Introduce Your Kids to Woodworking

Whether it turns into a hobby or a career (or neither), many parents would love to see their kids try their hand at working wood. Here are some thoughts on introducing kids to the craft.

In grade seven I took shop class as part of our curriculum (one year of weekly shop class and one year of home economics (two com­ponents that have unfortunately been cut from grade seven and eight elemen­tary school programmes). I remember making a wooden note pad, a key chair and a wooden penguin. I took a straw poll of what some people remembered about shop – most of the people who took part were in their thirties. All of the women remember making simi­lar things (wall-mounted candlestick holder, small shelf unit, name plate, mini baseball bat). They all said they loved shop class. One said, “I use those skills of using machinery in my profes­sion today.”

Many times the emphasis that is relayed to students are careers in the technology and business fields, and the courses in high school are tailored for those professions. What many students don’t realize is that all the business and computer jobs are appealing to a lot of the students because of the high pay associated with them. Little do they know that, sooner or later, those professions will get saturated and the battle for those jobs becomes very competitive. With the number of students going into trades becoming smaller and smaller, and the existing woodworking and construction work­force getting older, the need to attract students to this profession has become crucial.

One measurement of good parenting is for parents to offer their children a wide range of activities to experiment with, to see what they like, what they don’t like, what they excel at, and what they enjoy. Children love to make things. Even as toddlers, how you react when they are playing with blocks could internalize it and make them remember years later when it comes to choosing a career later in life. If, for instance, a three-year-old makes a tower of blocks and is praised and cheered on for their accomplishment, that encouragement will help to feed the fire of “Hey, I’m good at this, and people really like it!” This innocent activity of building block towers could instigate a career in construction or architecture.

There are many woodworking and construction activities for children. Kits at craft and home improvement stores, borrowing books from the library, play­ing with a toy workshop set and watching home improvement shows all allow a child to enter the world of wood­working and home improvement.

Sesame Street has done much to educate young minds. One of these accomplish­ments has been the “Fix-It Shop”. The “Fix-It Shop” opened in the third sea­son as the “L and R Fix-It Shop”, run by business partners Luis and Rafael. Their first job was repairing a broken picture frame of Susan’s. After Rafael left the show, it became known as it is today, the Fix-It Shop. Maria starting working at the Fix-It Shop, and became a full-time partner in the fifth season. Having Maria working in the Fix-It Shop shows kids that woodworking, repair work, and home renovations are not just a male-gendered profession – girls can be very successful in this trade.

Canadian Mag Ruffman is another role model for girls. She has had two shows on home repairs: A Repair to Remember and Anything I Can Do. She writes a home improvement column for the Toronto Star, published a book of her columns How Hard Can It Be? and is now partnering with Lowe’s to produce a video series of fun projects families can do together.

Let’s not allow woodwork­ing to become a dying art. Help your children discover the joy and creativity it has to offer. Even if your child doesn’t become a pro­fessional woodworker, they can learn an enjoyable hobby that they will have for the rest of their life.