Episode Thirty Eight: Teach Them A Chore

Hi again Team!

Wow, I've been meaning to do this idea for a long time now but have never got around to writing about it. I don't know if you're anything like me - but if you are, the images below make you feel a certain way. Like a father teaching his son to shave, something about letting your kid push the lawnmower around just pulls at the manly heart strings. Manly ones, of course. I'm not really that sort of guy but there's something about the noise, the petrol fumes and the danger that makes me love pushing the lawnmower around the yard. To share that with my middle boy is a dream come true.

First I should make two disclaimers: One) We borrowed this lawnmower and it was the quietest lawnmower I've ever heard, which is why neither of us are wearing hearing protection in these photos. Please use common sense when letting your children use machinery. Two) We had to borrow this lawnmower because we have people mow our lawns on a fortnightly basis for us. It was just that with the Christmas holidays they were on a break and our lawn needed doing.

I knew as soon as I ripped the cord on the mower that my son would come running out asking if he could have a go. He's only five but I thought with some supervision and instruction it would be no problem and I knew he would enjoy it so much. So away we went! I got him started on the grass strip down the centre of our driveway and then I turned the mower off. I talked him through all the parts of the mower and also lifted it up and showed him the blade and explained why he should never, ever put his hand in or under there. I then told him the story of the one-armed lawnmower repairman who lived in my town when I was growing up. True fact! 

From there we got the mower started and away he went. Sure, mowing the lawns isn't a chore we do ourselves but it is something that contributes to making our house look good and function well. There are so many things that we as caregivers do to keep the house running. There is something to be said about introducing these to your children. They don't have to take them on straight away, but an awareness of them is a healthy thing. I certainly don't want to raise children who think the toilet cleans itself or expects clean washing to just appear in their drawers.

It's really hard to know when you should get your children contributing to the household jobs and what you should give them. I'm really interested to hear what your children do and at what age. For comparison to my own children, mainly. I grew up having to do a lot for myself and I'm often stuck between wanting to pass on that same skill set but also allow them to have a easier upbringing than I did. Very hard to find the balance, don't you think?

Have fun!

Episode Twenty Four: Rakau Kanikani

The other weekend our family went to the Gypsy Fair which was visiting town. Amongst all the stalls was a stand that was selling 'Devil Stick's. I have never really been a fan of the term Devil Stick as it makes zero sense to me. Either way, my boys asked me if I knew how to use them and it turns out I did because we used to make them when I was little. Here's how:

For this idea you will need some bamboo (you will need probably need a couple of metres - if you can get it all the same sort of width/thickness that would be ideal), old car tyre tubes, insulation tape, a staple gun, scissors, a hand saw and a hammer.

You will need to cut three lengths of bamboo. The two 'handle' sticks, about 400mm in length and similar widths (as demonstrated above) and the 'dancing' stick which should be thicker if possible and about 500mm. Using a saw or loppers or whatever tool suits, cut off and spurs which are sticking out. You want to have a pretty smooth surface but still allowing for the natural shape of the bamboo with it's nodes. With the dancing stick, you can decorate it with the insulation tape. Near the middle of the stick get your kids to choose what colours they want to wrap around it for decoration.

The next job is a bit of a bugger but it has to be done. Cut your tyre tube width ways; either side of the valve is best as you can't use the valve or surrounding parts. Then cut off two widths at 100mm wide and put them aside for later. Then start cutting your tube into strips lengthwise about half an inch wide (sorry to go from metric to imperial measurements). This is time consuming and each strip needs to be as long and as straight as possible. You're going to be pulling on these strips so any nicks or cuts won't do.

Next up you want to get a handle stick and staple the beginning of a strip of tyre tube to the top of it (you may need to hammer in the staple if the rubber is particularly thick) and wrap the rubber around itself once before wrapping it down the length of the stick in a diagonal pattern. Your dancing stick will grip on to the rubber on the handles and it will be a lot more effective if you're able to overlap the rubber on itself a little - about 5mm. Once you have wrapped it all the way down to the other end of the stick, staple it to the bamboo, wrap it around itself, staple again and cut off any excess. If your length of rubber is too short to reach the end? No dramas - just staple the end of the first length to the beginning of another length and keep wrapping it around the handle. Repeat the process for the other handle.

For the 'dancing' stick you want to do a similar thing but first we are going to use the widths of rubber we put aside earlier. Cut each one in half width ways and (as modelled above) make incisions about half an inch width-ways but don't cut all the way through - making a fringe type thingy-ma-jig. You'll need two of these to wrap around either end of the dancing stick. Staple the uncut (or in tact) portion of the rubber on to the end of the bamboo: these almost act as fingers which grab on to the handles and keep the dancing stick in the air for longer (check out the picture below to see what I'm going on about). Once you've stapled the two frilly parts to either end start wrapping another strip of rubber down the length of the bamboo. This time, instead of overlapping the rubber, leave a gap about 5mm thick and as you reach the middle of the stick you can increase the gap to 10mm so that you can see the colours of the insulation tape - then decrease to 5mm until you reach the other end of the bamboo.

Once all that is done - you're finished! It's pretty late as I'm writing this and I'm reading back on it really wondering if any of it makes sense at all. I hope it does. If not, I'm sure there are thousands of tutorials online that may explain it better or you can ask for help in the comment section or on our Facebook page. Now what? You have this set of rakau kanikani (or dancing sticks) and now you need to learn how to use them. Here is a tutorial for your convenience:

What did we learn? First of all I learnt to move my hand out of the way when I'm sawing and not cut my finger (the hard way). Secondly I learnt that tyre shops don't have so many tyre tubes hanging around these days. My children also learnt the value of team work and following instructions. However, the biggest take away lesson we got from this idea is that it's very hard to pick up something like a dancing stick or juggling balls and be good at it first go. This is super frustrating but a good lesson to learn. Things like these take time to learn and years to master. 

Have Fun!