Question for the Grandpa's out there...

[Ramfins59]

My first and only grandson (so far anyway) will be 1 year old on May 12th. I already gave him his first snap kit model at my daughter's baby shower last year but I know it will be a couple of years before I will get to work on it with him. I will be putting together a Snapfast Slammer (Street Fury) to give him for his Birthday and I also have a small Model T Tonka car for him. I feel that both of those should be sturdy enough for him to play with and bash around, with no parts to really come loose. (I'll be reinforcing the Slammer kit with CA glue.) My question for all you Grandpa's out there is... When & how did you turn your Grandchildren on to modeling...???

[Rob Z]

My grandson will be 4 in April and I have yet to get him involved in modeling. He is curious about it though, he see's me working on mine and asks a ton of questions... I did start getting him into Hot Wheels when he was around 6 months old, for him and to give me an excuse to Ma'ma to keep buying some for me too... LOL

[Guest Johnny]

Just let them be around you when you are building. Do like you have and give them a kit especially once they are old enough to stick a snap tite together.(with a little Grandpa help!)

A lot of people make the mistke of shooing them away worried about the paits, knives and such. Yes you have to be careful. But if they are taught not to touch what isn't theirs starting at an early age and you show them with "you can watch buy do not touch" it can and will be rewarding. I know it is with my 2 year old granddaughter right now!!!

Will she take an interest in building??? Who knows for sure if any kid will. Some do some don't. But you will be planting the seed and cultivating the growth and if thing go right?????

[moparfarmer]

My grandson just turned one in November. He can say JETS(Winnipeg Jets) football and grandpa. I have cars on the back of my jacket and he says roar,roar. He sits

on my knee and will watch a period or two of hockey on TV and has some small sticks he shoots around balls with in the house. Other relatives say he is brainwashed but I don't think so. My six year old grand-daughter has built a PT cruiser rag(like grandma had) and a few Lego cars for grandpa by herself. She's not much into models but does play hockey. She is now eight.

[scalenut]

Mine just turned 2 and he is fascinated with cars .. he wants to get in any car and stand behind the steering wheel, and change all the knobs and levers.

every time he is at the house he wants to play in the cars than he will ball whenever you try to take him out of the car

His two favorite things are cars(all sizes) and spiderman

he's still to young to assemble a snap model yet, he just wants to play with them or the parts, or put spiderman in it

Edited January 28, 2012 by scalenut

[dustym]

My grandson is 5 now and he loves cars a lot, I even had to get a display cabinet that locks because of him. Unfortunately he is very autistic, so I dont know if he will ever will be able to do anything like models. The only thing that keeps him focused sometimes is very colorful cartoons, otherwise he is always going from one thing to another. Someday but my hopes for a normal life for him are very clouded.

[Dr. Cranky]

No grandchildren yet, but when they arrive and if they want to help Grandpa Cranky build models in the Lab-RAT-ory, they will be more than welcomed. And if they stick with it, everything in the Lab-RAT-ory will be theirs one day.

[Cornpatch]

My oldest granddaughter is 6, she stays at our house every afternoon after school, they only live 4 houses away. In the last 6 months she has gotten very interested in modeling. She will sit on grandpas lap and help him build.

She listens to what you tell her needs to be done, and trys to do it the way she's suppose to, but as with everything, it dont always work out that way.

As far as the sharp knives, glue and the other tools on the table, she is allowed to use all of this stuff, only under supervision, and she knows that oh to well.

Since all of the modeling stuff is in my basement, my youngest son (19) and her dad all model in the same room so she kind of helps everyone. We are going to get her her first model for her 7th birthday and let her pretty much put it together herself.

We always tried to make her feel that every model she helps on is as much hers as it is ours. She pretty much has say as to the colors used, heck she is even trying to use the air brush, but finding out, if you use it you clean it, she don't like that part.

Course her having rites to pick out colors isn't always a good thing either. She helped her uncle build a tank last month, it is the prettiest pink camouflaged tank I have ever seen. Yup 3 colors of pink.

[diymirage]

not a grandpa but with my son turning 2 this valentines day all i can say is :monkey see monkey do

my boy loves sitting with me while i build models

i even have a box with an old build up that is falling apart for him to play with and what not

best way to turn the little ones on to anything is to show them how much you enjoy doins it

[Sam Cates]

I have three grandchildren, two boys, 4 and 2 1/2, and a girl that for some frickin' reason I can't remeber how old...a few months anyway. TJ being 4 now, is a car nut, but also being roughly 2,200 miles away, I don't see often if at all. I do have a shot of him painting what I think is a pinewood derby car from last year. His birthday is coming up so he will officially be 4 in a short time, I will be sending him some things (snap kits, paint etc.) I know his parents are more than willing to help him learn. Jordan at almost 3, is REALLY interested in what I do at my hobby desk, when there isn't Thomas the Tank Engine in the tube he is all about standing and watching quietly. He LOVES to drag new kits from the shelves and "inspect" them, and I am impressed at how careful he is! So, in all, I am working on getting them into the hobby, slowly...

[imatt88]

My granddaugter just turned 5, and she is more interested in Barbies than anything else.

She did, last week, however, paint an old '64 Impala glue bomb that I had laying around

Cheers, Ian

[Ramfins59]

Thanks for your input guys. My daughter lives in Fairfax, VA and I'm just slightly north of Pittsburgh so they are roughly a 4 hour drive away. I look forward to visiting them and hangin with my new littly buddy. I notice that car commercials on TV seem to catch his attention so I'm thinkin he may turn out to be a car guy. I finished up his Fury Slammer (and I have to say it was fun putting it together in all of about 20 minutes... I spent a few extra minutes on it by reinforcing all the contact points with CA glue so when he eventually bangs it around the parts won't come undone so quickly.) I'll be looking around for some of the other Snapfast Slammer kits now for him. Gotta get him into the hobby for sure so he can carry on with it down the road.

[oldcars]

Started taking my grandson to carshows when he was four(he fell in love with all the chrome on the engines). He will be thirteen this fall. Not too much into models but has a very large collection of diecast and hotwheels. Still take him to carshows too. Richard

[pepperdrumstix]

My grandson was 9 and my grand daughter was 7, when I bought them each a snap-tite kit and we built them on my bench. They enjoyed the building and my grand daughter liked the stickers the best. I have the models displayed on my shelf and they want to build more kits. But their school time is more important now. I will take them to the local hobby shop and let them pick another snap-tite kit some weekend. They are still too young for glues and paints and sharp X-actos. Who knows if they continue to build as they get older, but I will try to encourage them as much as I can. But the best part of this kit building was spending time with them. That is, to steal a phrase, Priceless. I started building when I was 9 with my dad's help--ships, planes, amour and then AMT cars. Still building and enjoying it. Patrick

[Patrick2005]

Reading this post makes me realize that my only nephew is about the right age to start building snap kits. He loves the movies CARS so I think he'll like this too.