Our kids are born in these digitally fueled times. Tech has become the central part of their lives. Look at the number and types of devices every household is flooded with. TVs, gaming consoles, computers, tablets, laptops, smartphones, all offering an extensive array of constant tech-based activity. Let’s face it, there’s no escaping it. Digital devices are an essential part of education, socialization, and leisure time. However, we can aim to strike a balance between tech wizardry and physical activities.
Being a parent of two young boys, I’m trying to strike this balance. But they know they have to go for cycling or football in the evenings along with managing their homework and helping in home chores.
Why Is Balance Important?
It is evident that technology is here to stay. It is only becoming more prevalent and refined with time. We wake up to a more digitally-driven world every day. This means that parenting skills now essentially include making them good netizens, limit their gadget usage, and encourage them to indulge in outdoor and physical activities.
To avoid your kids being tethered to gadgets and being glued to the screens all day, you will have to come up with some entertaining and fun activities. We have some great suggestions.
Enact a Play
Kids love performances. Hold an impromptu play with your children. It is an incredible way to entertain your kids. You can pick their favorite cartoon or animated show to enact. Including your pets in this enactment can make it even more fun.
Pertaining to the age of your kids, the performance could be anything. It can be an elaborate production or a simple monologue. The idea is to boost creativity and introduce your kids to the idea of something enjoyable that doesn’t involve tech.
You will see how they will love it. They will take interest in set-building, script-writing, and costume-making. This will be a great past time and they will love dancing, singing songs, and performance.
Make Maps
The art of making maps is called cartography. For kids, the world is a new place. Encourage them to explore and know different countries and cities in the world. Making maps will develop their spatial awareness.
You can start off with the maps of your town and city. And then you can go on and make maps of various countries. If they are not too young, you can paint a map on one of their bedroom walls. You can trace out the boundaries and ask them to paint various regions with different colors.
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Making a world map would also be a great idea. According to the age of your child, you can also introduce fun things and imaginary locations like treasure spots. It is a creative, fun, and enlightening activity.
Painting & Chalk Drawings
Making drawings and paintings are inexpensive and rewarding activities to enhance creativity in your kids. All you need are a few sheets of paper, a board, or a canvas and some artistic flair. Let your kids choose among watercolors, crayons, chalks, and paints.
They can even draw with chalk on your porch. There are no boundaries for the creative expression of young kids.
Drawing a Family Tree
Do you want your kids to learn about their history? If yes, making a family tree is a great idea. Your children will be able to trace their distant relatives. They will learn about their family members. Try to make personal stories and fun connections about your family’s past.
Make sure you curb the urge of conducting online research about your family. Instead, talk about your family members and ask your kids to express their thoughts about bonding with their relatives. Also, encourage them to share their memories of their relatives.
Indulge in Retro Games
These games never get old! Generations after generations have indulged in playing retro games. Games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and the likes are not only fun to play but also are terrific to promote intelligent thinking.
Moreover, games like Jenga and Twister will provide fun shocks. These games are also great in promoting communication and social interaction. So, search your old shelves and dust off the old versions of these games.
Make Puppets from Socks
Children love creative activities. DIY activities are a great way to boost creativity and vivid imagination in children. For instance, you can encourage them to make puppets from old socks. They can add buttons as eyeballs and wool as hair. They can even perform an entire puppet show with these DIY ideas.
There’s no limit to creative ideas when it comes to enjoying some tech-free time with your kids. Choose any of the aforementioned activities or come up with a new idea to make the most of kids’ leisure time.
