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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This has proven to be a really tough one with our kids. The only answer is to keep encouraging and praising as appropriate. It doesn't help when your child is the youngest in the class. Quite naturall, some kids take longer to adapt than some others. It's just their nature. Do what you can to boost their confidence.

Let them try a range of activities and see which they want to stick at.
Try and avoid the stereotypical activities such dancing for girls and martial arts for boys. My DS has done both and enjoyed them both.

I'm teaching my 7 year old guitar. He loves to watch AC/DC DVDs and listen to their CDs. Angus is his hero. This is his motivation which makes it easy for me to show him Angus' guitar licks. We do little bits at a time. Not whole songs, but there are lots of simple bits and sections in their music that are quite easy for a budding 7 year old guitar hero to pick up. I also tell him, that if bits are too hard, it doesn't matter because there is no pressure to get it right, but when he does, he feels on top of the world and will play all day long.

If they are nervous I encourage them as there is very little to be afraid of and if you don't try you won't succeed so there is no harm in giving things your best shot.

I think the All Stars Cricket scheme is a great idea. We have signed DD up for it (she is only four but will be five soon so they said she could join). My DH is really looking forward to taking he as he loves cricket.

I think opportunity is the best way to encourage children to do things and learn new skills - sign them up to let them try things. If they don't like it then that's fine but I love finding new things for my daughter to try out. This year she has done martial arts, tennis lessons and swimming lessons. We are an active family and she likes having her own activities to do.

I'm happy for my DD to try out new clubs and hobbies (as long as they're not too expensive, no horse-riding for us!) but don't want to push her as I don't think it's fair. She's a good swimmer but I don't want her to have to start early morning training sessions and competitions every weekend. She has other interests and wants to spend time with friends and family too.

I encourage her to try anything that school is offering, sports, music, gardening club etc. I am not pushy however and really make sure she knows it will be fun, if it's not then we don't do it again. She is a girly girl so wasn't interested in sports initially, though I've found cricket and rounders helped with coordination and balance enormously. We've been to the T20 at Hampshire to ease her gently into supporting it, I've always gone so it's something I'd like to encourage as a family

No pushy parenting here - we live an active lifestyle and they have gone through the 'rugby, netball, swimming' cycles - plus some! I just bite my tongue, get the gear, ferry them where needed and let them decide what they want to do!

Just try to encourage any activity also include friends and family it doesn't always workout we are all better and enjoy different things. Getting involved is the first step

I never have to push her to try new things or learn new skills, she's entirely proactive on that front. If she's read about it, she feels like she knows enough about it to give it her all! But then i get to the encouragement thing, reminding her it's all about the experience- everything is about the experience!! That's how you learn, by taking part.

My daughter has got into cricket through watching me umpire. She is keen on the indoor game as it's fast in the same way as T20 is. However her interest has also gone on to the Test Matches.

Players such as Lydia Greenway, Charlotte Edwards and Elise Perry (Australia) are a big influence.

More effort needs to be made to get cricket back on free to air TV so as she can watch her idols play.

As many PP have said; let them decide what they do and encourage them without pressure. And take an interest too, watch the sport at home and let them talk about it endlessly

Lots of praise for involvement. My eldest seems to respond best if I'm watching but silent. That way she doesn't feel any pressure but when she runs over saying "did you see me do xyz?!?!?!" I'm ready to be appropriately enthusiastic!

Making it fun and making sure kids make friends was always the best way when i coached juniors. The rest will follow with practice and good coaching.

Our LO is still quite wee - but we're picking up on things he shows an interest in & try to be led by him. He's showing an interest in gymnastics - we watched some footage of the men's floor routines & he was really into it! Daddy loves cricket & rugby - so he's been exposed to both from a very young age! We would both be happy to support LO in any sport - great for physical fitness obviously, but also teaches children to enjoy being part of a team, working together & appreciate the joys of winning, & the lessons in losing.

Sometimes it can be hard to motivate 4 year old dd but we try and join in as much as possible.

My daughter tends to get upset if she can't do something, so things like moving up a group at swimming lessons can be traumatic as obviously to start with she's the least good in the class. I do a lot of reminding her of things she couldn't do before but can now because she's practised - handstands at the bottom of the pool was a good recent example. I want learning new skills to be fun and I don't want to push her too hard, but equally I don't want her to give up at the first sign of something being challenging.

I encourage my children to try new activities e.g. after school clubs. We talk about these activities at home, our children 'teach' us and we practise at home. We congratulate them on persevering when they find things difficult and share times we have struggled to learn something new. We make their interests into family interests to show that they are valued.

I try to encourage my children to try new things and give them more than one go.
I'd love my son to get into cricket. I haven't put him in any cricket clubs as he hasn't shown a keen interest in it, but I might do if the price and timing was right.

I don't push anything on my 4 year old but I suggest things that he might enjoy doing based on what he naturally seems to lean towards. For instance he loved doing lots of bendy/flippy/rolly things so I took him to a gymnastics taster class and he's signed up to it because he loved it. I don't care if he ends up being any good at it though, I just think he'll find his 'thing' in his own way as long as we facilitate it.

I let my little girl know she should be doing something but let her choose what she does and then insist she goes each time

I try and do something with them :) get them to explore their own talents x

If they show an interest in any sport or activity I do my utmost to support by looking at joining local clubs etc. If they start something I would encourage them to give it a good go before deciding they want to give it up.

I can be quite pushy in getting some of mine to give something a try. When my eldest son was five he cried when we signed him up for football as he was nervous. We came to an agreement he could stop when he was six. He is now ten and football mad, playing three times a week.

Their school offers lots of things, so I would encourage them to try it for a term and they can drop it if they don't like it.

We are encouraging one of my sons to try cricket. His brother plays it weekly. We have promised him his dad will spend some time just with him talking him through the rules/showing him what to do first. This son is shy so takes encouragement to try things.

My daughter was always up for giving anything a go. Youngest boy does not enjoy clubs and will not have any of it. So what they need and expect is different for each child.

Sometimes clubs run activity trial sessions and I like to take advantage of these as they are often low costs or free. That way you can see if your DC might like it before booking a block of lessons or buying equipment. I agree with other posters that a hobby should be fun so I try not to push too hard or make a big 'thing' about it. I like the fact that they often make friends outside their school circle so I make more of that side of the activity to the DC. If they are having any friendship difficulties at school then there is another set of friends with shared interests. Praise and opportunities to practise and show off new skills to the wider family are also important in sustaining interest.