What Age Can You Start Flying Kites?

You may have chanced upon this article because either you’re a parent or an adult who would like to introduce a new activity for your little ones. Perhaps you want to allow these young kids to experience the joy and exhilaration of flying a kite. Look no further because this is the rabbit hole; you’ll not regret exploring! 

You can introduce kite flying to your 5-year-old children as a recreational activity. Even adults and older people are encouraged to fly a kite as well. 

Putting that aside, introducing kite-flying to your kids benefits their health. It can improve their motor skills, eye and hand coordination, simple problem-solving, and decision-making. Just make sure that when you’re flying with your little ones as young as five, you have to be present to guide and bond with them, more importantly, if you’re a parent. 

What’s The Best Age To Fly A Kite?

You can introduce kite flying to your 5-year-old children but with adult supervision. Kite flying is an excellent mental, emotional, and physical exercise for you and your small buddies. Adult supervision is necessary when introducing or flying a kite with little ones. 

The Ideal Age For Flying A Kite

There’s no denying that kite flying is a fun activity. It will be more fun if you tag along with your little buddies to play. If you’re a parent or someone with a child, you want what’s best for them. You want them to be healthy in all aspects and areas of their life, and while maintaining your little one’s health, it should be fun. In all honesty, kite flying has been considered a rite of passage for many years. 

Whoever started encouraging a child to fly a kite is truly a genius! Flying a kite improves your child’s overall growth and experiences. As adults with little ones, it’s true that providing multifarious activities enables your child to learn and enjoy the fullness of life. 

The Importance Of Supervision

Regardless of how kite flying benefits young ones, it’s vital to be with them along the process. That said, ensure that your child or small buddies can process frustrations, irritations, and anger when failing to soar a kite. But in all cases, these are essential experiences, nonetheless. 

So, what’s the best age to begin flying a kite? Five years old and above can fly a kite under strict supervision. 

You can even introduce toddlers to kite flying if you’re present with them. It will not just build character in your younglings but also establish a good relationship with them. It is an excellent start to forming core memories with your kids and small ones. (source)

Benefits Of Kite Flying For Kids

Toddlers and young kids are explorers. We can’t blame their Alice-like behavior as they are beginning and trying to understand the world around them. Even you started with crawling before walking up to your daily activities. In addition, they are not just plain explorers but lively ones. 

Their adorable laughter as they discover new things is a breath of fresh air for parents or adults with small ones. Moreover, this is the right age that their motor skills, physical growth, and cognitive development start to expand, and what’s a better way to support your child’s overall health? That’s right! Introducing kites! 

The first order of the problem is to know more about the good stuff for your kids when they begin kite flying. In a blog post from All Things Kite, kite enthusiasts Lee and Cameron listed great benefits, and these are: (source)

1. Motor Skills

There are two kinds of motor skills: gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills involve muscles in the arms, legs, and torso. These muscles are crucial in your child’s development to perform activities like walking, running, kicking, and lifting. This motor skill develops your child’s physical response to daily physical activities. 

Fine motor skills commonly involve the physical movement of the upper extremities and hands, for example, for reaching, grasping, and manipulating objects. So, it is fine motor skills if you see infants or toddlers suddenly reaching for something. 

Fine Vs. Gross Motor Skills

To differentiate between fine and gross motor skills, gross motor skills pertain to skills that involve significant movements for big muscles. On the other hand, fine motor skills involve more minor activities. 

Now that we define the two motor skills in your child’s development, kite flying can encompass the two motor skills. Introducing kite flying and encouraging your children to fly a kite can help develop their motor skills. 

To give you an idea, flying a kite involves much running and walking to launch and land a kite and eye and hand coordination to control the kite. 

Motivating your little people to fly a kite means developing their motor skills. This activity will surely yield good results in the long run. 

2. Problem Solving

Regardless of age, problem-solving is one of the essential skills to develop early on. It will ensure that everyone–more importantly, young ones–can make analytical decisions and create positive solutions to the issues or problems. 

