OK, so I am just putting this out there- the little one is in absolutely love with my toys. Obviously, she adores her parents (as children do), and this means daddy’s special hobby also holds a lot of interest for her. (When she started to talk, we had to count how many words she had in her vocaburary… “tank” was in the first 50.)
I give her models now and then; bought her a few simple cars we glued together, and she painted them. She also got the space Yamato, my first Aurora kit, and a German U-boat to paint. (The boats I got from someone who did not want them any more, so I just passed them down to her to paint.)
She painted the Aurora and Yamato at age 4 last year, but the U-boat was painted a year later, this February. I have to say I am impressed by her progress. It looks pretty good, and less of a riot of colors as the first two.
I have a couple of older, simpler airplanes in store for her to build, but now she seems to be pretty happy with LEGOs. At 5 she just finished a camping van marketed age 8+ (with some assistance: we collected the parts for her, she put them in place as per the instructions), so good progress there.
All in all, get your children to build and paint. Even if they don’t stick with the hobby- and it is probable- it helps them develop their skills and opens up their minds a bit. Especially important to do so since having children essentially cuts your model-time to nil…
The Butterfingered Modelbuilder's Adventures 