7 ways to keep your kids busy at home (apart from gadgets)

“Mummy, I am bored, Can I play on the iPad?” “Mummy, I have nothing to do, Can I watch TV?”

We parents constantly hear such requests from our kids, especially when we are busy doing something else. We either respond with a reluctant YES or a fuming NO. Either way, we lose.

Right now, we all are stuck at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Children don’t have much to do in the house, so they reach out for gadgets to keep themselves busy.

And the only way we parents can win this gadget battle is by getting our kids involved in other different activities that interest them.

Here is a list of seven such activities that will keep your kids busy and away from the screen.

Get your child age-appropriate art and craft supplies and involve him in activities related to it. Praise them and encourage them to improve their skills. Do not expect perfection, rather acknowledge their effort.

Here are a few art and craft ideas for your kids:

Drawing and painting, clay modelling, papercraft and origami, beadwork, basket weaving, sewing and knitting and carpentry.

Art and craft nurture your kid’s creativity and help them focus. It also improves their hand-eye coordination, colour sense and fine their motor skills.

Introduce your kids to the world of books. From adventure to fantasies, from biographies to thrillers, from how to do to factual books, get them to read all kinds of books.

Take them for book shopping and ask them to choose for themselves. Make reading a daily habit, maybe a bedtime ritual. If your kid is younger (can’t read), read it to them.

You can ask your kid to write their own books or do journaling.

Reading regularly fuels your child’s imagination and improves their comprehension, vocabulary and writing skills.

Get your child to help you with cooking and doing other household chores. While you cook, your kids can help by washing vegetables. You can involve them in planning the menu and shopping.

Appreciate your child’s help and do not expect him always to do things the right way.

By helping you in the household chores, your kid learns a lot of self-help skills, which makes him more independent and self-confident. Also, when your kids start helping you with cooking, fussy eaters are no fussier.

Exercising the brain helps keep it healthy, sharp and growing. Choose the activities of their level that keep them busy and make them feel successful. Too easy activity might make them feel bored, while too difficult ones might make them feel discouraged. You can choose from activities like jigsaw puzzle, Rubik’s cube, brain games and puzzles, word games, crossword puzzles, sudoku and maths and other logic puzzles.

These activities help improve your kid’s critical thinking, reasoning skills and logical thinking.

Play activities don’t always have to be planned. Leave your kids to get bored and you will soon see they will find to do things around, like counting coins, counting toys, painting their nails or cutting the paper into smaller pieces.

They might even just lie on the couch daydreaming.

Studies show that occasionally getting bored is actually good for the brain. It gives the brain the much-needed break and gives them to dream of new and creative ideas.

Music can get your kid moving, grooving and dancing. It also is calming and soothing. So, next time when your kid is getting bored, turn on their favourite song and see them dancing.

Even better if your child plays some instruent. Listening to music, dancing is a great stress buster. Music boosts brain development.

Give your kid the opportunity to explore and experiment with new ideas and materials. They can do simple experiments like trying a new recipe. You can give them some recyclable material and see what inventions they come up with.

These types of activities fuel the inventor and scientist in your child. These experiments might not lead to any discovery. But these can help your child to understand that it’s okay to make mistakes. And you never know what new they can discover while performing such activities.