To feel a bit sorry for children whose parents don't do anything creative with them?

[flamingobingo]

I expect a lot of people will think I am, but I don't care.

I don't love doing crafts (in fact it drives me mad most of the time), but isn't it part of parenting?

You kind of signed up for it, didn't you, the day you got pregnant?

I loved doing craft activities with my DS when he was younger and am now feeling very sad that he is growing out of the age to do these things.

He has normally enjoyed crafts, and before Christmas we went to parent and child craft sessions at his school (at his request). However, as he has just turned 8 I thought that this may be the last summer holidays he'd want to sit and do these sort of things with me, so, getting prepared I was looking through a yellow moon catalogue choosing some things to order for the holidays. He came over and had a look and I asked him which things he'd like to do. 'Naa not really' he said

vodkaandcoke - if you have a dog and you spill glitter, let the dog lick it up....he'll do a sparkly turd within about 4 hours. Astonishes other dog-walkers and I like to tell him he's just gifted that way

I am a creative person who hates glue and glitter. There should be a support group for us somewhere.

S'called The Shed, UQD!

i loathe glue and glitter

htf is it that splodging a load of glutter glue on card is creative, while building mud pies somehow isn't . more at possible genderedness.

I do feel that a lot of kids craft stuff is too pre-assembled to be really creative, its like a 3-d join the dots.

I'm not great at arts and crafts personally, but I have done my stuff over time I recon. I have a dd who loves that sort of thing and a ds who really can't be bothered. I did the buy lots of stuff and maybe they will use it, and oh yes they do. dd makes some messy but creative pictures etc and is very happy. ds uses the bits to make battle grounds (and is very happy). Not all children actually enjoy crafty things that much (ds always threw wobblies when being given projects at school, which always involved at least two draw/make activities - even dd offering to do them for him didn't make him any happier).

Isn't that what CM/nursery/school is for? My contribution to ds's arts and crafts is to purchase stuff, undo tops, lay out plastic and leave him to get on with it. Doesn't seem to have stifled his creative skills.

We had someone in to do some work in the garden recently. He wondered why there were so many pot holes dotted around. Didn't feel able to tell him that they were dug by ds on his tractor as homes for the invisible pet rabbits which belong to the children of his invisible family (apparently invisible rabbits need help digging their burrow).

Aren't we supposed to be letting children have free rein with their imagination rather than 'organising' them?

"
Aren't we supposed to be letting children have free rein with their imagination rather than 'organising' them?
"

I do agree though

I really find a lot of so called "crafty stuff" very uncreative

as I have said several times now .

but really at shite in baker ross

I feel a bit sorrier for the parents having to do the creative stuff with the children tbh. So messy.

We have always had creative people in the past-it doesn't happen only because the parent instigates it. I'm sure that Rev Bronte didn't worry about getting his DCs to write, and whether he was inspiring them! He just let them get bored in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire and they created their own world. If your DC is creative, the fact that you loathe glue and glitter isn't going to hold them back!

Good lord. Would rather poke myself in the eye with a felt tip than have to deal with a tub of PVA glue.

No no no no no no no.....

And if Stevenson had been sitting in the kitchen with a pot of glitter instead of idly watching the kettle boil, we'd never have had steam trains for DS to obsess over...

I do worry a bit about parents who won't let their children indulge in messy play because they want their house and their children's clothes to be perfect. That doesn't allow the kids to experiment and let rip. One of my ds2's friends likes coming to my house because he's not allowed to do messy stuff at home - it's all white and perfectly clean and the garden is covered in astroturf to avoid mud coming into the house. Isn't that a bit...anal?

Yabu
I feel jealous of parents who get away with not doing it

Astroturf - really> Gosh. Mine were always set loose with paints and glue and stuff. Was bloody painful tbh.

