Are you stuck pulling your hair out when all you hear is “Mom, I’m bored!”, even though your children have all their toys out? Better yet, are you desperately looking for a way to rip that iPhone or iPad out of your child’s hands and get them to do ANYTHING else?
A popular craft The Hippie Hobby sponsors for a ‘Mommy and Me’ night is an aromatherapy or diffuser necklace.
Benefits of arts and crafts for children:
1. Creative emotional outlet Allowing your child a creative emotional outlet, specifically through arts and crafts provides them a safe place to express their emotions in a positive way. For example, referencing the diffuser necklace, giving your child a choice to pick the color of beads, felt and even the charms allows for total creativity within the project. Letting them choose where on the necklace to put these charms is even more imaginative. Heck, if they want to turn the necklace into a bracelet instead –let them! This is all about allowing your child to creatively think and feel accomplished.
The positive feelings that your child will feel after accomplishing their craft project forms a correlation, that during stressful situations in life, crafting can be an outlet to that stress (better than a tantrum, right?).
2. Forming a bond between children and parents Sitting down with your child and crafting with them (instead of sitting them down to do arts and crafts) creates a positive bond between you and your children. Your children can play together, talk about different ways they would do the project, while you, as the parent, can be there to praise their creativity and teach them throughout the process. The aromatherapy or diffuser necklace has so many valuable lessons children can learn. Taking the opportunity to teach them about different essential oils they can use on their piece of felt and allowing them to switch it often is empowering and allows them to get in touch with their feelings, and figure out ways to cope and deal with them respectively. Asking them, “What’s your favorite oil? How would you use that? What happens when you smell that essential oil?” are all ways to learn together and create a positive bond along the way.
3. Fine motor skills and dexterity improvement Picking up small beads, opening jump rings, attaching jump rings to a chain and picking up the smaller charms all help develop fine motor skills and improve dexterity. Having kids use their little fingers and enabling them to develop their motor skills is a fun process for parents to watch.
The Hippie Hobby is an every other month craft subscription box. All of their craft boxes are suitable for ‘Mommy and Me’ crafternoons. Their next box ships on July 15th, perfect for month two of your summer! Visit www.thehippiehobby.com to order by July 11th. To order a diffuser necklace kit for your child and you to put together, simply email [email protected] and they will take your order via email and PayPal. This mini kit is FREE as an introduction to their subscription box. They just ask you pay a small fee of $7.99 for shipping and handling. Don’t be shy, Craft On and remember, #Craft Happens!
