Teaching my daughter
10 of the most important things to teach our daughters
Let’s face it, being female is hard work. Although, there are so many positives that come with it (like the ability to have babies), there is also the pressure to be perfect. And raising little girls in a society obsessed with body image and looks can be difficult to say the least.
So, to all mums, daughters and grandmothers out there, this is for you. These are the lessons we need to pass on to our daughters, to ensure they remain happy, healthy, caring and confident in the many years ahead.
Do what you love, not what society expects
Wear rain boots with swimmers. Play race cars. Colour your hair blue. And, as you get older, keep this same mentality. Sure, gender stereotypes exist and they always will, but the difference now is that you don’t need to follow them. You can choose to stay home and have babies or you can choose to become a tradesperson and still have babies. Or cats. Or dogs. Or parrots. Or anything you want.
If it’s what you want to do and it doesn’t hurt anyone else, then it’s the right decision.
Never doubt your strength
Even when people try to shut you down, which they will because some people are simply not nice, just keep going. There may be people out there who are smarter, prettier and better at something, but it isn’t their journeys you are on. Focus on your path and don’t base your self-worth on the opinion of others.
Every single body is beautiful
There is no such thing as the perfect body even though society suggests there is. Toddlers come in all shapes and sizes – some cuddly, some lanky – and so do grown-ups. Sure, it’s okay to want to look your best, but just remember a beautiful heart is more attractive than a pretty face.
Look for the positives in every situation
Try to find something good in every situation. Even the really bad days can teach you something, can help you grow, can make you stronger and wiser.
Splurge on the things you love
Especially shoes. You can never have too many shoes.
Trust your instinct
I am a firm believer that there is nothing stronger than a woman’s instinct. Go with your gut. It is rarely wrong.
Value all opinions (even when different from yours)
Even if you don’t believe them. Try to understand them. Accept them. And respect the right for everyone to have an opinion, even if it varies from yours.
Don’t be afraid to fail
Without failure, you cannot move forward. And without failure, you cannot learn. Failure is invaluable, even though it can hurt. These life lessons may not be pleasant, but they shape who you are.
Focus on your health, not your clothes size.
Exercise because you enjoy it, not because you want it to make you skinny. Choose clothes because you love them, not because of the way you think they make you look. Eat foods because they taste delicious and give you fuel, not because it’s what the latest fad diet or celebrity endorses.
And, finally, no matter what, just remember to be yourself.
Because, you’re awesome.
I’m sure there are countless mums out there, who are raising spunky little girls. Mums who, like me, have a strong, smart, cheeky daughter that brightens each and every day And, like me, I’m sure there are countless other mums out there who learned these lessons from their own mums.
So, to my own daughter and to all the daughters out there, remember these lessons, now and forever. And, to my own mum and all other Nannas, Nonas, Omas, Grandmas, and Babas out there, thank you for teaching these lessons to us and for helping us pass them down to the next generation.
Posted on by Jenna Gallina
30 Things To Teach Your Daughter Before She’s Grown – Meant 2 Dad
I have three beautiful daughters. As a father I have constantly thought what should I teach my girls before they’re grown? I want to be a positive male role model for them.
I want to be their friend, but most importantly I want to be a great father for them.
I am by no means a parenting expert in the educational sense. Everything that I have learned has come from being a parent myself and looking at the example of all the great fathers I have known. My father raised two girls and my father in-law raised 5 girls. I have compiled this list of 30 thing to teach your daughter before she’s grown from my experiences and what I have learned from watching my fathers.
1. You Are Beautiful
The world tends to make girls feel that they need to look a certain way in order to be beautiful. This is so far from the truth. Each individual has a uniqueness about them that makes them beautiful in their own way. As the first male role model in your daughters life it is important that you always tell them they beautiful.
You shouldn’t tell them, “You are beautiful in my eyes,” that implies that they are beautiful just to you. Rather just tell them that they are beautiful.
Another way you can teach this to your daughter is by the example you set with your wife. You should tell your wife often that she is beautiful and let your daughter hear that. It is important that she knows how a woman should be treated by a man.
2. Be A Critical Thinker
It’s important to teach your daughter to think for herself. She should question things so that she can learn for herself the truthfulness behind what she is learning or doing. It seems to me that one thing we are losing is critical thinking. More and more people are believing everything they hear and watch.
