I’m not a very crafty parent, which is somewhat incongruous, as I am a crafty person. I sew, knit, crochet, make Waldorf-style dolls, dabble at quilting, but I don’t really do kid crafts. It should come more naturally than it does, because I’m also a 12-year veteran of Girl Scouting, including several years as a camp counselor to 2nd and 3rd graders. I know how to finger weave, make paper bag hand puppets, make my own candles and all of those great crafts, but it just never occurs to me to do them.
I never sit down and think, “Gee! I sure would like to have the kids make their own crayons today!” I don’t make tomato sauce and make that mental leap to, “Wouldn’t it be fun to use this as finger paint on butcher paper?” I seldom, if ever, come up with holiday, seasonal, or weather related craft ideas on the fly. Even things like painting and working with clay don’t pop into my head as an idea for filling time. The Tank came home from preschool yesterday wearing a beautiful necklace made from dyed, dry pasta of different shapes and sizes, and I never, ever would have thought to make something like that.
Why are some parents like that and others aren’t? I have friends who routinely set up seasonal sensory tables for their children, who make their own playdough on a whim, who always have an idea for something like paper pumpkins or turkeys to provide holiday-relevant activities, who festoon their mantels with garlands made from paper leaves colored and cut out by their children. I’m an intelligent person. I daresay that I’m at least a moderately creative one. I like to think I’m even a fairly fun mom at times. Why don’t I even think about making designs from glue and shaking cinnamon and glitter on to them? Why don’t I make felt “paper” dolls with my kids? Why don’t we make and bind our own books?
Am I missing a creativity gene? A parenting gene? Am I somehow wrong-thinking and a right-thinking parent would do these things? I feel guilty when I see all the crafts my friends do with their children, because I worry that my kids are missing out on some special part of childhood that a better or more progressive/involved parent would offer them. I don’t remember my mother providing us with endless craft activities as we grew up, at least, not outside of Girl Scouts. I always thought that was what Scouting was for. My boys don’t do Scouting (Captain Science tried, but we quit half a year in, because it was every bit as bad as I’d thought it would be, and then some). I know I’ll want to lead a Girl Scout troop for Babypie at some point, and I’m sure we’ll do make all the milk carton ice candles, clothespin reindeer, and paper plate masks there that a little girl could desire, but what about my boys? Are they going to suffer and be uncreative individuals for a lack of crafting in childhood?
How do I find the motivation for this? Do I even need the motivation for this? Will macaroni jewelry be the dividing line between the wise and the foolish, the enlightened and the worldly, the creative and the dull? Does so much depend upon a tissue paper mosaic of a red wheelbarrow, glazed with homemade finger paint, beside the pipe cleaner chickens?
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[...] my mother suggested adding arts and crafts into our schedule, rather than just feeling bad that I don’t make time for it. I think that sounds like a good idea. I would like to pick one day a week where we do some time of [...]
You made me laugh out loud with the comment about the sauce on the butcher paper. I know it was out there, I do.
Some of it may be a kid personality thing and not you at all. If I didn’t constantly guide Eloise toward new projects to keep her busy and encourage her own artsy whims, I’d have sold her to the gypsies by now. Other kids aren’t like that at all, and we’ve had play dates where other moms (almost always moms of boys, FWIW) think I should be committed for keeping the art supplies in kid reach at all. They’re the ones who are very thankful the paste and playdough can stay at preschool. It’s definitely something that varies by family.
Donovan might be that kind of kid. I keep having to get onto him about coloring on himself, on the walls, on his sheeets. Maybe he’s just starving for art. He sure has loved every single little project they do at preschool.
Maybe start with some 3-D things he can color and paint on- egg cartons, toilet paper tubes, rocks, that sort of thing. I usually don’t have a certain project in mind when we start, I offer lots of supplies and watch. That sort of thing is more important developmentally than perfectly laid out kits anyway.
LOL. Your children will be fine. I think it helps to ask what the underlying skill is in crafts and such. The entire point is to encourage children towards creativity and the use of imagination.
For some children that will look like maceroni necklaces and for some it will look like Lego robots. My daughter enjoys writing stories, sewing, and building forts. My son builds incredible Lego creations, paper airplanes, and various weapons of mass destruction. My husband builds with wood and I prefer to create recipes. Regardless we are all engaged in activities that we enjoy and that allow us to create.
As we’ve seen time and again, the school setting is an artificial environment has to use materials and resources that work in that setting. As much as my husband would rather allow a boy to build a Lego creation in his classroom, he is stuck with 10 bottles of glue and a container of glitter. LOL.
I worry that The Tank’s chosen form of art is graffiti!
Too funny. Hey, there is a real market for that in SoCal (eyes rolling).
I do almost no crafts with my children, though Isabel and I will attempt to learn to sew soon. The Waldorf school has turned all three of my daughters into these incredible artists and crafters. I think that a big part of it is that they never write anything – even their math books – whithout drawing or decorating. My daughter decorates all of her math books, even in eigth grade. Things like borders around pages, etc. Every story (history),they draw. Everything that is written has a counterpart in the arts because beauty is supposed to be an important part of an education and drawing things brings them to life in the soul of a child. Somehow they seem to digest things better this way. They also start drawing without lines in the first few years, they use the side of the crayon and draw the form – as if they are drawing the soul or atmosphere of something rather than having to capture the exact thing. I think that this reaching for form and atmosphere gives them Xray vision in terms of actually grasping the important things. They also provide them with excellent but simple and few art supplies that they take good care of. It is also cool that they learn to knit, etc. in handwork. They get soooo excited about manifesting – making a scarf or hat. They feel so accomplished and powerful. It uses up oodles of time that they don’t spend on media or the like and it seems to offer warmth to their beingness. Sitting together in the living room is just so cool – I can sew on lost buttons or read a book out loud while Ravelle knits. Finger dexterity is great for brain development too. It is fabulous when learning is multidimensional and employs all the senses to reach for morality, beauty, and, in that context, the soul of the world.
But we did do crafty things. I made homemade edible (though not tasty) finger paints for you and your brother. Once you started GS, though, you were in school and then your brother was playing ball, and then OM, etc. When would we do crafts? Besides, the day I woke up to hear crunch, crunch, crunch and discovered a palmetto bug was eating the glue and macaroni off of a project you had made in preschool, I never could really bring myself to do macaroni projects. *shudder*
If you’re a mom who freaks out about mess–who would never let your kids do art if they asked, or help in the kitchen, or play in mud puddles–then yes, maybe you’d be doing them a disservice. But if it just doesn’t occur to you–then it just doesn’t occur to you.
It’s probably the wrong season to suggest this for your little graffitti artist, but giving a child a container of water, a paintbrush, and a driveway/playground/whatever outside to paint is a lot of fun. No mess to speak of, and watching the sun evaporate the water is pretty neat.
The kids definitely get a lot of time for free-drawing. I just don’t ever plan anything crafty to speak of.
I leave craftsy stuff out for my kids all the time. They have access to it. I just don’t feel like setting up a project every week. I’m not That Woman.
Just discovered your blog and I love it. I’m a fellow non-facilitator of crafts. In fact, I’m even one of those moms who discourages mud-puddle play on a regular basis. Maybe I need to reevaluate!
I’m glad you’re enjoying it!