How do you involve your children?

I have gotten a couple of models for my 8 year old daughter. They are the pre painted snap together ones. Every time I get dragged to hobby lobby by my wife I take my daughter to the model section where we will compare different models and she will ask a bunch of different questions about the airplanes.

Benz,
My little ones are now big ones. My 19 year old has discovered college and girls, but still every now and them sits in the model room with me. My 16 year old is my full time partner, though he is into WRC only (right now).
I started both of them with the snap tite kits and let them go, Never helped at all unless asked. That is the hard part. The hardest part is to let them play with it once completed.
When both of my kids were little there was a ??company??called Wheels and Wings. Every other month a bunch of little flyers would arrive all about cars and planes from all over the world and every era, there was also a snap kit included. It was a great thing for both of them, they still have the flyers in a notebook and most of the models too.
Just let her go and have fun!

Don

Like Don, I let mine pick out the kits and go to it. I offered advice or assistance when asked or when they looked stuck, but that was it. I also introduced them to the owner of our LHS who was very kid friendly and that helped too. You also have to learn to make your comments sound constructive rather than crtitical to keep them interested.
All three of my boys build, although they have pretty well moved over to RC now they still get a plastic kit once in a while.
Enjoy!
Bruce

my son jason(16) started a model landrover that i gave him. it was almost finished and he lost interest in it, i didn't want to push him into a hobby so i let it be there, he's now into motorcycles so now he's always out getting real dirty . a few months ago my daughter Nicola (12) asked me if she could have a go at making a model. i gave her a model jaguar that i had spare and let her get on with it without me getting involved. she built and painted it and did a reasonable job too. after she had finished it i found out that the instructions were on my model room floor. i asked her how she worked out whare all the pieces went and she said she just learnt from watching me (not often i look at the instructions much). she did the camo from the pic on the box front.
Greg

My 8 year old daughter MARISSA recently asked if we could build a plane together. I said sure. We are currently building two, a 1/72 Hellcat and Corsair we built them together but she is doing all of the painting herself. Only help if she asks for it. She is doing a great job I am proud of her. JOHN

My eldest is 7, and has got into modelling as I have got back into it.

His first project was to finish an ancient Matchbox Victor which I had started but never finished. With that under his belt he bought a little revell 1/144 Sukhoi berkut, and had not looked back since.

So far he has built everything from a P40 to the Bismark, all of which he has done himself, with me providing advice where required, as well as glue and paint.

last weekend I let him and my youngest son, 4, loose with my airbrush. both of them showed considerable control just painting a peice of paper. think I know whet my eldest will want next!

As everyone has said so far, it's best not to push them, just let curiosity run it's course.

Karl

actually I don't. I have 4 kids. This is my time away! They do their sports and boyfirends and girlfriends. My wife has EBAY, I have my planes!

Thanks for sharing you ways with me, guys. I guess the most important thing to me is to have another way of spending time with our children.

and, nsclcctl I understand you totally. I'm just fortunate that my little one is still little - and that I am the only important boy in her life now. I'll just enjoy it while I can.

i have four, my two boys are very interested. my hardest thing is i want to see them enjoy the hobby so i suggest projects that i think they will enjoy and yet be challenged. they have yet to have a go at one of my suggestions. they look though like they will be a/c modelers also.

let couriosity control the situation.

i have 2 boys, 5 and 3, and both are very interested! My 3yearold Kyle has not built one yet, but Zack my 5 year old has built 3 snaps and 1 glue together!! He loves doing them, but right now he loveswatching me, and he'd rather play PS2, but i don't push, and when he wants too, he can come back in and build!!!! It's for fun, and that great dad andsons time!!!


Here is a pic of Zack's first glue together model!!

My son James is 9. We have just started building together, and have completed a 1/72 Fairy Swordfish ( he likes bi-planes ) we shared out fthe building and he brush painted it with a little help from me.
We have now started to build and Airfix RAV4 (4 wheel drive Toyota) but on opening the box found that the windows are missing - we are waiting for them to arrive so he can finish the model.

I have a stepdaughter that's 8, and a son that's 3 1/2. My stepdaughter doesn't seem all that interested in model building. I haven't pushed it on her or anyting either but if she wants to give it a shot I'll do what I can to help. She usually likes doing crafts with her mom, which I think is good. She's doing something creative, and both my wife and I proud of her when she makes something that she likes to make. I'm not sure if my son will be interested in model building or not, we'll just have to see what he likes later on as he grows. Right now he is more intersted in seeing how far he can push mine and my wife's patience. Okay, that's not entirely true, but a 3 year old boy is quite a handful at times.