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Wondering why your child should learn to crochet? Or perhaps you know you want your child to start learning how to craft because they have shown interest but aren’t sure where to start. Crochet? Knitting? Painting? Sewing? There are lots of options.
Teaching your child any craft or hobby is beneficial! Look at where they are developmentally to help make a decision. Some other factors to consider are things like:
- Do I want to personally teach them? If so, what are crafts that I have the skills to teach or could pick up easily?
- If I don’t want to teach them, are there lessons available that I can sign my child up for?
- How available and expensive are materials? Is this a craft that we could encourage them to continue long term?
What is Crochet?
People often confuse knitting with crochet. Although the result is similar, knitting and crochet are a different process. Yes, they both use yarn and different styles of stitches to work up many rows, however, knitting requires 2 or more long needles and crochet uses one hook to work the stitches.
In my opinion (and some may disagree) I find crochet to be easier to learn, simpler to maintain and expand skills, and FASTER! What I love about crochet is you really just need some yarn and a hook, and you’re set to keep yourself occupied for hours!
I find it to be fairly inexpensive as well. You can buy yarn at any craft store and find hooks of varying quality and prices.
Why Your Child Should Learn to Crochet
There are so many reasons why your child should learn to crochet! The benefits of crocheting (and any disciplined crafting) are numerous for sure. Not only is it fun but it gives them skills that help them in other areas of life as well.
Fine Motor skills
Crochet requires a good amount of hand control. Learning to crochet develops and strengthens your child’s fine motor skills as well as their hand-eye coordination.
When crocheting, the hook has to go in the right place. You have to wrap the hook a designated amount of times, pull it through the yarn without snagging… The whole process requires fine motor skills!
Self-Expression
As with any craft, crochet gives your child an outlet for self-expression. Once they have mastered even the BASICS a whole slew of possibilities for creative expression is opened up to them.
Even knowing a simple single crochet stitch gives your child the skills they need to make cute, customized projects with their favorite characters, colors, or patterns. In fact, one of the very first projects I made with the most rudimentary skills was a minion hat! Minions were still pretty big at the time.
Pattern from A Crafty Concept blog
Creativity
This sort of goes along with self-expression, but crochet also develops your child’s creativity. After learning to crochet for some time, they will start to understand how it works and be able to create their own designs instead of just recreating someone else’s designs.
Self-Discipline
Your child should learn to crochet or another craft because it promotes other life skills as well. When a child has something that takes patience, practice, endurance, and focus, they start to learn self-discipline.
Learning to focus on a task and work on it until it’s finished (especially over time) is an important skill! This self-discipline will be transferred to other skills they want to learn and their future jobs.
Easy and Quick to Learn
Another reason crochet is a great choice for your child to learn is that it will not be long before they start to see some reward for their work. As mentioned before, you don’t need to know more than the basic stitch before you can start making full projects!
The first lesson that I teach my students starts them working on a washcloth! THE FIRST LESSON!
When it comes to teaching children, this is a good factor to consider. When a child doesn’t see the benefit of what they are learning right away, it is difficult to keep them motivated to learn. With crochet, you start to see your creation take shape and start to visualize all of the possibilities right away!
Direction following and technical reading
Speaking of life-skills, another way that learning to crochet can help your child is the practice they get following written directions. Children get to develop their technical reading skills. Again, this is a transferrable skill.
Being able to read written instructions well will help them be able to learn just about anything they want to learn!
What Age Should Kids Start?
This really is dependent on the child. Some kids could probably start as young as 5. The real question is “what skills should my child have already mastered before I attempt to have them crochet?”
Your child should have strong enough fine motor skills that they can hold the hook and control it. They should be able to follow instructions and count. They also need to have enough of an attention span to sit and work with their projects.
With my lessons, I request that students be at least 8 years old. This is a good age that most students start to have the control needed to learn how to crochet. This doesn’t mean that every eight-year-old will have an easy time with it, nor does it mean that no child under eight could be ready.
Why Should I Get Lessons for My Child?
Kids learn best with an actual teacher. Personally, I taught myself crochet through books, blog posts, and youtube videos. However, not everyone, and especially children, learn well this way.
Kids do best when they have a person working with them and guiding them along the way. When they are able to ask questions as they come (instead of writing in a comment section that may or may not get a response), they are able to get instant feedback to master skills.
Where Can My Child Learn to Crochet?
Craft stores often offer various crafting lessons in store. These vary based on location and are dependent on whether teachers have set up a class with that store.
Usually, these are offered for adults. However, sometimes there are children’s classes available as well.
You can also sometimes find local teachers that do private lessons from their home or at a nearby location.
Online is a great place to go to learn anything! The world of online teaching has made learning new skills easier than ever! For the last two years, I have been learning more and more about teaching children online through my VIPKid work and it IS possible for children to learn over a webcam!
Recently I have taken this new skill to start teaching CROCHET online! You and/or your child can take lessons with me from ANYWHERE!
My knowledge of digital effects has allowed me to create a classroom environment that is optimal for learning how to crochet!
Hi Meagan, Thank you for sharing this post about crochet! I haven’t done this in years but it reminds me of when I was a child and my grandmother taught me. I would love for you to share this post on the January Kid Culture Blogger Link Up here: https://www.mypiccoloitaliano.com/post/january-kid-culture-link-up . The link will be open until 1/31. Hope to see you there!
Hey Jana! Thanks, I will check it out!
Thank you for sharing this list! I’ve been teaching myself to knit for the past couple of months and my 4 year old has been begging me to let her try. After reading your tips, I think I’ll introduce her to crochet instead and we can learn together.
Yes! I feel like crochet is a little simpler and easier for little hands! At THAT young I highly suggest starting with a large hook and super chunky yarn like a T-shirt yarn. Something that is very easy for her to handle and to see the details of each stitch easily.
I want to learn how to crochet! And then maybe get my kids to learn 🙂 Crochet washcloths are my favourite!
Yes! It’s a great skill to have and so fun! There’s always more to make