I have a 6 yr old daughter who has been a carlton member all her life.

We've allways had reserved seats for all home games.

I love spending time with her & would love it if she would begin to share my passion for the CFC, so we can spend some more quality time together & build memories of us enjoying our time at the footy.

In the past, I've had to leave at half time because she's bored or have to spend half of each quarter playing outside so she'd come into the ground for the other half of the quarter, & have missed some fantastic wins.

Now, on the occasions she comes to a game, she listens to an iPod & plays her Nintendo DS (handheld computer game).

Can anyone help with idea's on how to entice her to begin enjoying the footy or when in fact she might begin to love it on her own?

Get her some of those DS mind training games. They're so boring she'll watch the footy as the more interesting option and eventually it's gotta rub off.

Every time she looks away from the field give her a taste of the back of your hand.









kidding

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

Its hard.

Getting kids to wave their flag after a goal works for a while
Get them to count the goals and keep score in the Record.


Some kids though are not interested whatever you do.

Try putting her in Auskick. The season has just staretd and its a lot of fun even for girls

The other thing I did was download a CD of all the footy anthems on bittorent and the kids love listening to it in the car. They have even learnt to boo at the bummers and maggies.

Also try to teach them a handful of players like no 3 is Marc murphy, no 5 is Chris judd then get them to see if they can find them on the field.

All these things work for a time and hopefully that will spark an ongoing interest.

I find bringing a heap of snacks helps to keep the kids in their seat. Not all junk mind you. And promise an icecream which you buy just at the end of the 3/4 time break. It'll take kids 10-20min depending on the icecream which buys you valauable time

go to games with smaller attendances so you can move around and give them a taste of what it is like in different seats - sit near the fence, go near the cheersquad

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Between our dreams and actions lies this world

Thanks Buzzaaaah.

She's a bit shy, so isn't quitre ready for Auskick.

She won't even get me player autographs when we got to the family days.

Here's what I do when I take my 6yo.

Take a bag with lots, and I mean lots of snacks. Some junk, some good. My monster likes hot chips, so she gets that at the start. It helps if you have a reserved seat, so we don't arrive until about 1:50pm.
Freeze a 250ml plastic water bottle with water. Should last until 3/4 time.
Bring a colouring-in book and pencils, if she likes to draw.

Agree with other posters regarding keeping a count of the goals.

As they get older, you can introduce a game called footy-maths.

e.g. What is Murphy + Judd. Answer: Kruezer

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“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

when she is asleep put on a recording of the 99 prelim on loop

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Ecclesiastes 1:4, "One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but The Blues abide forever."

It's all making me smile.

it'll be nice to have some weapons in my armery & a few tricks up my sleeve at the next home game.

Adelaide should be a smaller attended game, so will have a bit more room to move.

Thanks.

Beat me to it Deano expcept for the kidding bit - Jeez these kids these days are soft - they need to toughen the F@%* uo

Back in the day, we used to get pass-outs at half time and have a kick of the footy in Princes Park.

Then grab half a dozen hot jam donuts before heading back inside.

We also occupied our time trying to scam our way into empty corporate boxes in the hawthorn stand.

Back then, you could also chuck bits of cut-up phone books after goals, so that occupied a fair bit of time.

But now with my kids - yeah. It's plenty of snacks, and let them yell their freakin heads off everytime someone in navy blue does something good. They like that. Hot chips too. They work a treat.

I feel your pain, little 3rd & 4th efforts are exactly the same. Hard enough to get them to stay in front of the TV at home and not sneak out to play on the Wii

Back in the day when I was a kid the main entertainment used to be reaching over and belting those advertising boards when we scored, saving up 1 & 2c pieces and then throwing them as hard as you could at the Collingwood Cheer Squad when they came around for a collection at 1/2 time, watching the souvenir stand burn, watching the drunken fights whilst waiting for a tram. All good stuff, dont kids do stuff like that anymore?

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"Who discovered we could get milk from cows, and what did he think he was doing at the time?" Billy Connolly

Dont stress Sticks I have exactly the same issues. In fact I bring both my 8 year old son and my 7 year old daughter every week. I also pack a bag full of Nintendo DS, IPOD, Drawing books and textures, as well as snacks.

