Global Travel Alliance’s Guide to Keeping the Kids Entertained and Safe at Home

Guide to Keeping the Kids Entertained and Safe at Home

When you’re working from home and your kids are around you constantly saying that they’re bored, you’d hope to have a quick solution on hand. Child-development experts say that rather than rushing to relieve your kid’s boredom, it’s best for them to get creative and find something to do on their own. Seemingly boring situations can be a great opportunity for children to stretch their imagination. If they are not finding much to do, and if you are without a few ideas for activities to keep your children occupied, here’s a few suggestions on how to help them grow accustomed to days in quarantine.

The most common and easiest distractions of turning on their favourite TV show or picking a movie on Netflix, or even handing over your phone for them to play games or watch Kid’s Youtube, will teach your child to expect instant gratification. They will keep your child occupied for a while but in the long-run those fixes will make your child less likely to enjoy “quiet time” because they will feel that they always have to be responding to something digital to feel mentally stimulated. There’s usually no creative outcome from this past time too.

Encourage your child to use their imagination and pretend that they are a doctor, teacher, alien or dinosaur. Surely, they will make a bit of noise doing so, but this encourages them to get creative and express attributes of their personality that they need to, and it’s a vital part of their development. You could even give them their own books and office stationery to play and act as if they are working from home too. As your new stay-at-home co-worker they can quietly “work” beside you and feel included and connected to you whilst you’re being productive.

Allow your children to create and play with play-dough or slime, for little ones this is especially good as it helps them utilise muscles in their tiny hands that will make pencil-holding easier when they start primary school. It’s also really fun for kids of all ages to follow a recipe, with parental guidance of course, and create something tactfully amusing to play with. Check for recipes and tutorials to make these items on Pinterest and Youtube.

Building a puzzle or creating a collage are activities that stimulates your child’s spatial brain development and allows them to perceive “the bigger picture”. Drawing and creating cartoons are always liberating for children to demonstrate and relay their thoughts, memories and experiences to you if they are not as verbal as others.

Encourage dance parties with their siblings or they could do yoga along to a Youtube instructor video. Physical activity will aid their boredom in releasing endorphins and tire them out a bit for a solid night’s sleep.

Learning new card games like Rummy, Crazy Eights and Go Fish, will keep your kids engaged in healthy competition, and keep their attention for a while.

Building a fortress made with blankets and creating robots or a mini-city out of the empty boxes you may want to recycle are great activities too.

There are plenty of ideas to keep the kids busy whilst you focus on working from home during the national lockdown. It’s also a time to bond and reconnect with your children in a way you never had enough time to explore before. In the meantime, enjoy your moments spent with them at home and keep the dream alive of your next family vacation.

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