Folks, I have to announce the arrival of my first child, a lovely little girl. My wife has lots of DIY lined up for me - changing nappies myself, wiping up sick, etc.
Cheers, Simon.
Congratulations!
Do what we did - give them real tools (NOT toy ones), suitably sized for little hands, and show them how to do things with them. Both son and daughter are good with DIY.
Congratulations :-)
No, the list gets longer :-)
Those small hands are handy for collecting the pingfuckit from under the kitchen unit where your fat hands can't reach. Get them helping early :-)
Darren
Make a mobile to go over the cot by hanging a variety of hammers and spanners there.
Colin Bignell
In message , sm_jamieson writes
Congratulations:-)
I hope mother and babe are doing well.
Huh! Once used cots/push chairs/toys/etc. will come flying through your door from friends and rellies. Each one needing a few special bolts/pins/latches that the previous user has mislaid.
Current experience is grandchildren. One of whom thinks the house French drain gravel is an ideal toy: to be put in piles on the patio, used to fill any nearby plant pot or carried around in her trolley. Possible builder aged 2.5?
Congratulations.
Depends. My brother took a week off work when his daughter was born. He knocked out and fitted a door between the dining room and kitchen that week.
And why should she not be interested in DIY - the gf is a qualified welder.
Congrats. Time to throw the TV set out, and investigate a plethora of books recently published "how to bring up a geek child". Have music, books and art/DIY materials readily available - and try and avoid the society stereotypes that expect girls to play with dolls, boys with angle grinders etc. By three, she should be coding in Python....
A role model :
On Monday 14 October 2013 18:12 ARW wrote in uk.d-i-y:
From me too... Yes - they suck your time - but not as much as when they are 10 - so FFS do everything now!
My dauhgter *can* do stuff. However she's not hugely interested - but if I make it worth her while, she is willing and competant.
Son (8) is far more enthusiastic - and despite being accident prone[1], he is very careful when he is on a job. He helped me staple down UFH pipe the other day...
Children are also good for sending under the floor to pull in cables (saving my bad knees) ;)
SteveW
+1
Grandfather got me a set of [real] tools in a leather roll, at probably around age 8 or so. One of the best presents I ever had.
+2. I still have two pairs of small pliers and a toolbox which my father bought me on successive birthdays and Xmas starting when I was about 7.
In article , sm_jamieson scribeth thus
Dunno!, but one word of advice from an olde dad is to enjoy the happiness they bring as much as you and your lady can, because it don't seem to last 5 minutes before there're leaving home;!..
Congratulations young sir.
No! In my personal experience, you'll be a lot busier with the DiY as she gets older (at least I was between her mothers projects, her own and my sons through the years).
If my daughter's anything to go by, you can start building the extra bench and buying the overalls and tool kit for her (daughter was around three when she showed an interest in what I was doing, and that's when I started teaching her the correct way to use the smaller 'safe' tools). She's now well into her 40s and still into small joinery, building maintenance, motor vehicle and small appliance repairs (and puts her brothers to shame now and again).
In fact, she uses my workshop more than me these days - and she's now helping to teach my young grand-children.
Ah! One small piece of advice, assemble a first aid kit, keep it in a handy place (away from little fingers though) and learn how to use it - you'll need it, that's for sure. :-)
All the best to you and your family for the future Simon.
Cash
Congrats. For when she's a couple of years older just be aware of the dangers of looped blind cords (and a hundred other things!)
Many congratulations, may all your problems be little ones.
At age of about 4 my daughter toddled into workshop and said 'Daddy wossa screwmedown an wossa spaniard'.
We sat on the floor and she drew with pencil the outlines of a London pattern screwdiver and a nice old Whitworth spanner onto a piece of paper and proudly toddled off to show mummy. Mummy kept the bit of paper. Her interest continued. 2 or 3 years later she made a mitred frame for that old bit of paper. With a bit of assistance naturally. This is now displayed on her own workshop wall. That was nigh on 30 years ago. 2yo granddaughter seems to be of a similar vein. Our children are on loan to us. We have the privilege of teaching them about life, love and responsibility. It might sound a simple philosophy but it encompasses everything and puts our role in perspective.
Good luck and best wishes, Nick.
What I want to know, is whether you Did-It-Yourself, or got a man in....
In message , Andrew Gabriel writes
The best present I ever had was a Junior Hacksaw, again, around 8. Unfortunately we were on holiday at the time and I was bursting to get home so I could put it to work:-)
>
Hear, hear. Bringing up a child is not just a case of plonking it down in front of the telly, feeding and cleaning.
I'd say read to her every night from now, simple books with bright pictures. Make books and reading a natural part of everyday life. If some one has difficulty reading, a lot of the world and its knowledge is simply inaccessible, a closed book. Talk to them as well, about anything, almost a running commentary about what you are doing, no need to dumb things down, they are learning sponges and soak up everything wether it makes sense or not, it will later. And try not to show your deep disappointment when she shows no inclination for DIY, she is an individual and will carve her own path. All you can do is try and steer her along a good an successful one, what ever it turns out to be.
And be ready to be challenged, if people think the "terrible twos" are bad wait until she is 15 or 16, articulate, strong minded and even when arguing that white is black, *never* *ever* wrong.
But called a "wheredego" in the presence of little ones. B-)
We also have the privilege of witnessing the miracle of a child learning to speak. Endlessly fascinating. My 2 year old granddaughter is jabbering away in English and German equally, and a little friend of hers is having to tackle Rumanian and Greek. Suggests that the brain peaks early and it's all downhill from there :-) You can't put a price on the experience, so I'd rather be skint than miss any of it. I must say I'm enjoying it more the second time around though
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