When your kids are at home during summer vacation, a snow day, or taking a sick day, you’ll need to keep them busy and entertained. If they need to rest, that’s easy. Otherwise, you can use this time to teach them something new, motivate them to try a new hobby, or catch up on their homework.
Most kids won’t want to stay inside for long, so if your child ends up at home unexpectedly and you don’t have time to supervise them outside, you’ll need some strategies to keep them productive.
Here are six things that can help.
1. Engage them in play
If your child is young enough, they’ll probably respond positively when you engage them in play. This is a great opportunity for you to bond with them as well. Get out their favorite toys or games and play with your child.
When young kids get bored, they tend to get cranky, so you can prevent this by initiating some playtime. However, kids won’t always ask you to play with them. Sometimes you need to make the suggestion and see if they’re interested at the moment. When you do, give them options.
2. Work on therapy goals
If your child is in therapy, having them at home is the perfect opportunity to work on therapy goals. For instance, if they’re participating in ABA therapy, there are a variety of exercises you can do with them to support their progress. For example, you can focus on:
- Prompting
- Task analysis
- Shaping
- Positive and negative reinforcement
- Anything else your child’s ABA therapist suggests
If you’ve been working with a therapist for a while, you’ve probably already discussed ways to reinforce your child’s progress at home between sessions. If not, now would be a great time to call them and ask for some tips.
3. Try a new hobby or craft
Is there something your child has been wanting to try for a while? Maybe they’re into crafting and they’ve always wanted to learn how to knit or embroider. Maybe they’re more into hands-on science experiments and they want one of those cool premade kits that teaches them how to mix different substances to create a polymer that bounces like a rubber ball.
Whatever your child has been itching to experiment with, being stuck at home is the perfect opportunity to indulge them. You may even want to prepare ahead of time by stocking up on some fun and interesting supplies for future days at home.
4. Read with your child
The more your child reads, the better they’ll do academically. People who read tend to have a larger vocabulary and a better grasp of language. If you read fiction, you’ll stimulate their imagination, which can help enhance memory, boost self-confidence, and make them more curious about their world.
You can also read non-fiction with your child, but it might be harder to find something that captures their interest. Either way, reading is a fun way to spend time that also provides academic benefits. Unlike watching movies, which is a passive activity, reading forces the reader to play an active role by reading the words, turning the page, and thinking.
5. Journaling
Some kids will jump at the chance to express their thoughts, ideas, and feelings in a journal, but others may see this as boring. Try it with your child to see if they’ll take interest. Journaling doesn’t have to be done with a pen and paper; a digital journal in Microsoft Word will work just as well.
Aside from being an outlet for expression, journaling is a great way for kids to problem-solve and record things they’ve learned. To make things more exciting, you can give your child specific prompts each day to write about in addition to freeform expression.
6. Passive entertainment
There’s nothing wrong with letting your child veg out and watch movies or television when they’re stuck at home. Some kids actually need more downtime than they get, so test the waters to see if your child might just want to relax.
Let kids be kids
Although it’s nice to keep kids busy and help them stay productive when they can’t go to school, make sure you give them space to be a kid. Try not to fill every waking moment with an activity. Let them relax if that’s what they need. They may not say it, but they’ll appreciate not being pushed into activities all the time.
Article Submitted By Community Writer
