Is Your Child Ready to Learn to Crochet? 5 Signs to Look For.

How do you know your child is ready to learn to crochet? A parent asked me this very question last week, and I thought I’d do a deep dive on the topic here for you all.

There are so many signs that your child is at the point where they can handle learning to crochet. I had so many ideas on this topic that this a 2-part series! I’m covering my first 5 signs in this post. The rest of them will be revealed in 2 weeks time. I’m very excited to share these with you. Let’s get started!

1. Your child is naturally drawn to crafting.

I have always been a creative person with many different interests and hobbies. My favourite subject in school was art class, and at home I always had several craft projects I was working on. I was first introduced to the fiber arts when I was 8 years old. I learned two significant hobbies that year. First, a friend taught me how to make friendship bracelets. A few months later my grandmother taught me how to knit. It was another 2 years before I was introduced to the wonderful hobby that is crochet.

Maybe your child is like I was at their age. They enjoy knitting, beading, embroidery, paper crafts. Really, anything creative. Or they want to try out a new hobby that lets them express themselves in a whole new way. There are so many things your child could crochet, that the options are almost limitless!

2. If your child sees others crocheting and says they want to learn to crochet.

This was the sign that really got me into crochet, and has sustained me for the past 30+ years as a crocheter. When I was 10 years old, my mom almost always had a crochet project on the go. She loved making blankets, and would work on one most evenings. I was going through a lot of anxiety and challenges at that time, and was on the lookout for a new hobby. I saw the things my mom was making and thought, “hmm, maybe I could try crocheting. That looks like fun”. One day I asked my mom if she’d show me how to crochet some stitches. She said yes, taught me the basic stitches, and I’ve been crocheting ever since.

There are a lot of ways your child could get inspired to want to crochet. Maybe it’s a family member, a friend, or they might find out about a crochet club at their school. If they tell you they want to learn to crochet, listen to them. It might just change their life in the best way possible.

3. Your child can concentrate for 10-15 minutes at a time.

A lot of parents have told me that they believe their kid can’t fit crochet time into their busy schedule. They think they need 60 minute blocks of time for their child to make real progress on their crochet skills. As someone who has been crocheting for a long time who also has a very busy schedule, this is simply not true. I am a big believer in consistency over duration when it comes to building your child’s crochet skills.

Kids have shorter attention spans than adults. I recommend keeping crochet sessions shorter. 10-15 minutes of focused time is often an ideal amount of time. If your child is okay with making mistakes. You’d be surprised at how quickly your child will progress in this amount of time.

Keep in mind that consistency matters. Like with learning many other things like languages, shorter sessions more often are more effective than one hour-long session once a week. You can adjust the amount of time your child spends crocheting once they have a strong foundation in crochet, are working on a larger crochet project, or they are crocheting for longer periods of time by choice.

4. Your child is okay with making mistakes.

Crochet does involve a good amount of making mistakes in order to be a confident and skilled crocheter. As with learning any new skills, your child will make mistakes. It is inevitable and part of being a crocheter. Personally, I prefer to have a more positive mindset towards these. I don’t call them “failures” or “mistakes”. They are instead “lessons learned”. That way, when stitches or crochet projects go a bit astray from what we wanted, we can learn from this experience. If your child is capable of this mindset shift and learning through these experiences, they are ready to start learning to crochet.

5. Your child is able to follow step-by-step instructions.

If you’ve ever watched anyone crocheting, especially when they’re crocheting quickly, it can look like it’s very confusing and complicated. Before the pandemic I used to bring my current crochet project to coffee shops, and sip and stitch while chatting with a friend. I had multiple people stop me and ask what I’m doing and say, “how are doing that? It looks so hard and it makes no sense”.

Essentially, all crochet stitches, patterns, and projects are created with a set of step-by-step instructions. You follow a set of steps to make a stitch. Similarly, making entire crochet project by following the step-by-step instructions laid out in the pattern or tutorial video. Crochet is both logical and sequential. If your child likes logic and can follow step-by-step instructions, they are ready to learn to crochet.

It is very important to find a crochet teacher that implements this philosophy into their teaching framework. This highly-structured approach is the basis of how I have successfully taught over 250 kids to crochet in the last 2+ years. All the lessons in my crochet course Crochet Made Easy! break the stitches and projects down into short, bite-sized lessons that provide easy to follow instructions and clear explanations. Plus, your child gets to practice with fun, kid-friendly crochet projects!

Please let me know if you have any questions about the materials I covered in this post in the comments down below. If your child would like to learn to crochet with me, check out the link to my course Crochet Made Easy! below.