Cheering Dad on
Dad's race or match runs on its own clock. The moment to lift the pompom and shout does not wait for the child to be ready, so the child needs to know what to look for. The steps below help with the timing.
♂Pompoms for Dad in his jersey
A smiling boy in a red shirt holding up two blue pompoms while a dad in a green sports jersey with the number 1 runs beside him.
♂Cheer and a thumbs up
Two smiling people in blue shirts, one with arms raised in celebration and the other giving a thumbs up, with exclamation marks and stars around them.
♂Fist pump and applause
Two smiling people in blue shirts: one with a fist raised in the air and one clapping, with arrows and exclamation marks above the hands.
♂Dad runs, child cheers
A smiling adult running forward in a blue shirt while a happy boy in a red shirt jumps behind with arms up, surrounded by stars and arrows.
About this visual support
The tricky part of cheering Dad on is not the cheer itself, it is the waiting. The person racing or playing sets their own pace, so the child has to sit through a stretch of nothing and then be fully present the second Dad rushes past or scores. For many children, that gap is what gets hard.
With picture cards you can lay the whole event out in order: Dad warms up, Dad starts, child holds the pompom ready, Dad comes by, now we cheer. When the sequence is visible, the child does not have to keep it all in their head, and you do not have to nudge with words every thirty seconds. The cards become a shared map of the wait.
One activity-specific tip: agree on a concrete cue for the cheer in advance. It might be when Dad passes a certain marker, comes around the last lap, or gets the ball. A physical cue you can see makes the waiting easier to bear. If you want the images and a timer together in one place, Routined keeps them in the same flow.