No this has nothing to do with the election. Yesterday my new FineScale Modeler arrived. My almost-three-year-old son saw me flipping through it last night and has suddenly taken a huge interest in it. In fact, it is now his favorite thing to read at bed time and he asks me constantly to read it with him. So far he has learned the difference between old tanks and new tanks (i.e. modern or WW II or earlier) and old planes or new planes (i.e. propellors or jets). He also pointed out where the pilot sits, and now knows the word cockpit. And when I explained that the airplane flies when its propellor goes around really really fast, he deduced on his own that it lands when the propellor goes slow. But since I'm a tread head, the best part is that he now knows the difference between a tank an an armored car. I tell you it's enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Best day of my life
Nov 03, 2004
8 Replies
Cool! Keep after the teaching you'll have many wonderful times together. My dad got me interested when I was 7, I'm 49 now and still at it. Now a real P.I.T.A.(pain in the ----) and a stickler for detail. My son got the bug at about 8, he's 29 now and building better than I do (he's worse at being a stickler on detail than I am). Hey but we have fun at it, even if it takes us forever to get one finished.....lol. Good luck with the future modeler!! Mike G.
None of my daughters ever displayed any interest in scale modeling but my 6 year old grandson was at our house on Halloween eveining and came down to the basement work room while I was doing a little work on a HobbyCraft P-36. He displayed considerable interest and when I told him that I will sit down with him and we will build a kit together, he seemed very excited about it.
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I normally work in 1/48 but recently my 9 year old grandson was given a 1/72 Phantom for his birthday. he had a one day holiday from school two weeks ago (teacher training or some such) and I said I would sit down with him and make a model along side him. I picked up a revell
1/72 P47 for £4.99 ($8.50). We spent the whole day together and we both thouroughly enjoyed it. Neither got finished in the day. His was a marine f4 with very fancy paint. He has learned how to mask and to airbrush and I have learned how to paint 1/72 cockpits!We will have another day where he will finish his plane. i got sao excited about the P47 that i have finished it anyway - what a great kit.
There's the answer then - sit down with them and they will still enjoy it even if they are into Nintendo game boys etc. They just need to be shown with some patience and care.
David
I envy you! With 2 daughters and 2 grand-daughters, I haven't seen a hint of interest....okay the 8 month old seems interested, but she's interested in an empty toilet-paper tube too, so that might be a false positive.
Doug Wagner
As someone who's been modelling on and off for a while, I think the difficult part is keeping at it once you started. Unlike picking up a Playstation control pad and hammering away, this hobby requires so much more skill to do well. There aren't many people around who can glue two fuselage halves together without leaving a seam, finish a model without leaving behind brushmarks/orangepeel, etc. Well *I* can't, anyway...
Seb
Try getting them started on snap-tite cars. Manicuring the pieces from the sprues is a good connection and after a couple of those you can show them how to spray nail polish through an airbrush. Teach a kid how to use an airbrush and you've got a friend for life! hth
The Keeper (of too much crap!)
Buy the kid a Revell SnapTogether kit as fast as you can get the dollars outta your wallet. TSR2
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