Social media is a perfect example of this. People see posts on social media and believe them right away without even knowing if it is true, or coming from a credible source. My wife is very strong willed and can really think for herself. She has passed that trait down to my daughters and it is something that I’m trying hard to get them to keep.
At times it can be very frustrating when one of my daughters questions something I tell her.
At the same time it makes me proud and creates an even deeper teaching moment. I explain things more fully to her until she understands and really learns it.
3. Be Self Reliant
I want my daughters to grow up and marry the men of their dreams. With that being said, I believe it’s important for my daughters to be able to take care of themselves, and to not always have to rely on others.
4. Be Kind
Just go read through the comment section of almost any website and it’s clear that our culture has a problem with being kind. If people don’t think the same way as others, they feel it is ok to tare each other apart and force them to believe the way they do.
It’s important to teach your daughter you don’t have to believe the same way as others in order to show kindness to them. I believe that Ellen Degeneres is perfect example of showing kindness to others. You can use her as the example for your daughter when you’re teaching her to be kind.
5. Dance Like No Ones Watching
I believe that this goes along with showing your daughter she is beautiful.
Spend time dancing with her at home and don’t care what others think about you. By showing her this it will empower her to not care what others think of her and to just dance.
6. Hard Work
Hard work is extremely important to teach your daughter at a young age. My oldest daughter is 7 years old and I am amazed at how much she knows how to do already. She can cook better than I can and when we need a cabinet organized I go to her. However, I believe it is important to not just put your daughter into the stereotypical girl chores around the house such as cooking and cleaning.
My oldest daughter helped me run a skidsteer loader when we were leveling dirt for our lawn. We recently just finished the basement in our home and my three year old daughter was down there with me pretty much every step of the way. She would bring me the tools I needed and helped me put things in from time to time. Bottom line, teach your daughter hard work now and when she grows up she will be able to use the work ethic you taught her to excel through college and her career.
7. Dream Big
There was a poster at my high school with a quote that read,
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
Norman Vincent Peale
This quote has really stuck with me over the years and is a trait that you should teach your daughter. Dreams are so important and as a father you should encourage her to follow them no matter how big they are or small they are.
8. Have Fun
What’s the point of life if you can’t have fun. I believe that having fun in life is equally as important as working hard. Learn what your daughter loves to do and have fun doing that with her.
9. Laugh Hard
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
Charlie Chaplin
Teach your daughter to laugh often. In her life your daughter is sure to face trials and hard times. If she can find things to laugh at during the hard time she will be unstoppable.
10.
Don’t Back DownI believe that to often in life people fail to succeed at their dreams because they give up to soon and back down mostly due to a lack of faith in themselves. I am not immune to this in my life. Looking back there are multiple times where I regret backing down and not following through with what I had planned.
Teach your daughter not to back down when times get tough or when they are in the face of adversity. Teach her to be strong and to persevere. When I think about not backing down the image that comes to my mind is actually my daughter. About a year ago she decided she wanted to try playing soccer. She had never played before but decided that was the sport for her. She was nervous at first because the other kids on her team had played before.
Her first soccer game she came alive. My sweet little girl became a strong powerful force on the soccer field. At one of her games there was a boy on the opposing team. He was a foot taller than her and they were battling the whole game.
In the second half of the game the boy kept shoving my girl to the ground.
My wife and I were getting furious to see our little girl being shoved to the ground. To my surprise she would get back up and keep battling with him After a while of him shoving her she had enough and pushed him to the ground. The boy got up and got right in her face. My daughter stood her ground and stared right back at him.
The image of her staring down that boy fearlessly is what I think about with not backing down. I was so proud of her after that game. I believe that those traits will really help her out in her life and her career when she faces adversity and doesn’t back down.
11. Be Strong
In order for your daughter to keep pushing and following her dreams she needs to be strong. I don’t mean just physically strong, but mentally and emotionally strong. Teach your daughter to exercise her mind, body, and spirit.
12. Have Heart
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
Confucius”
Teach you daughter to put her heart into the things she does. Having heart in the things she does will be more powerful than just talent alone. I see people all the time in life where things come easily to them. They are incredibly talented and by all accounts should be wildly successful. The surprising thing to me is that more times than not, they don’t rise to their full potential. They settle and just float along through life.