There are many ways to develop problem-solving skills, such as at-home playtime like puzzles, attending to small chores, and challenging your kids to be part of simple tasks. 

But you can spice it up a little; you can do the honors of showing kites flying to your tots and weans. Who says that problem-solving is only in the likes of puzzles and chores?

Kite flying develops your kids to examine their environment, like how high they can fly their kites, launching the kite on a good wind, ensuring they are safe when flying, and so on! But one thing is sure; your child can think and decide for themselves. 

3. Social Skills

It’s common for parents or adults like you to push your child to make friends. It is the simplest way to ensure they can navigate the world through human interactions and establish harmonious connections. Well, it’s human nature for us to interact with others! 

Flying a kite always needs a buddy. While it’s true that we can fly a kite all by ourselves, toddlers and tots cannot. They still need supervision from adults or parents. For context, here are the possible social skills they can learn from flying a kite: 

• Inviting Friends

Children are natural when it comes to making friends. It’s quite a shock that they’ll find someone to talk to within a blink of an eye—a rather tricky skill for some adults. Despite this, others are slightly shy about interacting with other kids. With kite flying, you encourage your small ones to invite them to play. Besides, kite flying can certainly be mesmerizing. Those shy little ones will forget once they are engrossed in it. 

• Flying A Kite

Flying a kite is a challenging task, but nothing is impossible when kids play along with their friends. Launching a kite can boost their teamwork and collaboration by making team decisions. At the same time, they enhance their communication skills through casual conversation. Plus, it develops their camaraderie and sportsmanship. 

4. Confidence Booster

When a kite crashes, it doesn’t mean it will not fly at another time. It is a good confidence lesson for young children. It somehow creates a safe space to make mistakes and own up to them in the process. Nothing beats a time when your child does their best to be better than before. 

With this, they are not scared to show the world that crashing and flying are part of the process. Flying a kite takes time to upskill. 

It’s not a skill that you can do just for one night. Do your little ones need practice and patience to develop this skill once they master it? For sure, their smile and confidence will bring up the day! 

5. Process Orientation

If your child is having difficulty following directions, don’t fret! You can try to immerse them in kite flying. It is because flying a kite takes a lot of steps to get good outcomes. It doesn’t mean we can put them in one box to follow but instead let them know that some actions need some effort. 

And once they successfully soar a kite, they can potentially find ways to spice up their kite flying. They’ll be able to break the rules since they already know the principles behind them, positively breaking them. 

6. Creativity

Are you tired of painting and sketching? Maybe you can encourage your child to fly a kite or, even better, make their kite! Kite flying promotes creativity and innovative solutions by doing tricks. Additionally, you and your small fry can paint or craft a kite. 

Kite-making helps in igniting your child’s creativity. The more your kids experiment with different kite styles, the more they are encouraged to explore their creativity. It’s essential that at a young age, they are curious about their talents and enhance these latent talents. You never know; you may be raising an artist? 

7. Nature Lover

Ah yes! Nothing beats the happiness we get when outside and spending time with nature. As adults, we love to take time and spend time outside after a busy day at work. That’s just human nature! It’s in our instincts to connect and be with the slowness of mother nature. Just be silent while our feet feel the rough ground and our skin feels the wind. 

What more would it be if children were around nature? Indeed, flying a kite in the park, beach, or fields reduces your child’s anxiety and promotes happy hormones. We know what you’re thinking, “A child doesn’t feel stress!” Welp, even small bodies experience big emotions that are hard to process.

Reducing Negative Emotions 

Alleviating their big emotions by allowing them to spend time in nature helps reduce bad hormones and feelings. As parents or adults with tiny buddies, we want what’s best for them. If we can take their bad emotions, we would! But children can’t be individuals with big emotions sometimes. 

Sometimes the best thing we can do is to allow them to feel the warm embrace of nature and be present with them as much as we can. 

To summarize, flying a kite with your children has general benefits. These are boosting self-confidence, reducing stress and anxiety, promoting creativity, encouraging to make friends, developing analytical skills, and strengthening muscle control and eye-hand coordination. 

