Hobby Activities For Older Children

Tips to Enrich Your Child's Life!

Hobby activities for older children is quite an interesting aspect of parenting. I would even go so far as to say it's truly one of the perks of parenting. Here's your chance to get to know what makes that young mind tick, those eyes to shine, and that smile to get wider and stay that way.

Parental guidance is of course at a lower level than when your child was around 4 to 6 years of age. But certainly not totally out of the question. Parent's role now is to show interest, motivate, and help when needed. While an older kid might prefer to continue with his childhood hobbies, it might become necessary to shift gear, choose new activities befitting mental growth and age, and check out new fields of interests.

Hobby Collecting For Older Children

As parents of an older child, you could interest them in coin collection, especially if you have one of your own. Collecting porcelain dolls, Barbie dolls, and toy cars could also be a passionate hobby but could prove to be expensive and pointless unless kids do so with their own pocket money. Check out some fun hobbies for kids online.

Hobby activities for young children could also involve model kits of aircrafts, boats, cars, and rockets. The remote-controlled versions, especially, give a lot of satisfaction when they eventually get going.These hobby kits are a huge hit for both boys and girls. This is of course not for really young kids and toddlers who may swallow more parts than they put together. It will have to be Lego for them, I suppose.

Kids hobbies also draw inspiration from movies such as the Star Trek and Harry Potter series. Though I haven't heard of any kid collecting Aston Martins because of James Bond, there has been a rise in popularity in poker games after his outing in Casino Royale.

Hobbies For Kids Using Hands

Hobby activities such as  gardening,    photography,  baking and reading can become life-long addictions that can often be traced back to childhood. Some kids get hooked on magic tricks and card tricks. There are various online resources that will help you get going. If you have access to the great outdoors, check out kite flying. It is supposed to be a huge attraction in countries like India, Afghanistan and others in the region. Of course, half the fun is in the making of it and this is where individual creativity kicks in. 

Playing video game is not a hobby in my book. No, I don't mean to put down video games, mostly because I'm a big fan. Some varieties such as the interactive Wii games are a better option as it gets your kids moving. Games such as Tetris are said to improve puzzle solving abilities. But they still don't qualify as a hobby. 

As I see it, a hobby is a chance to use your fingers, use materials, get down to earth, work at it, collect, look out for, manipulate, glue, unglue, put together, and so on. It is certainly not slouching on a couch or staring unblinking at a monitor moving just thumbs, barely breathing.

Once you get an idea of what ignites your child's passion, join the club, and keep him motivated. He would love to know you are as passionate about his hobby as he is. Your child can then use you as a sounding board, a guinea pig, a co-conspirator. Help her find new sources to keep up-to-date with her passion. Take pride in her expertise and show it.

Kids hobbies does not have to be a lone individual pursuit if,

• They're too young
• Unclear as to what they'd like to do
• Need a lot of support and encouragement
• They're terribly excited, but don't know what to do

If that's the case, join in and make it a hobby for two. There's nothing like a father-son duo working away on a model airplane or a mother-daughter duo working on a quilt. Bond away big time as you fashion your hobby into a family affair.

Hobby activities for Kids are good because…

Children's hobbies help them gather an inordinate amount of knowledge about their favourite hobby. Kids are able to memorise and rattle out tonnes of trivia about their pursuit. This increases their self-confidence, and encourages them to take up new challenges without fear. Sometimes hobbies turn into lucrative businesses later on in adulthood.

All Photographs Courtesy morguefile.com