Someone with heart would kill for their natural talent. The person with the heart will have the drive and passion to make themselves succeed in whatever endeavors they pursue. Teach your daughter the power of having heart.
13. Be Brave
Life can be scary and having the courage to pursue your dreams is also scary. As a child your daughter will also encounter situations where she will need to be brave. Girls can be ruthless and your daughter can be the example of kindness to others. In order to be that example it takes bravery.
My daughter had a friend at school that would tell her she couldn’t be friends with another girl. Her friend would also be mean to the other girl at recess. It really bothered my daughter and she came to my wife and I with the situation. My wife and I counseled with her about the situation. I taught her of the importance to be the example and to lift others up instead of putting them down.
She got the courage to talk to her friend at school and stood up for the other girl. Now she is great friends with the girl she was told she couldn’t be friends with. She has also removed herself from the toxic friendship situation and is much happier. Learning these traits young will help your daughter when she grows up so that she will be able to stand up for herself and others.
14. Respect Yourself
I believe this goes along with You’re Beautiful. Your daughter needs to learn to respect herself. She needs to know that she is a voice that deserves to be heard. That she can make a difference in the world and has great worth.
She needs to respect her body and be proud of the person she is. Woman get put into the stereotypical mold of what they are suppose to look like. Teach your daughter to be her own person and be proud of who she is.
15. Be Silly
Show your daughter how to be silly. Dance, sing, joke, and just have fun being around her. When times get tough for her she will remember the silly fun times in her life and that will help propel her through those hard times.
16. Love Yourself
Compliment, compliment, compliment. Always tell your daughter how incredible she is. Have discussions with your wife when you know your daughter can hear. Tell your wife how incredible your daughter is and how proud your are of her. Focus on all the things she is doing great. By doing all of this your daughter will know that she is smart, incredible, and beautiful. Something else that will help with this as well is always complimenting your wife as well.
17. Importance Of Her Word
“Mama was a stickler on keeping your word.
Reba McEntireThat’s helped me to make the right decisions in so many situations. Because of that, I also think really hard before I make a decision because I know I have to see it through.”
If your daughter says she is going to do something make sure she does it. Life is so hectic and busy it is really easy to just let things go and really miss a learning opportunity. I am guilty of this with my kids. At times I will ask my daughter to do something. She will tell me she’s going to do it and then it doesn’t get done.
Instead of taking the time to have her do it I end up just doing the task to ultimately save time. What I’ve been working harder on is taking the time to ensure that she does the things she says she’s going to do. Then taking the time to talk to her about the importance of keeping your word.
18. How To Face Her Fears
One of my professors in college said something to the class that really impacted me. He said that in life to have true growth you need to put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
If you are not uncomfortable you are not truly learning and growing. You have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
Teach your daughter to face her fears while she is young. When we are chained down by fear that fear controls us. I use to hate speaking in front of people. I loathed it and it was a true fear of mine. By sure fate I ended up in a career teaching adults. It terrified me at first and I was very uncomfortable. Now I love it. I love getting up in front of people and teaching them something new. I love helping them learn how to do their job.
My daughter gets really scared when she tries something new. When she is put in a situation with new people and new activity she clams up and doesn’t want to go. I keep putting her in different activities and encourage her to try new things so that she can work on that fear. So that one day she will be comfortable being uncomfortable.
19. How To Push Herself
There is not that big of a gap between someone that is successful and someone that is mediocre.
The person that is successful is the one that shows up early and stays late. The person that keeps pushing and keeps growing. Teach your daughter to constantly be pushing and growing. If she is talented at something and wants to pursue that teach her to keep improving and pushing.
Whether it’s smarts at school, dance, gym, sports, or anything in between teach her to not let up because of the talent. Teach her to keep trying and improving. In life that will help her immensely at being the best at whatever she wants to do.
20. Importance Of Family
Show your daughter the importance of family by your example. The effort that you put in to your family will naturally show your daughter the importance of family. Make your very best effort to make it to her dances, games, recitals, or whatever she chooses to do in life. Be present in your family when you’re home. Leave work at work and spend quality time with your daughter.
21. Follow Through
This is something that I haven’t mastered.
