Originally Posted by Prashun Patel
For my son, there's been a few instances lately where I had to take back an assigned task (such as driving in some screws) in order to get a job done in a timely fashion. I noticed a twinge of hurt feelings the last couple times this happened - he's starting to be a young man and I sense he wants to "live up to" some mythical standard. Anyways, seized the moment by developing this challenge.
He stepped into the challenge with typical teenager energy and a bit of "know-it-all-ism"... and was immediately stumped on the first page of the instructions... which he had not read carefully enough. He appeared flustered and a bit embarrassed at first.
I sat with him, went through the instructions with him, gave him some additional pointers... and he got it. I could see that he realized this was not a piece of cake challenge, and that it would take him awhile.
He's about 4 hours into the challenge now, with probably another 2 hours to go. The remaining steps are somewhat easier than the earlier steps.
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For my daughter... she's my mini-me. She shoots a basketball like me (ball goes SWISH), has my same sense of humor, struggles with the same temper, and she loves to build stuff. So this is all working in our favor (except the temper piece).
PLUS... anything her brother does, she wants to do better. :-) Hence my "GIRL POWER" note above.
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Also, thanks for the other ideas above too! Great ones to add to the list... I remember my grandfather had a bar of soap carved into a fish shape that he used to lubricate screws. I asked him "did you carve it like a fish for any reason specifically?" and he said he hadn't carved it all... he'd just waxed so many screws that it wore through a few spots.. in other words, it was just natural wear/tear that somehow luckily made the bar of soap look somewhat fish-like.
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