I hate arts and craft and I certainly did not sign up for it when I became a parent.
This obsession with feeling the need to constantly engage my DC in "planned" activities along with the list of parenting books and tv programmes I should be reading/watching is really starting to piss me off as it's just another thing to make parents feel guilty

It's also a relatively new phenomenon according to my own mother who claims she never felt the guilt. I pretty much had to entertain myself as she just didn't have the time to sit and engage me for hours on end. Having said that, I remember having a fantastic childhood and have been told I was a very creative child. My friends and I would spend hours doing things like singing, dancing, making creations and concotions and trying learn to french knit (does anyone do that anymore??) and not an adult in sight.

Astroturf in the garden???? That's weird.

Not really weird. Makes perfect sense if you have a tiny dark garden where real grass would die. The lack of mud would be an unexpected bonus as far as I was concerned.

I hate "arts and crafts". dd (4) adores it. Fortunately, she gets on with it on her own. She told me the other day that as I didn't seem to be enjoying helping her very much she'd prefer to do it alone.

I make up for it by gardening and cooking with them. Sometimes.

I hate mess.
DH hates mess.

Garden like an allotment so not much scope for mud pies.

DD3 gets plenty of free range crayoning
Today she was wandering up and down rows of strawberries in the PYO field thoroughly enjoying 'helping to pick' the strawberries. Thank GOODNESS for Wet Wipes.

Chegirl @ 18.37 - I loved your post.

I bought beads and glue and all that and I just hate it all. I have two boys and they don't want to sit there doing all that with me - although they'll happily do it when they go to their friends' house - two girls would you believe.

IME boys just want to:

• turn every stick-like object into a gun or light sabre
• be noisy
• run around
• get very dirty
• not sit still, EXCEPT when watching TV/playing DS/on the computer

I've done very little 'imaginative play' with my kids- if I get any lengthy periods of time to devote to them (more than 30 mins, which isn't that frequent during the week) I like to be outdoors doing things and going places. I did used to feel 'bad mummy' about not sitting there doing crafty things but after 9 years of parenthood I've learned that I am the best mummy they're going to get - they love me and I love them. So the beads can remain in the bead jar as far as I'm concerned.

I dont have astroturf but I do have something similar. I use rubber bark chips. Used to have the real thing but it was a bloody nightmare. Ds is allergic to everything so we went for rubber chips. They are great. Stuff bounces off them which DS3 finds endlessly amusing. Trouble is DS2 throws them everywhere which pisses of the neighbours and I dont blame them. DS2 has LD so its really hard to get him to NOT do these annoying things.

I have real stuff in the garden too but the rubber chips are fab for the kids bit.

I am quite academic but when I was 10 went to a school where the teacher was one of these annoying 'creative' types. It drove me mad I had to do this shitty art work when I have no interest, use or aptitude for it. I was always good as gold before I went to that school.

Horrible tedious arty shit.

I don't "do" crafty stuff - never have really, not anything messy anyhow. One of my first school reports (so I'm told) read: "Good progress with drawing, not so happy with paint".

What we do do with DS, and I trust the OP does too:
singing
playing fiddle
playing piano
gardening
IDing plants and wild animals
cooking (everyday cooking, not fairy cakes)
etc.

Like many others, my view is that we pay good money 2 days a week for DS to go and do messy stuff at nursery. I love seeing his creations, but it's so much more fun for him to do it in a group with people who enjoy it. Making a glittery raindrop doesn't involve passing on knowledge and skills from parent to child. Most of the above does, and in my book it is therefore a more worthwhile use of our time.

Plus, DS (nearly 3) knows the name of pretty much every tool in DH's toolbox. And he's already a dab hand with a hammer and nails.

I think it is nice for children to have a relaxing time. Whatever that may be for each individual.
I cannot understand parents who do not show their children how to cook, how the hell do you expect them to learn, they won't at school, too busy doing sats stuff etc.
My dd also likes to sew, but so do I.
I think as long as they get to do crafty things with someone, nursery or parents or grandparents then it is a good thing.