I start things at times and don’t follow them through to the end. When I do end up following through it is so rewarding on the other side. Teach your daughter to follow through with the decisions she makes in life. At times following through could take significant effort on your end. Every year at my daughters school they have a fun run at the beginning of the year.
The first year she did it in kindergarten she finished towards the top of her grade. When she was in first grade she really wanted to win. The race was a mile long and I told her that if she wanted to win she would need to practice before the race.
I ran a mile with her every night after work for two months before the race. I’m not a runner and just a few days into the practicing I got terrible shin splints. I had to really muscle through it and actually show her follow through. In the end it paid off and she was able to run a 7:36 mile and take second place.
22. Importance Of Failure
“It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.
Ellen DeGeneres”
In life we learn the most through failure. If you are too afraid to fail then you will never have the chance to succeed. Teach your daughter that when we fail the lessons she will learn from that failure are invaluable. She will never forget those lessons and if she keeps pushing and follows through she will succeed. No one is ever perfect and no one goes through life without ever failing. Few people get back up after they’ve failed and keep pushing.
23. Unconditional Love
Show your daughter unconditional love. No matter what she does or what hurtful things she may say to you at times show her love. Don’t put her down or say hurtful things back. Show her love always. Through your example she will learn how to have unconditional love for others.
24. Be Creative
Teach your daughter to think outside the box. To look at things in a different light. That is where new ideas and great things come into play. Foster an environment of creativity with her.
Don’t raise her to be a brick, instead raise her to be like a unique stone.
25. How To Show Love
Teach your daughter how to show love to others. This can be done by your example of showing love towards your wife. Giving your daughter a pet is also a great way teach your daughter to show love. In order to take care of the pet she will have to put in hard work and give up her time and energy for her pet. This will help her to show love to others.
26. Be Heard
Teach your daughter to have a voice. Let her be assertive with you. Don’t be too quick to shut her down or make her quiet. Let her know that her voice matters and that she deserves to be heard. That her voice makes a difference and matters. When she is talking to her show her voice matters by giving her your attention. Take your eyes off of your phone and really listen to her.
Respond to her stories and ask questions instead of mindlessly nodding and thinking about work or getting back to your phone.
If her own father doesn’t think what she says matters why would she believe that other people want to hear what she has to say.
27. How To Fuel Her Passions
When your daughter finds something that she is truly passionate about help her fuel that passion. Help her find ways to keep pursuing it and improving it. As she goes through life if she is truly passionate about something nothing will be able to stop her or get in her way.
28. How To Change A Tire
Changing tires and working on cars are not just for boys. Empower your daughter by teaching how to change a tire on a car. Teach her how to change her oil and if you’re comfortable enough even brakes. Maybe she won’t do these things when she grows up, but having that knowledge will be invaluable to her.
29. It’s Ok Not To Be An Expert At Everything
Teach your daughter that it is ok to not know everything. Let her teach you something that you don’t know. Show her that even her father, her super hero, doesn’t know everything.
Teach her that it is healthy to seek advice from others. Teach her the power of having a great mentor in her life to help give her advice.
30. Don’t Worry What Other People Think
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner”
Lao Tzu
Teach your daughter to be herself, to pursue her dreams, and to not worry what other people think. Teach her to be opinionated to let her voice be heard and to think for herself. Teach her to not be a prisoner of others. Teach her not to just float along through life, but rather to be the strong powerful woman she is meant to be.
Is the class teacher right in calling my daughter greedy in front of her peers?
Child's age: 9
Tags: upbringing greed
Is the class teacher right in calling my daughter greedy in front of her peers?
Hello! My question is: is the class teacher doing the right thing by calling my daughter greedy in the presence of her peers? The situation is as follows.
I teach a child to take care of his things, I forbid giving and receiving toys, things, etc. Explaining to the daughter that children cannot independently dispose of the things that their parents buy for them (only with the permission of the parents).
The day before I bought her plasticine for school work and asked her to take care of it, threatened not to buy it again in case of loss or empty use. The following happened at school. At the lesson, one of the peers did not have plasticine, and he turned to my daughter, she refused him, saying that her mother did not allow her. For this, the teacher called her greedy in front of the whole class and asked, in turn, the children to share.
