I know that the minimum age your child can knit is based on hand-eye coordination and so seeing if they can write is a good test. However they say that if your child shows interest when you knit that you should teach them no matter how good their coordination is and their age.
I disagree with this.
The reason is that the younger the child is the more likely that the child is going to be pricked by the needles and the more it is like a cut and so even if a 1 year old has good hand eye coordination and is interested in knitting I would delay it until they are at least 2 and probably 3 or 4.
However 1 year olds learn at a faster pace than older children because of how they have extreme neuroplasticity still so theoretically a 1 year old and a 6 year old and a 12 year old with good coordination would learn at different paces with the 1 year old learning the fastest of them all. However there is another thing to consider and that is their attention span and the attention span like puts a big - on a 1 year old and a small - on a 12 year old so for knitting it is actually the 12 year old who learns the fastest despite the lower neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity peaks at the newborn stage and gets lower and lower after that.
Do you agree with what I said and if you don’t agree tell me why you don’t agree.
About 4 is the youngest I’ve managed to teach so far. Younger than that, they’ll sit and watch, sometimes grab at the needles and make flailing attempts, but the patience to listen isn’t there yet. (I’ve also had a lot of stuff torn up by toddlers trying to “help” and parents who think it’s cute to watch their kids tear the stitches off the needles, throw the yarn around, etc.) A truly interested toddler can try finger knitting with a little big yarn, but I watch them like a hawk to make sure they aren’t putting the yarn around their own necks or anyone else’s.
Pure anecdata: my son used to sit on my lap while
I knitted or crocheted, and when he finally asked to try to knit (and I thought it was safe to let him) he could. He didn’t find it all that interesting, so he doesn’t, but he could if he had to. He had learned enough from watching to get the idea.
Most (not all) kids don’t have the dexterity or attention span before the age of 4 or so IMO. Always exceptions to the rule though and I think everyone has to decide based on their own child.
I know and I don’t disagree with that. What I do disagree with is that if your child shows interest by doing things like watching you knit when you do knit than you should teach them no matter how old they are and no matter how good of hand eye coordination they have.
This is for me personally, so take from it whatever you want to. I have 4 kids, who are between the ages of 14-22.
I would NOT try to teach anyone younger than 4 or 5 how to knit or crochet. A child would have to come and ASK ME to teach them before I would attempt to.
Anyone using needles/hooks younger than 4 or 5 could result in serious injuries.
Oh but a 2 year old or a 3 year old could have good enough hand-eye coordination and a 1 year old could have good hand-eye coordination with only a little trouble and minimum age is based on interest and hand-eye coordination.
It’s not the coordination or intelligence, it’s the emotional maturity. When you deal with toddlers, you learn to watch literally every move they make, because they can go from happy and interested to raging and flinging in seconds.
I used to volunteer at a place where early afternoons were often slow, so I took knitting or crochet along. When the boss started expecting me to watch her toddler son some weeks while I was at the register, I took my project bag along, but left it in the cabinet in back if he was there. That stopped when I had to go to the bathroom one day.
His mother knew I was in the bathroom, but wasn’t watching him because she decided to make a phone call. He unlatched the cabinet, climbed up the shelves and pulled my bag out. He ripped out the piece I was working on, broke the needles, got hold of the small scissors attached by a cord and cut the cord, then was trying to chop the strap off the bag when another worker noticed him with the strung-out yarn wound around his baby sister’s neck and his own.
He was unattended for less than five minutes. No more yarn, string, scissors or anything else of mine went into that building.
It’s possible a 3 yr old might be ready, but honestly younger than that is unlikely. They can barely feed themselves much less handle the fine work of knitting without putting an eye out or getting too frustrated. They need to build so e fine motor control.
No but when I have kids this will be important because what if I have a girl during my first pregnancy, wait 3 years for another pregnancy, and then get pregnant again. It would be nice to know this so that I won’t have as much stress during pregnancy when I get pregnant(And this is also the reason I started knitting baby stuff when I was around 13 years old)
There is no way you can determine this before you have them. Each child is different. I have two daughters who are highly intelligent and were reading at 4 yrs. The older one might have been able to knit at 3, the other would have been too impatient and immature. When he time comes you will know.
Patience and attention, even more than dexterity, I think are the keys. A kid with less dexterity but more patience will stick to it long enough for the skill to kick in and for him or her to actually make something.
Well, I wouldn’t put so much importance on teaching a young child to knit. I would let the child decide for themselves if they seriously want to take the time to sit down and learn the craft rather than try to teach them when they are unwilling.
Then again, I don’t plan on having kids, nor am I going to raise yours, so our views on child rearing may be respectfully different.
I would start with something a little less complicated just to test the waters. Doing this might help determine if the child is ready. My DD got one of those weaving projects for her 6th birthday. It basically requires one to stretch cloth over hooks as the warp and then pull them opposite on the weft. That doesn’t require as much dexterity as knitting. However it does require a little patience. I can tell that after that project my DD is not ready to knit.
Or maybe exploring some of the concepts of knitting such as asking them to help choose yarn or looking at patterns together. I always liked doing that with my Mom when I was little.
