As the summer holidays wear on, it’s important to find things you can do to keep your kids busy while you’re working, tidying or simply relaxing. It’s equally important to find things you can do together! Family activities give you shared memories that bring you closer and create memories you can all look back on with joy in years to come.

Today we’re taking a look at why taking on a craft project could be the perfect answer for you and your kids!

Why Kids Need Crafts

Getting children involved in crafting isn’t just fun in the moment: it teaches them principles they can use to their advantage for the rest of their lives. In an age where many pastimes and jobs are digital, the knowledge of how things are made physically, with tools, carefully chosen materials and skill gives you a whole different way to look at the world. A sewing hobby doesn’t just mean you can do needlepoint, it means you can look at clothes (rendered disposable by the fast fashion industry) as things you can repair, adapt, or cannibalise for materials when they’re past the point of wearing. In a world where fewer and fewer people know how to sew on a button, this is a valuable way of looking at the world.

Picking the Right Craft

This is not to say you need to order an embroidery subscription box each for everyone in your family. It’s important to think about what your kids have shown they’re interested in – and, crucially, not what you want them to be interested in. It’s important to balance personal interests with finding something everyone can work on together, and you’re in a better position to compromise and still have a good time than your kids. If you put too much pressure on them to help you with your project, a fun family activity turns into a chore.

Look for something where everyone has strengths they can bring to bear, and everyone can contribute. Sharing the experience of making a scrapbook of a recent family holiday, for example, gives everyone the chance to make different pages, to share their ideas and talk about different ways to record memories.

If you’ve got older kids, then you look for projects using more complicated (and potentially dangerous) equipment, or where they can work more independently: making a quilt as a family goes quickly as everyone can contribute squares, for example. You could even try woodworking and collectively build some furniture for the house!

The most important thing is to choose a project you can work on happily and collectively, and look back on with pride!

Edward Bertrand