I have been bringing them to the footy since they were 2 years old. They love coming but in the past have tired or become bored quite quickly and hence have had to leave at half time etc... However I resigned myself to the fact that this is just part of having kids and at the end of the day i'm glad that i bring them along even if i do leave early occasionally.

This year so far has been a little better. The kids are prepared to wait the whole game (even if they are a little bored) and I have probably perfected the art a little better also.

I ensure that they do not play their Nintendo before the game starts (to keep the battery fully charged) and that we buy Donughts at Half Time (has become a ritual). I also have a friend who is now bringing his 6 year old son to most games so the kids have someone else to mix with.

If they get bored of the Nintendo (or it goes flat), then they draw/colour in and when that is done they listen to some music.

I have just kept persisting with this and have started to notice more and more their involvement and interest in the game increasing.

Good luck with yours as I know what your going through but a piece of advice is to keep persisting as there is nothing better than driving home from the footy with your kids and the scarfe hanging out of the window.

thanks Blue70.

It's nice to know there are others out there who share my pain & that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

It will probably help when the team starts winning. My seven year old niece was at the game on Sunday and it was the first time she had seen a win (she doesn't live in Victoria). She left a rather excited message on my phone with the song playing in the background...

My 7 month old niece attended her first game of footy on the weekend. It seemed fitting that her footy baptism should be a Carlton v Collingwood game as she was born on 4 August (the last time we played Collingwood). She was very good and pulling her Carlton beanie over her ears helped with the noise (it was soooo loud and she looked so cute!). Her favourite part of the Carlton song is the ra, dah, dah, dah ,dah - always makes her smile. We are going to get her so used to going to the footy that as she gets older she'll be just as much a fanatic as her mum and aunty. There are some things in life that you just don't get a choice with and going to the footy to see Carlton play is one of those things.

Not really sure.. Unfamiliar territory for me.
My first game of footy (i think it was, first one i remember anyway) was when I was 3 years old. It was Carlton Adelaide, and I remember on the way to the game my dad telling me to yell out CARNA BLUES.
Well I spent the next three hours screaming CARN ON THE BLUES as loud as I could and by the end of the game I'd lost my voice. Apparently some bloke murmured something about throwing that bloody kid off the tier if he doesn't shut up. And I think it was a blues supporter

So yeah ever since I can remember I have loved this great club dearly so I've never really known any different.

i guess I did idolise the players.. especially Kernahan and Diesel.. so I think if she gets to know the players a bit better??

Wait.. no. There's only one way to make her passionate about Carlton. Lock her in a room with the Collingwood cheer squad for 5 minutes. She'll have blue blood for life

Auskick is great. You don't need a social butterfly. Its very inclusive and my kids are shy too.

You can go to a session and see if she likes it first before you pay. Just explain to the co-ordinator.
Auskick is easily the best thing the AFL does and even then its because of the volunteers

but arent you anthony michael hall? shouldnt the kid just be honoured to be in the presence of the original and the best rusty griswald?!

ive been going to the footy every week since i was 6 (went intermittently before that cos until that age i couldnt really go to princes park cos dad used to stand under the scoreboard, i used to check the fixture exitedly to see where we were playing cos if it was the MCG or waverley id get to go along) and i think it was purely born out of dad doing it. every saturday or whatever hed leave and id stay away from the radio or the TV, avoid any scores, and wait patiently until he pulled in the driveway for him to tell me if we won or lost.

as has been said with young kids its horses for courses...sometimes theyll love every minute of it and sometimes they wont. i think a lot of peripheral things help too, like do their friends at school also like footy, do they have a kick at recess etc, for me at that age everyday we'd have a kick at school so i was just around it all the time, and with dad going every week and me having the opportunity to join him occasionally i really looked forward to it.

i think what got me over the line was that dad knew i could sit and watch the whole game when id watch us if we were playing interstate.

its just a case of giving it some time, but some of the suggestions from others sound really promising.

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"In fairness it did seem in the early days of the draft teams would just pick a name totally at random out of a hat. I'm pretty sure we picked James Cook at #2 one year. The mediocre forward, not the explorer" - Me, 12/9/2011

Carlton 2012: Lets remind them why they once feared the Dark.