About Show Them Once
Show Them Once is a short list of pursuits a parent can start with a kid, and what each one teaches. One page per pursuit, with the lesson as the headline, the first attempt written out by age, and the place it usually goes wrong. It is written in the first person by me, Ilya, and it exists because I am the kind of parent who needs telling. Why I made it says the rest of that.
Who makes it
One person. There is no company behind the site, no team and no funding. I run it alongside a small group of sister sites, listed in the footer, that make printable worksheets and forms for parents and teachers. This one is different from those: it is prose, not printables, and it speaks as me.
How a page is made
I do not write the pages. I approve them. Every page is drafted by an AI model, Claude, made by Anthropic, working from a brief I set: the pursuit, the age bands that genuinely apply to it, the site’s voice, and a list of phrases that are banned from it. I then read the draft, change what is wrong, and either publish it or send it back. Each page carries a record of who reviewed it and when, and the site will not build a published page whose reviewer field is empty. That is deliberate. On a site giving advice about children, a paragraph nobody read is worse than a page that waits another week.
At the moment the site holds 1 page record, 0 of them published. 1 is AI-drafted and approved as drafted, 0 AI-drafted and edited by hand, and 0 written by a person from the first word. Each page’s own record says which. The pages are for informational use, at your judgment; they are not childcare, medical, safety or educational advice, and no page can know your kid, your house or the pond at the end of your road. The terms carry the full disclaimer.
Ages
Pages are split into four bands: 3–5, 6–8, 9–12 and 13–17. A page carries only the bands that genuinely apply. Woodworking has nothing for a three-year-old, and it says so rather than padding a section that would get someone hurt. The teenage band is a different kind of writing: shorter, about the ask rather than the activity, and honest that they may say no.
No photographs
There are no photographs on the site and there will not be photographs of children, mine included. Objects and places may appear one day, with the photographer credited. Faces will not. The design is lines, type and rules, chosen so the pages do not need pictures to look finished.
How it is funded
Some pages carry a short gear list. Where a link in one of those lists is an affiliate link, I may earn a commission if you buy through it, at no extra cost to you, and the page says so above the first link. Nothing is recommended because it pays; most pursuits here cost nothing to start, and the pages say when that is the case. There are no ads on the site today. If that changes, this page will change with it. The affiliate disclosure has the detail.
Your data
The site has no accounts and no newsletter, sets no advertising cookies, and uses Google Analytics to count visits. The privacy policy is short because there is not much to say.
Getting in touch
A page that got something wrong, a pursuit that should be here and is not, or something you tried that went differently: use the contact page or email me directly. Please do not send photographs of children or a child’s name. I do not need either.