Loom Bands – Some Facts, Benefit and Safety Issues From A Mom’s Point of View

Posted on Jul 7 2014 - 11:01pm by tweenselmom
duchess loom band

Even royalties wear loom band bracelets!
photo credits to daily mail.co.uk (linked to orig. article)

Loom Bands is definitely the “in” thing these days, I wouldn’t doubt that. Though my kids had been delayed in getting crazy about loom bands, they were still hooked on them big time. As a  mom who is always curious on what her kids are getting into, I decided to do some digging about loom bands, where they came from, how beneficial they are in reality and some safety issues which my husband and I were starting to worry about.

inventor of loom bands

Cheong Choon Ng (inventor of rainbow looms) and his family
photo credit to fortunefeatures.wordpress.com

It’s a multi-million dollar business started by a dad. This art craft makes some serious money and as I found out, it was invented by a Malaysian engineer father in 2011 because he wished to create something fun for his family to tinker about. And his children are tweens, like mine. You can check out more about his story here.

The original brand is called Rainbow Loom and a box of it is considerably more expensive than the one I bought for my kids to start their hobby.  I saw the original brand from Toys R Us and it costs P700 above while the one I bought from 2014 Toy Convention was only P200.

Even royalties like the Duchess of York wear loom band bracelets!

Benefits

loombands

Let’s Volt In!

I gave in to my daughters’ request to join the bandwagon because of the reason that my kids don’t have that much skills using their hands. I thought seeing all these rubber band twisting will make them use their fingers more often. My two kids also need that kind of recreation which can improve their relationship. With their 2 year age gap, I notice that they start to squabble more often than being at peace with each other. When we got the loom bands, I saw them watching You Tube videos together and the elder sister teaching more difficult twists to the younger one.

Issues

As of the two weeks we had the loom bands in the house, I must say that I was successful in controlling my daughter’s time management issues. They can only touch these bands during the weekends and they agreed. They couldn’t help talking much about it, requesting me to give some money so they can buy some loom bands sold by their classmates, and once in a while, checking in the bracelets they have made for themselves, for me and their dad. I guess I don’t see these loom bands bad at all.

I just have two issues so far. First is the storage issue and the second is its safety, safety of our puppy Chewie.

Storage Issues

We don’t have so much space at home and I see this hobby as longer lasting than the previous hobbies they had. They want to buy more bands and sometimes, I find the colors too cute that I think there will be days that I will be giving in. We have serious storage space problems as our house is getting smaller as my kids become bigger.

Pet Safety

The public has already been made aware by various pet and environmental organizations, PAWS and EcoWaste Coalition about instances of pet injuries due to loom bands. Our pet shih-tzu Chewie has actually ingested some already despite our strict policy that they can only work on their loom bands inside the room. Our pet is not allowed inside the bedroom but still, he was able to ate some. One day he got ill and we saw that his vomit had some digested loom bands, gross! You can check some of the articles regarding these safety issues at https://ph.news.yahoo.com/public-warned-dangers-loom-band-craze-220021063.html and http://forcechange.com/99779/ban-hazardous-rainbow-loom-toy.

Conclusion

Loom Bands offer so much benefits when it comes to creativity, developing motor skills and socialization. Actually I find the loom band workshops as a definite way to take loom banding to the next level. However, like other crafting projects, parents must be aware and be careful when it comes to teaching kids their priorities and cleaning up their thrash.

What about you? Ever caught the loom band bug yet? Share me your experience and concerns about loom bands, maybe I missed something.