Hi, yesterday was my youngest daughter’s 7th birthday, and since she is the only one of my kids who enjoys spending time with me in the train room, I figured I’d give her a piece of her own “real estate” for the [as-yet-uncompleted] layout.
This was only a last-minute afterthought, but it tuned out to be one of her two “favoritest” gifts (the other was a harmonica). She wasted no time placing it on the plywood, now she’s putting pressure on me to finish securing that track so we can start runniing some trains![^]
Come on Dad get on with it! Watch out once the clickity clack starts, more rug rats are sure to show up, friends, siblings, friends dads and mothers (investigating rhe "Pied Piped syndrome) Now get off the web and go lay some more track!
Have fun, looks like you have a buddy for life.
Will
I was blessed with 3 daughters - no boys! When they were old enough to have some coordination and a decent attention span, I had built them a small layout with my old Lionel trains (all right, I built it for me!) It had blocks so that they could independently run two trains at once, some facing and trailing switches and a few building. I used to come up with switching problems for them where they would have to think about how to get car A into siding B when the engine is on the wrong end of the train. They did very well and kept busy for hours.
Like most girls, after boys, sports and cars came on the scene, they got away from the trains. Now, none of them is interested in trains per se but all ended up very talented in art, two of them are very mechanically inclined, one works on custom cars (full size) and can pull an engine with the best of them. One actually built sail boats for a living for a period of time. Very comfortable with hand and power tools. I like to think that those early years of chasing trains with Dad and helping with the mechanical and construction projects helped master some of the skills and interests they have today.
So Ken, keep on including her in your projects. She may not end up being a model railroader but the things you can teach her will help later in life. It will also leave you both with some very nice memories!
Chuck
Imagine that… Tracklaying being classified as a Honey-Do! Is that serendipity or what?[(-D] OK, I confess, there was some shameless scheming on my part…[B)]
I ‘hear ya’ Chuck, I’ve been trying to figure out how to incorporate this great hobby into our educational program [we’re home-schooling our 2 youngest daughters].
Great stuff. My dad got me started 60 years ago and look what happened. After drag racing, building my own house and having a carreer, I’m right back where I started - HO. There ought to be some good history lessons in the layout. Keep us posted.
In trains since I was four. It really has become an obsession over recent years…
Everyone in the school of 1500 people knows me as ‘trainboy’ (Hence the username)
People walk by and say ‘Hi trainboy’ or ‘Did you hear about that train crash?’ (A few days ago I said "Oh, the one in Chicago, yeah,… First fatal accident in their history, 2 people died…)
Trainboy
Ken
Is that Jessica Simpson’s house?
Nah, more like Homer’s - I doubt that Jessica’s house could fit into a box that small (except maybe in Z-scale?)[:D]
What kind of drag racing did you do? That’s my second favorite thing to do. Old boss had an alcohol funny car I used to help with.
Great stuff Ken, great start to life, my eldests boy Robert’s (6) headmaster said it’s a pity more young boys should have hobby’s like robert instead of TV and game console watching, Matthew (3) and Gemma (2) both love to watch and play trains, fantastic
this is Matthew
WOW Steve, a 3yr-old operating a DCC throttle - you’ve REALLY “trained” him well![bow][bow]
good luck to everybody getting their children involved. Im slowly trying to get one of my friends in, he already had some trains and he really likes them, so im hoping he’ll continue.
I wish i had a friend like your yoshi
Neither of my children (1 boy, 1 girl) had any interest in my trains, but my eldest granddaughter (now 12) showed an interest at about 3 or 4 y.o. I let her play with some old rolling stock and just “do her thing” with them for a while, then let her use the throttle to run trains. By the time she was 6 or 7 she was helping me build structures and wanted to build one herself. So I took her to the hobby shop (she always enjoyed going there) and let her pick one to build. She chose a crossing tower (??). I helped her build it and paint it. I did have to guide her in her choice of colours because she wanted to paint the roof purple with yellow polkadots. (Maybe I should have let her?)
Since then, she has helped me build a number of structures and paint them and weather them. I bought a bag of unpainted figures (N scale) and even with an Optivisor found them terribly tedious to paint. So, she painted most of them, giving them different colours of clothes, mixing paint to achieve a faded bluejeans colour, and giving them different skin colours to represent tans and ethnic groups.
She has also developed a real talent for scenery work and enjoys doing that with me. She is good enough at it that I turn to her for advice on scenery work. She is very talented artistically and loves working with her hands making things. She is looking forward to getting into woodworking and metalworking shops in school this year.
Unfortunately, now that she is 12 y.o. she is developing a social life with her friends and getting into sports, and grandparents just don’t have the same entertainment value they once had so I don’t see as much of her now as I used to, but she still works on my layout with me sometimes when she visits.
Now, I guess it’s time to indoctrinate, oops, I mean interest my 3 y.o. granddaughter in trains. She likes looking at trains and looking at my layout, but I haven’t let her touch anything yet. Who knows, maybe she’ll develop the same interests and tale
Hey your looking at one!
ATTAGIRL! [:D]
Congratulations, Ken! Way to go fostering her interest in the hobby. [tup][tup] …And even if she never picks up MRR, she’ll always treasure the time you’ve spent with her and the fact that you included her in the enjoyment of your favorite hobby. [^]
(Likewise to the rest of you also spending time in the hobby with your children, grandchildren, etc.)
BTW, Ken–[bday] to your little angel! [angel]
-Dave
Last weekend my (step) granddaughters stopped by to help with the layout. They had camped out with their Aunt the night before and were a little tired.
I just wish I could share it with my own kids but I have not been allowed to see or speak to them since I got remarried, 5 years after their mother took them and walked out during a bankruptcy.
Maybe someday she’ll come home with a boy that is captain of the football team, captain of the debate team, and also into modeling. Might just make a great son-in-law.
All you guys have such beautiful children. I’m stuck with three knucklehead teenage boys. Lol. Another one is in the oven, so we’ll see.
Jim
I do volunteer work at a RR museum and run into a lot of little kids. I always tell the parents that a kid who is into trains won’t get into drgus, gangs, or other nasty things.
Of my two children, it’s my daughter that has taken an interest in model railroading. My son just doesn’t get into it. Perhaps when it’s all together and he gets to run some trains, he’ll change his mind (at least I can hope)!