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Given the fact that many countries have been on lockdown for several weeks now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the times we find ourselves living through now are unparalleled. All of the change, chaos, and uncertainty is obviously taking its toll on the mental health of yourself and your kids. Yet if you have young children at home with you, trying to keep them amused, educated, and out of mischief may well be testing the very last of your nerves.
Are you a parent struggling to keep it together on what now feels like lockdown day one million and seventy-eight? Hopefully, this article will reveal some creative ideas you might not have considered yet for keeping your kids distracted and educated. That way, they might just stop trying to impale each other on plastic swords at three in the morning, and such like.
Less Gaming
As tempting as it is, trying to distract your child by permitting them to play on their gaming console for an excessive number of hours will backfire in the end. They’ll get bored of their games faster if they’re allowed to play for longer. This will invariably lead to them nagging you incessantly to buy them more games at a time when you may be worrying about how you’ll pay the next utility bill. Additionally, gaming can be quite addictive and may well cause your children to alter their sleeping patterns. This may make it harder for your children to cope when they finally go back to school.
Alternative Games
Since gaming at every hour of the day is off the menu, what games can you play that might not involve your child literally growing into their gaming chair so that they become one and the same being? Well, perhaps you may consider reviving some Halloween favorites. It’s possible, for instance, that revamping the apple bobbing game will go down well with your kids.
Apple Bobbing
To play this apple bobbing game, go out into the yard. Fill up a large vessel of water and place some apples in it. You’ll need a vessel for each child you have. The objective is to have each child ‘bob’ for apples. This involves removing the apples from the vessel of water one by one, but you can only use your teeth.
You might like to set a competitive challenge. For example, the child who successfully removes the most apples from their bucket of water after five minutes wins a small prize. If you only have one child, you’ll just have to do some of the bobbing yourself, of course.
Sugared Donuts
If you’re wondering what to use for prizes, a simple sweet treat such as sugared donuts may well suffice. Donuts themselves can be used as part of another game that makes children laugh. The objective of this game is to try to consume a sugared donut without licking your lips.
This endeavor is, in fact, much harder than it sounds. You can offer whatever prizes you’d like, no matter how outrageous. No child can master this challenge and if they can, frankly they deserve whatever it is that you promise them because they have superhuman self-restraint.
Silly Dances
Another potentially hilarious way to entertain your children during lockdown is to have a dance-off together. However, this is no ordinary dance-off. The idea behind this one is to have a silly dance-off. The objective of the game is to make others laugh as much as is humanly possible with your dance. Once again, small prizes can be offered as incentives for coming first in the competition, or even second. This one can be passed off as a PE lesson, which will make everyone feel good about themselves.
Not Mary Poppins
Of course, it’s not all about playing games to stop your children from getting bored and doing mischievous deeds. You’re also faced with the seemingly insurmountable challenge of trying to educate them at home. Now, TV shows you may have watched in combination with movies you might have seen can sometimes give the impression that a slightly regimented, military-style version of Mary Poppins is what’s needed in a homeschooling situation. If that’s who you told yourself you needed to be at the beginning of lockdown, it may explain why you’ve been tempted to get the bottle of Pinot out of the refrigerator two hours earlier of late.
Emulating Favorite Educators
In order to cope with educating children at home during the lockdown, try to remember your favorite teacher at school. Was that teacher strict and authoritarian, or did they make their students laugh and feel relaxed? Your answer should tell you what kind of method will be the most effective when teaching your own kids at home. If you can make educational activities fun for children, they are less likely to find it a chore and it is more probable that they will comply with your wishes.
Doing Drama
So, what are some good ideas for educating kids slyly so that they don’t necessarily realize that they’re being educated? Well, you could order a few copies of a play that is popular with the young, such as The Little Prince. Assign each child a role in the play and have them act out the parts. You could extend the activity by asking your kids how they think their character might feel in their situation. You also have the option of making costumes for your kids out of things you find around your home. Be prepared to take up any extra roles that may need filling, or even to play multiple parts.
Humanities
Another potential good idea is to ask your children a question related to, say, history, or geography every morning. The child who successfully researches and finds the answer gets to choose the movie you watch that night, or which snack you eat. You can make your questions as creative as you’d like. For instance, you can make it their mission to find out the most cretinous thing anybody has ever done, and judge for yourself which of your kids comes up with the best answer.
Cutting Some Slack
If you still find yourself struggling to keep some sense of normality in spite of trying everything under the sun to keep your children amused, it might also be a good idea to cut yourself a little bit of slack. Suppose one day you have a bit of a wobble and randomly eat four out of five cupcakes your kids just baked. Well, just remember that a cookery lesson can also become a math lesson and also teach children something about life and its unfairness. Just continue to do the best you can with love in your heart, and have hope. Nobody can expect more of a parent on lockdown than that.
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This content is brought to you by James McNamara.
Photo: Shutterstock
