What a great post, plenty of food for thought. Danny this could be discusion of the month??

I have to admit whilst I agree to a certain extent I have 2 children who are very much into crafty stuff and will just as happily sit drawing for a couple of hours as they will watch tv.  The are very young at the moment (5 & 3) but I am very concious not to let them waste their lives in front of the telly or computer (not saying that anyone else is btw but I do know people that use the TV to babysit their kids).  Neither of them use a pc (other than at school) and both have so far shown no interest in the wii and I intend keeping it that way as long as possible.

Rachel, my eldest is always drawing, she loves to face paint (and has her own kit) and she loves doing all the fiddly hama bead type stuff.  Adam is more into making and fixing things (he is actually very good at simple construction and is already onto proper Lego) and absolutely loves puzzles.  Both of them helped their Dad yesterday paint the walls in the kitchen and had a blast - to quote my daughter "this is much more funnerer than watching TV".  They are also very much into their music and actually understand more about it than I do!

As soon as they are a little older and can understand instructions a little better I shall have a go at teaching them twisting.  Rachel has shown interest but her hands are too small to cope and she doesn't yet have the attention span to be able to make anything from start to finish.

I honestly believe that whilst the technological age has it's downside for our children it will also open up endless learning possibilities.  For example look at that little boy in the YouTube clip a while back on here who had taught himself entirely from video's he had watched on YouTube!  Amazing.  We never had such fanastic learning tools when we were kids (or at least when I was).

I'd love it if you made this topic of the month! :lol:

I get your point about kids emulating their parents but my parents never had time to be that hands with the crafty stuff and to be fair never had the money to have hobbies.  My Dad was a DIY'er, my Nan was seamstress and my Mum and other Nan knitted but that was the extent of it.

I got into twisting via face painting and I only got into that once I had my eldest as something to entertain her with.

I really believe that if you spend good time with your kids and encourage them to pursue their interests they will find their own "thing" which makes them happy.  My daughter especially does not enjoy learning new things but that is only if she realises she is learning.  At present she does music class, swimming lessons and rainbows and each is fantastic for a different reason.

Also seeing the enjoyment the kids at Music school get from learning their chosen instruments I honestly believe there are enough kids out there still that understand that to do anything well you need to actually work at it to become better at it.

Hi Captain - great topic.

Your last post kind of touched on what I was going to say.  When I've turned up at parties and events with 'pre-made' animals, hats etc, the kids generally tend to take them, run off, and if we're lucky they last 5 minutes - I don't think they really 'get' the piece, it's here and now!

However, the ones that wait and see the item made in front of them more often than not do so with a degree of interest and wonder, and on the whole *seem* to be more connected to the piece, and 'own' the piece more, if you know what I mean.  I suppose its a similar thing to the argument that you are more likely to take care of something you have waited for, saved up for, earned, etc than something that is just handed to you.  As twisters/modellers, most things are made within the attention span of children ( I have a 5 yr old and a 2 yr old - ok, the 2 yr old isn't the most patient!) but generally speaking they can deal with the wait - and as long as they're interested, will wait, and are pleased with or even cherish the end result then I'm not convinced we live in a world of complete 'instant gratification' and that we have many, many more years of entertaining to come!  

Best regards

--Neil

I've always found it more interesting and exciting to watch a balloon modeller perform a show with balloons and whilst carefuly sculpting some great big balloon model; he is also engaging the children with jokes and interactive moments when they must clap their hands, wiggle their fingers and jump up and down. But the demand (certainly in my experience) in the corporate arena (shopping centres and town council jobs) seem to be more for the balloon line (where one makes a series of single balloon models for every queueing (god, my spelling's awful) child. I find that when Marketing Managers of these kind of establishments book me; they have less interest in the show and more in the production line. Is that more to do with their understanding of what a good balloon modeller can do or are they responding to the need that children have for instant gratification? I imagine it's a bit of both.

Captain whilst I agree with you regards shopping centre Marketing people's wish to have the fastest and cheapest person (well the ones near me do anyway) to get through as many kids as possible I have to disagree with your comment about children wanting instant gratification.

I've not noticed it so much with the balloons but I have often wondered at the children queuing patiently to be face painted and it is usually their parents who get fed up and try queue jumping or kicking off if you need a toilet break!

Shonna I actually agree with you.  I think in each generation there are children who do nothing with their lives, others who strive to achieve great things and then there are those in the middle that find their niche in life and do their best to excel at it.

There will still be kids who grow up to be entertainers, twisters, etc just as kids will still train to be electricians, carpenters and builders because in these days where office jobs are disappearing to the far east as is manufacturing it is only services such as ours that to some extents are a safe lifelong profession.