Hobby Craft

Finding a Hobby Craft Your Kids Love

The first problem with developing a love of hobby crafts in your kids is that they may not like the same kinds of crafts you do. You may love to cross stitch, for instance, while your kids find it boring.

This may mean that you need to keep an open mind, just like you’ve been encouraging your reluctant crafters to do. Visit the hobby craft store together and see if you can find a project more exciting to your child. Even if you’ve never latch-hooked a rug before or you find painting incredibly tedious, if that’s what your child wants to do, let him explore.

You might also look for different hobby craft kits geared toward kids. You can find kits for almost every craft these days, from beading to knitting to making baskets and weaving. These kits contain everything you need to make a simple project, which can give your child a taste of different crafts without committing a lot of time or money. (These make great Christmas and birthday gifts, too!)

Crafting with kids can actually be a great way for you to pick up skills in crafts you might have missed. Perhaps you and your kids could take a knitting class together. You’d all have fun learning a new skill, and it would be great for your kids to see that mom or dad are still willing to learn.

Encouraging Your Kids in Hobby Craft

Having hobbies and doing crafts can sometimes be short-lived with kids. Their obsessions change often, and just when you thought you’d found the perfect thing, you child may start to rebel again.

Have patience. I know it can be frustrating because you love crafts so much, but not everyone enjoys them. Again, your child’s fickle nature can be a good excuse for both of you to try new things. Maybe you just haven’t found the hobby craft that will stick yet.

One of the reasons we encourage crafting in our children is because it stimulates creativity. Perhaps your child is a writer or a dancer instead of a person who likes to make physical things. That’s perfectly fine, too, though there's nothing wrong with encouraging a hobby you can both share.

Make crafting time family creativity time so that you can include all members of the family, regardless of their interests or skill levels. your toddler can scribble while your teenager writes poetry and you and the middle child work on a quilt. As long as the whole family is together and everyone is working on something creative, it doesn’t really matter if you all enjoy the same hobby or craft.

Continuing Hobby Craft Education

If you child shows a long-term love for a certain craft, encourage that by providing her with educational opportunities. Perhaps you can enroll your child in an advanced crochet class, buy her a new book on scrapbooking or simply fill her stash with whatever supplies she needs. Kids (and adults) love to have lots of choices and potential projects to spur their creativity.

Look around for crafting retreats, conferences and conventions that you could attend with your child. This will be a lot of fun for both of you, even if your child loves a craft that you aren’t interested in. It is amazing to see the range of creativity that is out there and what normal people like you can do with thread, beads, paint, fabric, paper or whatever their medium is.

To help turn your crafty child into a lifelong crafter, do all you can to seek out, encourage and build on their love of hobby craft, starting today. You’ll both be glad you did.