Kids Projects

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is SO MUCH of this stuff in the first four years of life. Just how many hand prints with cute sayings do you want to hang in your house, nannies?

I'd be more likely to keep more of it if there were one project a month, not 10.

Keeping one a month would be an improvement. My youngest charge is now going to school, but even as a toddler, he would take things to his room to hide so he would have them later (until mom or dad found 1, then they would search the whole room and throw them out). My oldest charge doesn’t care about how the finished product looks anymore, because she knows it won’t be kept anyway.

It’s not about how things look or how many kids make. They know when their efforts are appreciated and when their efforts aren’t valued at all.

Meh, my kids had a tendency to forget what they had done after they showed it to us that night. I'd let it stay up for a day or two and then take it down and store it for a week or so to see if they asked about it. They never did, not once, and then I'd secretly throw out the things that weren't worth saving and put the others into a storage box. We do the same with birthday cards, whatever. I HATE stuff lying around and hanging on the fridge but I'll deal with it for a short period of time if it's something that means something to them. But 99.9% of the time, once it got hung up they never mentioned it again.

At least you keep it for a day or 2. This family in particular throws it away, literally right away- the glue is still drying.

When they’re in school it’s a little different because 9/10 the art work is hung up for weeks at a time, so when parents are taking weeks maybe months worth of art work, I don’t expect them to hang or keep it. But to literally throw it out the same day is a slap in the face. And I’m not talking about hand prints or free painting.

Buy a binder to keep the art in and let the kid look through it when she wants, then. Sorry, I'm skeptical that the child is so broken-hearted about this. I think it's the nanny who wants her hard work appreciated, and finds the artwork more meaningful than it is.

It’s defiently not about the nanny wanting her work appreciated, at least not me personally. I may cut it out, lay out the materials and give direction, but the finished product is done by the kid(s). Since I’ve been a teacher over 10 years and just became a nanny, I didn’t realize how quickly parents throw away projects. That’s all.

You're still missing the point. YOU saw the process, worked on it with the kid, discussed how cute it was, etc., etc.. That is 90% of the meaningfulness of the project. ESPECIALLY the ones where you cut out the flower petals and then the kid glues them on or whatever. Without the process part, it's a not-very-appealing piece of gluey paper. I have one artsy kid whose projects even as a toddler showed some personality. I kept those. I kept projects that were unique, or just appealed to me for some reason for all of my kids (a big sunflower, a mosaic fish, paper plate ducks). I did make an effort to decorate their spaces with some of their art (the playroom, not their rooms) and I would encourage you to do the same, but, to tell the truth, I did it as much to make my nanny feel good as for the kids. I made different kinds of memories with the kids at that age, sometimes projects of our own. The paper assembly stuff, the painting project, plaster project ... didn't mean much to me.

And, I know you don't believe us, but I can attest to what the PP said: they never ask about them once they're gone. Not once. They are happy with the initial reaction, and then that's it. If your charge is sad, it's because you're asking about what happened to their projects.

I’ve seen kids run to their parents to show them their work. Do those parents go home and throw it in the trash? Again, it’s a simple questions from my observation. And why would I ask a child about art work that I know a parent through away?

Yes. Or more likely, they do what I do, and put it on a counter where it quickly gets covered up with other piles of stuff and it gets thrown away the night before a party when I finally get around to cleaning it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is SO MUCH of this stuff in the first four years of life. Just how many hand prints with cute sayings do you want to hang in your house, nannies?

I'd be more likely to keep more of it if there were one project a month, not 10.

Keeping one a month would be an improvement. My youngest charge is now going to school, but even as a toddler, he would take things to his room to hide so he would have them later (until mom or dad found 1, then they would search the whole room and throw them out). My oldest charge doesn’t care about how the finished product looks anymore, because she knows it won’t be kept anyway.

It’s not about how things look or how many kids make. They know when their efforts are appreciated and when their efforts aren’t valued at all.

Meh, my kids had a tendency to forget what they had done after they showed it to us that night. I'd let it stay up for a day or two and then take it down and store it for a week or so to see if they asked about it. They never did, not once, and then I'd secretly throw out the things that weren't worth saving and put the others into a storage box. We do the same with birthday cards, whatever. I HATE stuff lying around and hanging on the fridge but I'll deal with it for a short period of time if it's something that means something to them. But 99.9% of the time, once it got hung up they never mentioned it again.

At least you keep it for a day or 2. This family in particular throws it away, literally right away- the glue is still drying.

When they’re in school it’s a little different because 9/10 the art work is hung up for weeks at a time, so when parents are taking weeks maybe months worth of art work, I don’t expect them to hang or keep it. But to literally throw it out the same day is a slap in the face. And I’m not talking about hand prints or free painting.

Buy a binder to keep the art in and let the kid look through it when she wants, then. Sorry, I'm skeptical that the child is so broken-hearted about this. I think it's the nanny who wants her hard work appreciated, and finds the artwork more meaningful than it is.

