5 Easy Ways To Keep Your Kids Happy During The Lockdown

The countrywide lockdown due to Coronavirus has left us all under house arrest. If you live alone, it is easy to stay busy in official work and household chores. But if you have a family, which includes kids, the situation is different. As children love playing outdoors - which is not an option at present – they might get bored easily. This inability to live their normal lives may make them sad.

As a parent, it is up to you to balance official tasks, household work and keeping your little ones happy. You need to prepare a plan so that you strike the right balance between fun and learning. Read on to know the best ways to keep your kids happy during this nationwide lockdown.

Watch movies

What better time than this to enjoy watching movies with your little ones? Take this opportunity to get your entire family together, some snacks to munch on and start a movie marathon! You can pick one from the huge list of popular animated movies such as Finding Nemo, Frozen, Coco, Shrek, The Jungle Book and Toy Story series. Go ahead and introduce them to the legendary Harry Potter.

And if your kids are into sci-fi, you can start watching Star Wars and Star Trek. Watching movies with your kids is a great way to keep them happy. You also get to spend some quality time with the whole family!

Try out cooking together

Another fun activity where you can involve your kids is cooking. You can bake a cake along with your kids, a recipe they are bound to enjoy! But of course, keep them away from the oven, sharp items and other hot utensils. Teach them how to mix the batter for the cake, let them beat the eggs and watch you as you do your thing.

They will watch in amazement as you bake their favourite cake for them to relish! You can decorate the cake together with your kiddos if you want. Another great item to cook together is a pizza. They can pour all the ingredients and mix them together with their little hands. Go ahead and tell them to press the button to start the blender, and watch their cute eyes light up!

Your kid might be the country’s next celebrity chef in the making!

Play indoor games

This is a great time to bring out those indoor games that have been collecting dust forever. You can play ludo, chess, carom, scrabble, business or any other interesting board game that you may have. This will help you connect better with your kid and also help him/ her develop thinking abilities. Games like scrabble will help your kid enhance his or her vocabulary immensely.

You can play indoor games with all members of the family, which will make your children happier. So bring out that child in you and pull out your favourite board games.

Shoot a film

No, you do not have to be Anurag Kashyap to do this! You can take your video camera or just use your smartphone to record a short video film. Create a short story, prepare some easy dialogues and dress your kids up according to their respective roles. You can practice your dialogues and teach your kids basic acting to create this short skit. For help, there are plenty of videos on YouTube which you can refer to.

This will be an exciting and fun-filled activity that you and your kids will enjoy. Learning the basics of a play will help kids to bring out their creative side. Memorizing dialogues will improve their memory, concentration and attention. Watch your little ones say their dialogues with a little stutter and fumble, which will make you go Awwww!

You can, later on, watch this recorded video together with your whole family and enjoy it even more!

Storytelling

Start telling stories to your kids before bedtime or during any part of the day. In this age of audiobooks and podcasts, the art of storytelling is fading away. But you can bring it back, right? Get your kids together and tell them stories about mythology, adventure, fairy tales and even real-life heroes such as freedom fighters. The list is almost endless and this way you can teach your children a lot about the world.

You can also give your kids simple household tasks such as cleaning a table or arranging their books or toys properly. This will help the kids inculcate values of cleanliness and how to be organized. Be sure to encourage them and appreciate their little efforts after they complete every task. This will make your kiddo feel valued and important. So, use the steps mentioned above to keep your kids happy and make the most of this lockdown.