A skateboard for your fingers

This morning my kids, Gannu and Tuppa, decided to build fingerboards. If you haven't met one, a fingerboard is a tiny skateboard you ride with two fingers instead of two feet.

There was no kit and no shop trip. The plan was cardboard, paper, a bit of plastic, a bottle of glue, and a pair of tyres rescued from broken toy cars. Our living room floor quickly turned into a workshop.

I'll be honest. I didn't know how to make one. When I asked, Gannu looked at me and said, "This is your first time." He was right.

When nothing sticks

By the time I joined in, things had already gone wrong. Someone had nicked a thumb with the cutter. One board had broken. And the two of them were arguing about how it should be done.

Gannu had a clear picture: three or four layers for thickness, and a top that curves up at the ends. Tuppa had his own idea of the shape. Neither wanted to budge, and the voices got louder.

Tuppa had the hardest time. He tried to stick his pieces together, but they simply wouldn't hold. Tape everywhere, glue everywhere, and still the layers kept coming apart. So he got angry, then he cried, and then he gave up.

I think every parent knows that moment. The project isn't really about cardboard anymore. It's about a small person who feels like the thing in front of him is impossible.

Trying again, together

The first thing I did was ask everyone to stop shouting and talk one at a time. Then I said something I wanted them to hear: there can be more than one right design. Gannu's idea wasn't wrong. Tuppa's idea wasn't wrong. They were just different.

I also asked to be taught. "Tell me how it's done, and I'll try to help." That changed the mood. Suddenly Gannu was the expert, explaining his method like a pro:

1. Take cardboard or paper and coat it with glue.
2. Stack layers, alternating materials, three or four times.
3. For extra strength, sandwich plastic between the cardboard layers.
4. Keep it thin enough that the wheel base can still turn underneath.

My first attempt was too big. "No, no, this is too big," I was told. So I cut it smaller. Then we rolled the layers to press them firm, waited for the glue to set, and covered the sides and top with paper.

Tuppa wanted a rounded nose, "but not too round," and a pointy tip. Pointy was beyond us today, but round we could do, so we shaped it round. Finally we glued the tyres from the old toy cars underneath, backed with a strip of stronger cardboard so they wouldn't wobble off.

It rolls!

And then it worked. I pressed the middle of the board and it bounced right back. That plastic layer in the middle had made it genuinely strong.

Gannu immediately wanted to cut it, sharpen it, add a spoiler and cover it in decorations. I had to stop him before the scissors ruined a perfect shape. "Don't cut anything now. It's perfectly done." We let it dry, because drying is the part nobody wants to wait for and everybody needs.

Then came the best part. The boards rolled across the floor on their little toy-car tyres, fingers riding on top. Tuppa, who had given up an hour earlier, was holding his own fingerboard and grinning. I asked if I could take a picture. Of course I could.

The floor was covered in scraps, glue and cardboard bits. Kachra everywhere. It was worth it.

The one ingredient that was missing

Once the boards were done, I sat Tuppa down and asked him what it took to make one. He listed it out beautifully: ideas, design, brain, creativity, planning, excitement.

All true. But I told him one thing was missing, and without it none of the others would have produced a fingerboard. That thing was trying, even when it was not working.

So I asked, "Whenever you make anything, what's going to happen?" The answer came back: "It will fail." Yes. It will fail, almost always, at first. "And then what should you do?" "Keep on trying."

That's the whole lesson, and it's the one I keep needing to relearn myself:

• Fail, keep trying. The first version is supposed to break.
• Have patience. Glue needs time to dry, and so do ideas.
• Ask for help, and help others. Tuppa came back when someone sat down beside him. Gannu shone when someone asked him to teach.
• Kachra will happen. Mess and scraps are not a sign you're failing. They're proof you're making something.

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is laughing, nobody is helping, Mama isn't there, Papa isn't there. Try anyway. That's how things get made.

Today it was a cardboard fingerboard on a pair of broken toy-car tyres. One day it'll be something much bigger. I hope they remember how this one felt when it finally rolled.