It’s defiently not about the nanny wanting her work appreciated, at least not me personally. I may cut it out, lay out the materials and give direction, but the finished product is done by the kid(s). Since I’ve been a teacher over 10 years and just became a nanny, I didn’t realize how quickly parents throw away projects. That’s all.

You're still missing the point. YOU saw the process, worked on it with the kid, discussed how cute it was, etc., etc.. That is 90% of the meaningfulness of the project. ESPECIALLY the ones where you cut out the flower petals and then the kid glues them on or whatever. Without the process part, it's a not-very-appealing piece of gluey paper. I have one artsy kid whose projects even as a toddler showed some personality. I kept those. I kept projects that were unique, or just appealed to me for some reason for all of my kids (a big sunflower, a mosaic fish, paper plate ducks). I did make an effort to decorate their spaces with some of their art (the playroom, not their rooms) and I would encourage you to do the same, but, to tell the truth, I did it as much to make my nanny feel good as for the kids. I made different kinds of memories with the kids at that age, sometimes projects of our own. The paper assembly stuff, the painting project, plaster project ... didn't mean much to me.

And, I know you don't believe us, but I can attest to what the PP said: they never ask about them once they're gone. Not once. They are happy with the initial reaction, and then that's it. If your charge is sad, it's because you're asking about what happened to their projects.

I’ve seen kids run to their parents to show them their work. Do those parents go home and throw it in the trash? Again, it’s a simple questions from my observation. And why would I ask a child about art work that I know a parent through away?

DP here, but yes. Most of it gets thrown in the trash. I have four children. I would say that each of them makes 5-10 pieces of artwork a week. So if I kept everything for two weeks, that would be 40-80 drawings around my house. Realistically, I can keep about 20, but there are some that I keep for several weeks, and some that get tossed even before they are dry.

Also, don't your charges make things that a meant to be destroyed or thrown away? Like from mud or sand or playdough? And they are excited to show them to you, then they smash them? It really is about the process.

[Anonymous]

It's because there's so freaking much of it. I don't have space to keep, let alone display, the dozens and hundreds of things my kid makes. I keep the ones that I really like--that really show her personality, that are funny or clever or turned out especially beautiful. But I toss the rest, because they don't mean anything. I certainly don't throw them away in front of my kid, and actually try hard to hide them in the trash so she doesn't see, but I simply cannot keep all of it. It's too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is SO MUCH of this stuff in the first four years of life. Just how many hand prints with cute sayings do you want to hang in your house, nannies?

I'd be more likely to keep more of it if there were one project a month, not 10.

Keeping one a month would be an improvement. My youngest charge is now going to school, but even as a toddler, he would take things to his room to hide so he would have them later (until mom or dad found 1, then they would search the whole room and throw them out). My oldest charge doesn’t care about how the finished product looks anymore, because she knows it won’t be kept anyway.

It’s not about how things look or how many kids make. They know when their efforts are appreciated and when their efforts aren’t valued at all.

Meh, my kids had a tendency to forget what they had done after they showed it to us that night. I'd let it stay up for a day or two and then take it down and store it for a week or so to see if they asked about it. They never did, not once, and then I'd secretly throw out the things that weren't worth saving and put the others into a storage box. We do the same with birthday cards, whatever. I HATE stuff lying around and hanging on the fridge but I'll deal with it for a short period of time if it's something that means something to them. But 99.9% of the time, once it got hung up they never mentioned it again.

At least you keep it for a day or 2. This family in particular throws it away, literally right away- the glue is still drying.

When they’re in school it’s a little different because 9/10 the art work is hung up for weeks at a time, so when parents are taking weeks maybe months worth of art work, I don’t expect them to hang or keep it. But to literally throw it out the same day is a slap in the face. And I’m not talking about hand prints or free painting.

I'm the PP - maybe the parents talked to their kid about it when they got home that night and then put it somewhere where the child wouldn't see it the next day and then threw it away once they didn't mention it any more. You're making too big of a thing out of this by saying that the kids are somehow harmed because their efforts aren't appreciated and their efforts aren't valued at all.

[Anonymous]

Everything every parent has said on this thread is exactly right. I know there are at least three separate parents posting here.

I am sure there are some insensitive, horrible parents who actually crumble up their child's artwork right in their faces and say that it's stupid and worthless crap, but that is not what anyone is saying.

What we are all saying is that we look at it, acknowledge it, and then it's gone to make room for more of the same tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everything every parent has said on this thread is exactly right. I know there are at least three separate parents posting here.

I am sure there are some insensitive, horrible parents who actually crumble up their child's artwork right in their faces and say that it's stupid and worthless crap, but that is not what anyone is saying.

What we are all saying is that we look at it, acknowledge it, and then it's gone to make room for more of the same tomorrow.

Agreed! We have one of those frames where you drop your child's picture inside. Then you pull it out and replace with another picture. This way, we have their art displayed, but it's a finite number of pieces. Once a piece of art gets replaced, I take a photo of it and then throw it away.