Nothing can spark a child’s imagination quite like stamp collecting. Not only are stamps miniscule works of art, but they are also moments in time, faraway places, foreign languages and game-changing heroes. Stamp collecting helps children develop focus, organization and research skills and fine motor control, all while learning and having fun.
You can’t force your children’s interest in your favorite hobbies, but you can get them excited by making them relevant to their lives. Foster your kids’ interest by explaining that some of the benefits of stamp collecting include:
Call to Adventure
Stamps collecting can be like a scavenger hunt. Kids can hunt for stamps online, at antique malls, with other collectors or watch for stamps in the mail. Even the internet can be a place to hunt for specific stamps.
Collect Stamps with Personal Significance
Stamps can commemorate your state, favorite animals, the sport you play, the year of your birth, places you have visited or want to visit, and just about any occasion you can think of.
Quality Time Together
Sharing an interest as timeless as stamp collecting is unlike any other adult-child hobby. There is no competition, only camaraderie. So much of our time with kids is all business—school, sports, meals— that we forget to take time to just be present with them.
Get Others Involved
Encourage your kids to get their friends and siblings involved in the collecting activities, even if they don’t collect. They can help your child use Google to learn how to research, save stamps for them from their own mail or help them organize their albums.
Any Level of Difficulty
Stamp collecting can be an adaptable hobby. It can be simple and easy, challenging but manageable, or very sophisticated and in-depth. A child of any age can keep it as an easygoing hobby, like collecting stamps of horses, butterflies, countries or historical figures.
Stamp collecting is an investment, which can be very intriguing to some young stamp collectors. It can also be a way to learn skills like counting, math and money.
Plan Some Specific Activities
Stamp collecting has a wide array of activities kids can focus on. You can visit places of historical significance that are depicted on stamps, and then give your child the stamp.
Design Your Own Stamps
Encourage them to design stamps that they would like to see and you can even start a special collection of their art. You can even turn some into envelopes or letters that you can send.
Take Them to a Club or Collector
Taking your child to a local stamp club meeting or to visit a prominent collector can help them feel like you are taking their interest seriously; they get to be one of the grown-ups. Look for a club with an active junior’s program or encourage your child to start one.
Have them look through your stamps and find one they really like. Use it to make up a story— it can be based on any aspect of the design they find interesting. You can make up a story about the design (for example, if the design is a horse you can make up a story about that specific horse) or about the stamp itself (the journey it took to get into their hands).
Give Them Some Responsibility
Children don’t often own much beyond their clothes and a few toys—and even then they usually need an adult to give them permission to use them. A stamp collection gives kids a chance to feel ownership, something they can have pride in being responsible for.
Build Organizational Skills
Younger children often begin to organize by color, shape or size, which makes stamp collecting a perfect hobby for developing those skills. Older children can learn to organize by focusing their collection on design, subject, age, country of origin, date, face value and more.
Focus on Stamps for Kids
From superheroes to dinosaurs to space, you can purchase stamp assortments online that align with your kid’s current interests. This is a great idea for learning about collecting, since the focus is on something they already enjoy.
Give a Unique Stamp Gift
Spark your kid’s interest in your favorite hobby by giving them a unique, special stamp as a gift. You can give their collecting journey some direction by starting them out with a stamp that requires solving a mystery or symbolises something important to them.
Encouraging kids to join you in stamp collecting can also breathe new life and excitement into your own hobby and collection. You can learn new things about stamps by seeing them through the eyes of someone new to the activity. That means not only will they get an exciting start to a new hobby (one with a lifetime of benefits), but you will also get a boost of joy in your own way.