Things to Do at Home to Keep Your Child’s Boredom Away

Wednesday, 29 April 2020

As parents, one of our top priorities during a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic is to keep our children safe. That’s why most parents are currently limiting the number of times their children go outside.

But when kids are stuck at home for a long time, there’s a huge chance that they’ll get bored and run out of things to do. So, it’s our job as parents to keep them entertained until it’s safe to leave the house again.

On the bright side, this is the perfect time for us to bond with our children. Usually, we spend time working at the office and rarely get to see our kids for most of the daylight hours.

But now, most of us are working from home and have more extra time than usual. It’s our chance to spend time with our kids and prove to them that staying at home can be as fun as playing out of doors!

To help all our fellow parents out there, we’ve come up with a list of things to do at home to keep yourself and your kids entertained until everything returns to normal.

Note that this may also be the right time to guide your kids towards a new hobby. That way, even after the pandemic is over, they won’t focus so much on their phones and gaming consoles.

We can set the tone for the way our kids think of this temporary “confinement” too. Instead of thinking negatively about the current situation, we should focus on doing more productive activities instead, like these:

Give Them New Books to Read

This may be a great opportunity to share your own favourite stories with your kids. Try giving them new books to read or reading some books with them.

It’s best to start with something that has a lot of visual stimulation, like comics and graphic novels. You don’t have to force them to start reading books they don’t like — that may backfire.

If you have any bit of artistic ability, you can also add visual content to the books themselves. For example, while reading the tale of Saint George to your kids, you can draw the dragon in the story together on a sheet of paper.

Here are some of the useful links to check out free resources online:

Bring Them to the Kitchen

Being stuck at home means we can’t go out to dine at our favourite restaurant. So, it’s probably the right time to start cooking at home and introduce cooking to our children.

This can also be a productive bonding time with our kids because you get something done while having fun. Afterwards, you can all sit down to the lunch or dinner that you made together!

Find out 9 Boredom-Busting Kitchen Activities for Kids

Teach Them to Write a Journal

Writing is one of the essential ways of processing emotions, especially during a critical time like this. We can teach our children to express themselves and process their feelings by keeping a journal.

Offer them questions they can use as guides to their journal-keeping. Ask them how their day went, what was exciting about being at home with family, and what they want to do in the coming days.

This can also help your children build their language skills. These are critical skills for them later on, particularly in school.

Encourage Them to Do Art

This is related to the previous tip, as it also has to do with helping kids express themselves. If you have any sketch pads or sheets of paper, you should invite your kids to try sketching or painting.

Art can be hugely therapeutic for people, especially in times of stress. It represents another way of working out feelings and anxieties.

As such, encouraging your kids to try doing artwork can be a good idea. Who knows — it may even result in you discovering new talent in your little ones!

At any rate, that’s it for our list of the things every parent should do to keep their children from getting bored. Done right, these activities can persuade any kid that spending time at home can be as fun as playing with friends outside.

Of course, there’s nothing to prevent you from playing with your kids too. Why not play a game of the sort they play with their friends every now and then — just indoors?

Once the quarantine period is over, though, your household is definitely going to be a mess. Your carpet probably already looks like it went through a few wars by now.

If you need help keeping your carpets and mats clean after the quarantine, we’d recommend seeking help from Singapore Carpet Cleaning. That way, you’ll be sure that your kids are safe from germs and pathogens the next time they roll around on the floor at home.