For nearly 5 years now I have been taking my kids to Home Depot’s kids workshops. Judging by the small turnout in my area, I am guessing it’s one of the best kept family secrets out there.
The way it works at Home Depot is the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot stores dedicate a few hours in the morning to a pre-selected kids project. Lowes has virtually the same calling them kids clinics, but I am not sure if they have a set schedule. These range from building bird and bat houses, potting mother’s day flowers, making do-dad boxes and painting. The kits they distribute are free to the participants, but it lures me into the store so they usually make quadruple their money back in the supplies I end up purchasing while I am there.
What I really like about it is it’s some great father-daughter and father-son time. Kim uses the “manly” tools such as hammer and screwdriver as an excuse to make her way to other parts of the store. But that’s fine with me. I enjoy teaching the kids proper tool use methods. “Hold the hammer from lower on the handle to get more leverage honey.” “Son, go ahead and sand the parts before putting them together, they’ll be easier to work with.”
What I like best about it is if you are patient enough, you can help a little, but let let kids do most of the work. As an advocate for learning by doing, the kids will learn a lot just by making mistakes, experimenting and building their own stuff.
I see some parents there who get impatient. They help too much in trying to build the perfect end product. What’s the point of that? How will they learn how to assemble stuff by themselves if the parents keep butting in? It’s the kid’s workshop, not impatient parent’s workshop.
Parents: Let the kids build, let them hammer and dent the wood, let them spill glue, let them drip paint. It’s not your store, it’s not your problem. Take a deep breath and let them go to town. The worst thing that can happen is they might pop their thumb with the hammer. The best thing that can happen is they learn to do something all by themselves, make decisions and go on to making stuff for the rest of their lives!
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Wisdom! As a cubmaster for 38 boys and father of an 8 yr old, I have had to learn this skill by mistake too. What is the goal? A complete project or an age appropriate experience. Looking back, I think I learned more by hitting my thumb than my dad telling me how to do it right. Its not easy being a dad. Thanks for the blog and website.
Joe, welcome to Achieve-IT!
Thanks for your comment. Scouting has gotten a bit of a bad rap lately, but it’s good to hear it’s still going strong. I was a cub scout as a boy and it taught me a lot of skills like how to patch my own clothes, build stuff out of wood and make campfire stew. All good skills that remain to this day. Keep up the good work!