With chilly, rainy, and winter weather rolling in, it’s natural to spend more time indoors than at other times of the year. Even children who love the outdoors find it hard to play outside when it’s cold, muddy, and dreary.
The easy way to compensate for loud, stir-crazy kids is to allow more tech time. But if you’re like most parents, you’ll notice that extra tech time leads to cranky, selfish kids afterward.
So how can you keep your kids occupied without tech time? Here are some fun, easy, and creative ideas.
How Much Tech Time Should Kids Have?
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more parents have worked from home than ever before. In many ways, this is a blessing. But parents can rely too much on technology to be the babysitter while they work from home. This is detrimental to a child’s social, emotional, and academic development.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends children aged 18-24 months only use technology to screen chat with relatives or to watch educational shows with a parent or caregiver. Children aged 2 to 5 should have no more than 1 hour per weekday of non-educational screen time and 3 hours on the weekend days.
The AACAP states too much free time can result in:
- Sleep problems
- Lower grades in school
- Reading fewer books
- Less time with family and friends
- Not enough outdoor or physical activity
- Weight problems
- Mood problems
- Poor self-image and body-image issues
- Fear of missing out
- Less time learning other ways to relax and have fun
Parents need to realize that while technology has many benefits, it drastically impacts a child’s overall development and should be used sparingly. Technology is not a substitute for real human interaction and care.
Ideas for Tech-Free Entertainment
So how can you keep your child busy without giving in to tech requests? Here’s a list to get you started:
- Arts and Crafts
- Make and decorate paper airplanes
- Make and decorate paper dolls and doll houses
- Color and cut a large cardboard box into a kid-sized house. Connect multiple boxes with duct tape
- Make homemade playdough
- Use cardboard and duct tape to make swords, shields, or other objects
- Make paper or popsicle stick snowflakes
- Print coloring pages from Google Images of favorite characters
- Games
- Bring out the card and board games
- Create a domino train out of board books, old boxes, or blocks
- Use painter’s tape on the floor to create a giant tic-tac-toe board, then use toys or other fun objects as X’s and O’s
- Build a puzzle
- Play the Alphabet Game, where you think of items that begin with each letter
- Play Simon Says
- Body-moving Activities
- Play musical chairs
- Play the “Freeze” game with any song by starting and stopping at irregular intervals
- Allow a temporary time for the craziest, silliest behavior to “get it all out”
- Encourage your children to create a talent show
- Do an indoor Easter egg hunt
- Jump rope
- Other ideas
- Use painter’s tape to create a “road” on the floor for cars and trains
- Make something in the kitchen or bake cookies
- Play with your pets, teach a new trick, or create a bed for their cage
- Go on an indoor scavenger hunt
- Sing karaoke
There are countless ways to keep your child entertained without indulging in screen time, it just takes patience and intentionality.
Remember, young kids want to connect with people, not screens! Although they can be distracted by screens, they crave real human interaction. Don’t take this small window of time for granted. If you indulge in technology at an early age, don’t be surprised when your children are older and are self-sufficient with a phone in their hand. Think critically about using technology as a babysitter so you can either get some alone time or work from home in peace.
If you work from home with children, this is understandably challenging. Remember that you can use technology, it’s just best when it’s limited. Try to save technology for essential times, like during a video meeting, a crunch-time project, or at a certain time of day.
Children’s Academy Childcare and Technology
If you work from home, you shouldn’t feel like your job is any less than an in-person one. You still need to be responsible for your work, but it’s understandably hard to care for children and work! An obvious solution to avoiding technology while you work from home is to enroll your child in Children’s Academy Childcare.
At Children’s Academy Childcare, we minimally use technology. Our teachers are fully involved in connecting, playing, and educating children. This allows your child to grow socially, emotionally, and academically, which will benefit them their whole life. While your child is at Children’s Academy, you can get all your work done and be refreshed and ready to spend quality time with your child.