Picking The Best Kites For Kids

We now know the essential advantages of flying a kite. Let’s talk about the ideal kite for your toddlers and kids this time. Kite-flying will never be a good experience without choosing the best kite for your kiddos! 

Delta, diamond, parafoil, and other kites! There are so many to choose from, but are you sure this and that is good for your children? Here are the tips on choosing the best kites for your kids! 

1. Easy To Use

Are the kites you’re buying for your kids easy to use? There are kites out there that are difficult for children to use. Some delta kites are hard to launch or stay in flight for a long time. So, better test it out, and don’t forget to ask questions! 

2. Size

Sizes matters when choosing a kite. You shouldn’t purchase large kites when you have a 5-year-old with you. They’ll have a hard time launching or controlling the kite. That’s why to choose a size-appropriate kite for your little ones. 

3. Shape

There are various kite shapes and styles like delta, diamond, parafoil, or box kites. There are also eye-catching animal designs and techniques you can find online. There are various kites to choose from for your kiddos! 

4. Lines 

Single, dual, and quad lines are the standard lines in a kite. It’s better to keep in mind the motor skills our small ones have. Of course, we can’t just let them hold dual or quad lines if they are toddlers. They can quickly release these lines. So, better to choose lines that are appropriate for their age. To give context, here are the recommended line-appropriate lines for your child’s kite. 

• Single lines are suitable for toddlers since it’s like holding a piece of string or a balloon. 
• Dual lines are best for ages six and above. They have more motor skills to control and hold the kite. 
• Quad lines can be used by 12 years old and above kids. Kids at this age can now do simple tricks. 

5. Color

Selecting the best kites for your kites means asking for their favorite color. If your kid has a preferred shade, it would be best to choose what they prefer. In this case, they’ll enjoy seeing their favorite-colored kite above the skies! 

6. Price

There are cheap kites, and there are costly ones. It’s your choice if you want to select the former option or the latter. Just remember that you always get what you pay for, and knowing your kid’s enthusiasm with kite flying, they may have a feeling to fly it around all the time. 

Selecting The Best Place And Time For Kite Flying

Assuming you have already purchased the ideal kite for your kiddo, it’s time to test it out. However, you have a dilemma in choosing the best time and place to fly your kid’s kite. Worry no more! Here are our soaring tips to avoid any bad stuff along the way!

1. Check The Weather And Wind Forecast

Before heading to the place of your choice, ensure that the weather and wind forecast are ideal. You never know, sometimes mother nature spoils your fun together with your kids. Ready your television and phone for the weatherman’s prediction! 

2. Look For Vast Areas Or Places

Kite flying takes a lot of space since your kid needs to run, walk, and launch the kite. Therefore, choosing a wide or open space is recommended by all kite-fliers. Hence, when selecting a vast area, obstacles like trees, power lines, fences, and driving vehicles should be clear. 

Alright! Supposed to say you found the ideal spot. But there are mounds and hills. Sadly, this is not ideal even though it’s wide or open for your kid to fly a kite. Hills and mounds can be hard to run and walk. Worst comes to worst; your kids may tumble like Jack and Jill. 

3. Bring Snacks 

It is optional, but you never know when your kid will get hungry. Flying a kite is an extraneous activity, and for sure, your kid’s tummy will go growling and demand food. Therefore, don’t forget those healthy snacks! 

All in all, once you follow all of these essential tips. You can spice it up a little. Try inviting other parents and their children to fly a kite. Or hold a mini kite-flying contest for your kids. The possibilities are endless! Don’t be anxious about conquering heights to make your kiddos happy! 

Final Thoughts

In summary, flying a kite is suitable for toddlers and above! It can boost their confidence and enable them to be creative and analytical. More so, toddlers and kids are eventually developing their motor skills in all aspects of recreation. Finally, flying a kite establishes strong connections with the right people and enhances mindfulness at a young age. So, it’s time to fly and soar!