passes grading he takes his certificate and belt into school to show his classmates.

I think being up for trying out new things is a good thing - but as parents we need to model it ourselves. It's no good expecting our kids to try all kinds of stuff if we just sit on the sofa watching Netflix (or mumsnet ting....) I'm not brilliant at taking this advice but I am trying.

The other thing we've always done is be reAlly positive about them trying out pretty much any activity they fancy /opportunity that arises but the deal is they have to give it a proper go. So they have to commit to doing it for a full term but if at the end of giving it a proper go, they really don't think it's for them, then they can drop it (only exception here was swimming lessons - they had to learn to a level where they were a strong swimmer but after that it was up to them - one carried on and learnt diving, the other just swims for fun now)

Letting them choose the activity they want to do, giving them taster sessions of some of their choices and then making sure they attend and try their best.

I tell my daughter that bravery is something she can grow by doing things she's scared of. We tap her chest where she feels the fear and talk about building the bravery right there.
She often loves the idea of trying new things, but can be intimidated when it comes to the day... which is why we do this. I also tell her about times I have been scared and overcome it, and remind her of times she has been scared and overcome it too.
When she experiences the exhilaration of doing something new and enjoying it, I get excited with her and talk about it so I can remind her next time.
For me, it's not about her being the best at sport or winning. I just want her to feel confident in her body and what it can do. I'm crap at sport, uncomfortable in a gym environment and too embarrassed to try new physical activities. I don't want her to have the same experience, or to know that is how I feel.

rewards charts

My children are adult now. I always encouraged them by attending competitions, shows etc., often driving them to competitions a couple of hours drive away, but I would never force them to carry on with something they were fed up with.

We have to make sure my 7 y.o. isn't in a situation where someone else is telling him what to do, because he will instantly feel he can't do it, and he's a failure. He needs to practice and have a go at playing with no-one else apart from family around, and then he'll have the confidence to have a go. He loves sports, but I'm sure that if he joined a club, he'd very soon want to give up as he is too much of a perfectionist to be able to cope with not being very good compared with other people.

His social skills with peers are not that great, but he finds it easier to get on with adults, which may be a factor.

i encourage them by finding out whatever is their passion and pursuing them but not encouraging them in hobbies they have little interest in

My kids all love trying new things

Easter clubs are perfect for this. Try something new

Multi sport camps are a great way of letting kids try new sports they wouldn't necessarily think of.
My son recently has enjoyed dodgeball , originally by a multi sports camp and then I looked for a dodgeball camp. The key is to never push kids to do things they don't want to. Let them choose their activities

i dont believe in forcing children to join clubs . My eldest daughter wanted to go dancing which we took her to but she got fed up with it after a few months. All my children have enjoyed swimming classes and clubs .

i always encourage them to sign upto one after school club that they would normally not do. this way they try something new.