The daughter came home and told about it with tears. She blamed me for my order. I called the teacher, told how sad my daughter was, substantiated my order. But we did not find mutual understanding. The teacher thinks that I am raising the child incorrectly.
Hello.
It is difficult to say how competently the class teacher is acting, because it is impossible to fully assess the whole situation, to see the whole picture of what happened in the lesson: in what tone, in what intonation it was said, with what words, etc.
Based on your letter, then, of course, condemning the personality of the child and equating behavior (refusal to share plasticine) with character traits (greed) is something that must be avoided in raising and communicating with a child in any situation. You have probably come across a lot of recommendations from child psychologists that we can be dissatisfied with the behavior of the child, but not with the way he is. And if the baby behaves badly, this is his bad deed, and not himself.
And of course, such a public condemnation, in front of the whole class, could hurt your girl. Therefore, it is very important to talk to the child about this moment. That the teacher was wrong to call her greedy in front of other kids. That the teacher probably didn't mean to offend, but you can see how those words hurt your daughter. That she has the right not to share her things if she does not want to, and this does not make her a greedy person or a bad person. That, probably, at that moment the girl was hurt, insulted, she was angry with both the teacher and you for your order.
And that, no matter what happens, you continue to love her and see in her the person most dear to you.
It is important to discuss all of this so that the situation does not become unbearably hurtful for the child, in order to help the child get through it, endure the experience and move on.
You have the right not to take into account the teacher's opinion about your teaching methods. You also have the right to ask her to no longer criticize your child's personality in any form. Because our behavior is never the same as what we are. When we instill in children that their actions can automatically make them something different: bad, wrong, greedy, evil, objectionable, we thereby cause great harm to their self-esteem and self-awareness.
There is another important point to which I would like to draw your attention.
To develop responsibility and independence, a child really needs to have a certain amount of freedom. And this freedom should also extend to something that belongs only to her, even if someone else bought it for her.
Any person, no matter how old he may be, should have things that he can call his own and dispose of them solely at his own discretion. What these things will be and in what quantity depends on the age of the child. The older he gets, the more things he can be responsible for, the more things he can fully possess.
To be responsible is not only to answer if something happens to things, if they break, get lost, or deteriorate. It is also to be able to dispose of them independently, focusing only on their desires.
This is important, because this is how the child learns to control his boundaries, to interact with other people. So gradually the child begins to understand that he can control his life, that there is something in his world that he also influences.
Such an important moment helps the child to become more enterprising, courageous and, oddly enough, responsive and open in the future: understanding his own limits, able to help or ask for support himself.
Therefore, all child psychologists and developmental specialists agree that the child should have things in his own possession and disposal. Otherwise, he simply will not learn it. Otherwise, faced with difficult situations in the future, he will not know what to do: he will not be able to share in time, ask for a service or provide it, find a common language or defend his boundaries and rights.
It doesn't mean that you choose some wrong parenting system, or that you are a bad mother, or that you are to blame for your daughter getting into such a hurtful situation. All this is not so.
I'm sure there are very good reasons for your order. Otherwise, he simply would not have appeared.
It simply means that if you try to be more flexible and gradually transfer responsibility for her things to your daughter, then by trial and error she will learn to manage and spend them in a way that makes her feel good. This will help her become more responsible and independent.
Without such experience, these important qualities will simply have nowhere to come from. After all, every skill and ability develops only through practice.
Perhaps plasticine will just become the thing that your daughter can learn to use on her own: share, ask for herself, choose whether she wants to give it to someone or not. And you can negotiate, tell why you shouldn’t give away everything she has (and not because mom will scold, but because she is the mistress of her things and has the exclusive right to them).
And then such an unpleasant situation that happened at school will, on the one hand, become an opportunity for you to become even closer and strengthen attachment, because you will support the feelings of the child and stand on her side, and on the other hand, a step towards a little more independence and responsibility, which always has a positive effect on life.
I wish you good luck, all the best.
Lilia Seryogina,
Psychologist of the Portal "I am a Parent"
how I teach my daughter to think outside the box!
THE PICKLE STORY: HOW I TEACH MY DAUGHTER TO THINK OUT OF THE STANDARD!
