Stay At Home- 8 Activities For Children and Parents During COVID-19 Lockdown
COVID-19 is a pandemic. In most of the countries around the world, the educational institutions are closed, offices are closed, and travel is also banned until further notice. We all are aware of the fact that life is not going to be the same but nothing else can be done. The lockdown decision by the government of different countries is done to ensure the safety of people.
Coronavirus has created havoc around the globe. The only solution for this outbreak is to stay at your home and follow all the important precautions to protect yourself and others around you. To know about the good hygiene practices, you should follow all the guidelines by World Health Organization (WHO) and your local health authorities to stay updated.
As children are at home so they might be spending a lot of time using their electronic devices. This situation is not accepted by all the parents. To stay screen-free as a family, parents, and children can take help from the following ideas:
1-Schedule Your New Routine
Children get bored easily and they are looking for ways to entertain themselves. So, the easy solution for them is to watch videos or play a game on their electronic gadgets. But this is not a good idea. During the lockdown situation, you need to schedule your routine to keep your child engaged and in order.
How to schedule new routine? Below are some tips:
•Allow your child to create a timetable for themselves. This will give them a sense of freedom and will improve their time management skills.
• Create a timetable that should have some study time, family time, and playing time. A balanced timetable! With this, they will not be spending all the free time on their device’s screen.
• They will have an activity of adding details in their timetable on a daily basis and plan things well.
Worried about your child’s continuous usage of the electronic devices and want to limit their screen time? FamilyTime app is all you need. The app provides you other great features as well that include app blocker, location tracking, call history, monitoring text messages, and much more to give full control of the child’s device in the parent’s hands.
2- Bring Out Your Child Creativity
Staying at home can be helpful for your children. It will be the best time to bring out your child’s creativity and polish their skills:
• Does your child love to paint? Most of the kids love it and it act as a great excuse for them to get messy. Allow your children to paint their imagination on a paper.
Source: fivestarpainting.com
• Does your kid love music? That’s great! Create a playlist with them so that they can enjoy different kinds of music depending on their mood.
• Is your child creative and practical at the same time? You should help them in creating homemade rainbow soap, DIY hand sanitizer, or anything else they like!
If you are still looking for more creative ideas, then internet is the best place to start your search and gather ideas.
3-Spend Some Time in Kitchen
As parents and children are at home so it is best to have some quality family time. If your kids are young enough, then you can take their help in meal planning and preparation. Some children love to cook and prepare delicious meals.
Source: parade.com
What are you waiting for? Start cooking with your children. You can make pancakes, pasta, pizza, and much more. You can prepare the dishes loved by your kid to make them happy. Furthermore, if your child loves cooking, then this is the best time to improve your child cooking skills.
4-Don’t Forget to Exercise
Physical exercise can help your kid to stay active all day. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, adolescents and children age 6 should do physical activity at least for an hour in a day. Furthermore, the children between the ages of 3 to 5 should be physically active for good growth and development.
Wondering, how you can do it? We have some tips for you:
• You can let them play some classical part games such as musical statues and musical chairs.
• There are many indoor games that your children can play like pillowcase race, crib mattress slide, create a race track using painter’s tape for driving your matchbox cars, and so much more. Here’s a list of some exciting indoor games that your kid can play for enjoyment and physical activity.
5-Do Some Mindfulness Activities
No one can deny the fact that we are living in unprecedented times. Whether your child looks upset or not but he or she will have a feeling that the situation is not right. During this time, some mindfulness activities can help them to stay calm and can divert their attention.
There are many mindfulness activities that your children can do. Some are listed below:
• Let your kid sit or lie down. Say them to close their eyes and tell them to pay attention to all the sounds they hear.
• Put a square of chocolate in your child’s mouth. Say them to let it melt instead of chewing. This will be interesting!
There are some more mindfulness activities that you can try with your children so that your children can stay calm.
6-Engage Your Kid in Work
Well, some of the parents might think that involving kids in household work is not a good idea. That’s true but if your kid is old enough to understand the things that you should involve them in your household work.
Source: listontap.com
Make your child your assistant during the work. If you are going to do some plumbing work, engage your kid with yourself and ask them to provide you the essential tools needed for work.
7- Remember Old Times
As things are close, so this will be a good time to remember old times. Parents can do the following:
Source: theguardian.com
• Tell your school stories and the games you play when you were in your school.
• Tell some interesting activities that you and your friends used to do collectively.
• Show them the old pictures to give them an idea about your past life.
• Play the old songs on your old recorders or on the cassette recorder.
• Play chess with them.
8-Keep Community Spirit Alive
Never underestimate the significance of living in the community. Schools should arrange some online activities that are related to child coursework so that they can learn things well. As we are staying at our home, so we can use online platforms to build communities and share our experiences.
Source: realiseperformance.com
With online communities, we can interact as a community and can share our problems in this situation. The online groups can arrange some creative challenges to keep the people engaged in different activities and involve your kids as well. The online platforms that you can use for creating a community can be Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many more.
Stay at Home-It’s Not A Joke!
These were the eight ideas that can help parents and kids to spend some good time during the COVID-19 lockdown. Make one thing clear that staying at home is for your protection. It is very much essential to reduce the spread of the virus.
To convince you more, here’s a link to BBC video “Stay at Home- An appeal of UK Doctors and Nurses”.
COVID-19 is not a joke! Stay safe and stay at home to keep yourself and others safe.
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