Sewing is an extremely versatile and fun hobby to introduce your children to. The benefits are huge and reach further than just learning how to sew stuffed animals or being able to mend your clothes. Sewing takes practice and skill, it benefits your mental health and develops creativity and communication skills. Teaching your children to sew at a young age could be the best decision you ever make. Help them develop a range of physical and mental skills, without them even knowing, and give them a skill they can take into adulthood.
Check out the main benefits of teaching your children how to sew below.
1. Sewing develops fine motor skills
It is important for children to practice their motor skills, both gross (whole-body movements) and fine motor to develop effectively while growing. Having good gross motor skills can help when developing fine motor skills as they give more control over their body. Activities such as sewing are perfect for helping develop fine motor skills. Sewing helps children learn how to perform precise, delicate movements and manipulate smaller items with ease. Skills that are transferable to writing and other areas of their lives.
As their skills improve, they may want to try using a sewing machine. This will build on the fine motor skills they have already learnt and develop their hand-eye coordination as they need to pay attention to many things at once. Make sure they only use a sewing machine with adult supervision until they are confident and old enough to use one on their own.
2. Sewing helps build confidence and improves mental health
Learning a new skill can be exciting and sewing is a great way to help your children build confidence whilst having fun. Seeing their creations come to life as they add more and more stitches will give them a sense of accomplishment and encourage them to keep going and try more advanced stitches and techniques.
These skills are transferable to all areas of life and will help build resilience as an adult as they will be confident to try new things and step out of their comfort zone.
Sewing also helps boost your mental health, some people find it therapeutic and use it to unwind after a busy day. It’s a great alternative to screen time for children and will help reduce stress, anxiety in depression.
Without knowing it your children will also be developing functional maths skills when measuring fabric, cutting out the pieces, and when constructing their item.
3. Sewing, teaches patience and organization
Building patience in children is a definite must. We all know the struggles of trying to reason with our children when they want something instantly. Learning how to sew will help them learn about patience and they will begin to take their time with a range of activities.
They will start to recognize that instant gratification isn’t always the best outcome and will learn to appreciate how amazing it is to watch a project unfold and grow into a finished item.
Sewing as a hobby also helps you to slow down and relax whilst doing something productive and will be an invaluable escape from the busy world as your children grow.
A big part of sewing is the organization before getting started. You need to make sure you have all your materials, equipment, and instructions beforehand so you are not wasting time later when you are in the middle of being creative. Having a proper storage box or space where your children can keep their sewing supplies will give them responsibility and they will take pride in looking after their things.
Once your child has grown in confidence in their sewing skills, they may want to develop their own sewing pattern, this will take lots of planning to make sure the fabric pieces fit correctly for their vision. It could be a fun joint project and a great opportunity to develop a range of skills.
4. Sewing improves communication and reading
When children are learning anything new, they need your help and support to understand what they need to do and the processes involved. Sewing is no different and they will need help to cut their fabric correctly, thread the needle, and learn how to hold the fabric and needle, as well as the process of sewing.
When broken down like this there is a lot of different skills needed to sew successfully. Work through them together with your children and give them time to think up solutions on their own and explore their own way of doing things. Trial and error is an excellent way to learn and sewing offers many opportunities to practice different techniques and styles of working.
Sewing is an excellent bonding activity as you can work on a project alongside your child. Read through the instructions together to give them another lifelong skill, as I bet, we all know someone who doesn’t follow the instructions and then wonders why their furniture is wonky or baking isn’t perfect.
Helping your child work through any difficulties they may face when learning to sew will help them develop their expressive communication and questioning skills and enable them to explain any problems during the activity more effectively.
5. Sewing sparks imagination and creativity
Sewing is a brilliant outlet for creativity and imagination. There are many sewing patterns online with varying degrees of difficulty or you could create your own if you and your child are wanting a challenge.
By creating a pattern from scratch, children will be more inclined to see the project through and feel a massive sense of accomplishment at the end. It could be the start of a lifelong love of sewing. From drawing their initial design to choosing the fabric a self-made project is extra special and they will remember it well into adulthood.
The benefits of learning to sew are plentiful, from developing fine motor skills to improving mental health. There really is no reason not to introduce sewing to your children the next time you do an activity together. Sewing can also be started at any age, even small toddlers learn the concept of sewing through threading large beads on a string.
Sewing is a skill that many adults don’t have, which means they are unable to mend clothes or fix buttons when they break costing more money to buy new ones.
So, pick up your needle and thread and start teaching your children to sew and create beautiful projects together.