My daughter Polina grew up as a very inquisitive and interesting child. Her imagination was so vivid that sometimes it baffled us parents. For weeks she refused to drink from a mug or eat with a fork. Because the cat. Then suddenly she decided to move only on “four legs” - at home, in restaurants and even on the street. Became a strict vegetarian. Because "horses don't eat meat!" She could spend hours watching ants, examining a leaf that fell from our lemon tree ... Her “why?”, “Where?”, “From what?”, “How does it work?” exhausted us incredibly! But then she went to school.
At first, the images that Polina constantly tried on began to appear only in her pictures. Then there were fewer questions. Rather, they were supplanted by constant requests: “Show me how!”, “Is that right?”, “Help me do it!”. And then these requests miraculously transformed into convictions: “You are doing it wrong!”, “Why are you fooling around? Adults don’t do that!”, “If I do that, only you will like it! Others won't understand." These statements brought me into a state of chronic anxiety and a deep realization that we were moving somewhere in the wrong direction.
WHAT IS THE STANDARD SCHOOL TEACHING?
The following story confirmed my painful thoughts. Polina has been working on the script for her own animated film for several months now. She spent all her free time in Photoshop, the walls of her room were completely pasted over with drawings of characters and frames of the future cartoon. One day she came up to me, obviously embarrassed: “Mom, I need to invent an animal that does not exist in nature. I drew a bunch of options, but they all remind someone!”
I was genuinely surprised. What is easier to draw such a creature? After all, I was still convinced that everything was fine with my girl's fantasy!
I showed Polinka a simple trick, and (oh miracle!) the child created an amazing animal - unusual, lively, surreal, as if descended from the canvases of modern Bosch! In addition to the drawing, the daughter came up with a place where this beast lives, what it eats, who its enemies are...
Why didn't you do this earlier? I asked my daughter. - It's so easy!
- Mom, how are you? They don't teach this in school!
And what do they teach at school? Memorizing, reproducing other people's thoughts, downloading from the Internet, solving problems with one correct answer, formulas, algorithms, rules, rules, rules ... I know this firsthand - I worked at school myself. There are, of course, teachers who go out of their way to instill in the child the skills of free thinking, devoid of patterns. But in my memory, as a student, teacher and mother of a schoolgirl, there were ... two of them. Basically, the thinking of the teachers themselves is pretty slagged with all sorts of standards and stereotypes, which is why their own perception of the world narrows down to the size of a grain of wheat. And in this tiny grain they offer our children to live and develop!
The last straw for me to take decisive action was for me the situation with a jar of pickles.
My husband and I went to a concert. The daughter stayed at home. When we returned, we found Polina sullen, frowning, answering questions in monosyllables and even aggressively. The reason for this behavior turned out to be as simple as the digestive system of a tapeworm. Daughter wanted pickles but couldn't open the screw-on jar
lid.
She tried to do this for two hours. Two, Carl!
When I immediately showed her ten different ways to open a jar without the help of a strong dad, the girl was really shocked. At the same time, it turned out that the child knows perfectly well what vacuum, temperature difference, friction and even hydraulic shock are. Then why doesn't she put her knowledge into action?!
FROM PICKLES TO NEW SMARTPHONE FEATURES
“Well, that's it! Something needs to be done about this!”, I said to myself at that very moment, and set about implementing my most important project, code-named “Save Private Polinka!”
Having a teaching diploma, courses in TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving) and vast experience in applying creative techniques in the profession, I still understood that I would not be able to teach my daughter all this. I can't at home. There is always no time, and Polina at home perceives me exclusively as a mother, and not a teacher. Then I realized: I need to gather a group of children and set aside time for regular classes. So there were lessons in my School of Creative Thinking. I enrolled my daughter first.
And what? The second year of studies at our School has begun. My students are not shy when expressing THEIR point of view. They know how to listen to the opinion of the OTHER person. They respect ANY idea expressed, no matter how fantastic it may sound. They gladly take on the function of a leader and, without a fight, delegate authority to their interlocutor. They understand and ACCEPT contemporary art. They are able to come up with more than 50 unusual uses for an ordinary mug in 10 minutes! They are not stumped by the task of inventing a new alarm clock, a plane, a swimming pool, or creating an advertisement for bittersweet ice cream! They made Christmas decorations from frying pans, sushi sticks, a shoe… And they also came up with completely new functions for a smartphone, combining it with an elephant and a currant.
