Come holiday time like Christmas holidays, children become bored and get into naughty activities. It is equally a stressful time for parents as well as an opportunity for them to bond with their children. Parents find it necessary to organize activities that entertain their children as well as create family bonding.
It is better to plan for such activities in advance as it will heighten the anticipation and excitement. It is also good to include the kids in the planning as they will complain less if they are partly responsible for the plans. A parent can plan a variety of activates involving the home, the garden, the outdoors or other venues.
Some Ideas to Keep your Kids Busy are:
- Plan for the holiday activities with other parents. Clubbing together activities with others implies more fun for the kids and saves you the headache of planning activities on your own.
- Aquariums, Libraries, churches and museums usually have special programs in the holiday season. Activities include puppet shows, story recounting sessions, art classes, guided tours, origami (paper folding art), face painting, book making, etc.
- Cooking and baking: Organize cooking and baking session for the kids. Be there to supervise but resist the temptation of taking over the difficult tasks from them.
- Create a garden patch: Devote a small patch in the garden for your kids. Plant herbs, lettuce or flowers- which grow quickly and provide the kids a reason to be proud of.
- Going camping: Build tents indoors or outdoors and provide sheets and blankets. Give some homemade snacks, as well and you can be sure to keep the kids occupied for hours.
- Phone local schools, art centres or art galleries if they have any special courses during the holidays. The kids can benefit from classes by professionals and pick up useful skills while being occupied.
- Keep the children’s minimum viewing time for videos, TV and computer games to not more than 2 or 3 hours a day.
- Get children to get together with friends. A friend can transform the most mundane of activities into an exciting adventure.
- Board games and card games seldom fail to entertain. From Pictionary to Monopoly, board games can keep kids occupied for many hours.
- Get kids to read: One of the best habits you can inculcate in a child is the reading habit. Take them to a book shop or library and encourage them to pick books of their choice. Get them to like reading a series of books like the Harry Potter series or classic stories.
- Creative projects: Get kids involved in creative projects like redecorating their rooms or creating Christmas greeting cards.
- Go green: Encourage children to join ecological projects like cleaning the beach or helping out at a bird sanctuary. Feeling useful is a great medicine for boredom.
- Adventure hikes and camps: Older children may like these as they are good way to make new friends.
- Go swimming: If you live near a beach or a river, you can take the kids swimming as it is a healthy and fun activity. Others can go to local swimming pools.
These are some of the ways in which one can keep kids occupied this vacation. Parents in Bangalore can be on the lookout for kids events Bangalore so that kids have an entertaining and useful time this winter.
Author’s bio: She is teacher in an International school in Bangalore. She organizes summer camps for children as well as winter activities and games. She contributes articles and ideas to websites such as eventshigh.com