Keeping Up with the Kids: How to engage, motivate, and entertain our little ones while in quarantine

It’s one thing to have to stay indoors and keep yourself sane. It’s another to do the same for your kids. With their bottomless energy, perpetual curiosity, and short attention spans, we have to step up to the challenge of keeping them engaged, motivated, and entertained while in home quarantine. 

Recreating Adventures Indoors

Most kids love the great outdoors, and this is the most challenging part when we need to stay indoors at this time, for the sake of our safety. If you have a backyard or garden, it would be the perfect time to inflate that pool. Prepare some fruit shakes in your swimwear and enjoy with the rest of the family for that true Philippine summer feel!

Whether you have a kiddie teepee, a tent, or just enough blankets, indoor camping in your living room is something the kids would definitely love. You can even join them in their sleepover, too. Keep the vibe cozy with pillows, blankets, and – if they’re available – glow in the dark stars for some indoor star gazing.

And while you’re at it, enjoy an indoor picnic with family favorites. Set up a makeshift picnic table or lay out a picnic mat on the floor.

Other indoor adventure ideas include treasure and scavenger hunts, science experiments, holding a concert using some resourceful musical instruments, make a play/ shadow puppet show, and obstacle courses (just keep the breakables away!).

Back to Basics

It’s hard to remember how kids used to survive pre-iPad and internet days. Now is the perfect time to rediscover that. Take out the crayons, paints, crafts and make art. Open your wardrobe for some fun spring/summer dress up. Dust off the puzzles, board games, and Legos, and get them cerebrally pumped.

If you have some old school toys preserved, have them play like how you did – with trains, dolls, little soldiers, and play doughs. If you have enough space, teach them the patintero, piko (hopscotch), tagu-taguan, luksong tinik, and other classic Filipino games to create a nostalgic and fun experience for all of you!

Learning Never Stops

Of course, we can not deny the brilliance of technology and its usefulness in this day and age. There are a lot of online classes, websites, and apps available for kids to indulge in:

- Khan Academy

- ABCya!

- National Geographic Kids

- Beanstalk.co

Another good tip is to let the kids use kiddle.co, Google’s safe visual search engine.

Endorphins Machine

To positively exhaust those pent up youthful energies, do some fun workouts with the family:

-  HIIT class

- HIIT class/ kids’ workout

- Yoga for kids

- Yoga for kids 2

Junior MasterChefs

Food is always a beautiful family bonding activity. It is creative, nurturing, and dynamic. For your junior masterchefs, you can start with easy recipes that kids would love to make and eat- homemade pizzas, cookies, cupcakes, and waffles. For healthier alternatives, you can make similar dishes, but switch to healthier ingredients. Keep in mind as well what ingredients the kids may be allergic to.

Bedtime Stories

Telling bedtime stories is a lovely tradition that never grows old. Books are timeless. Taking a few minutes before bedtime to read to your kids is simply good for the soul. 

Keep Kids Informed, Not Afraid

Ultimately, kids should understand why we are experiencing what we are experiencing so that they are empowered. While what we are up against may be novel and complex, we have the responsibility to explain to them in ways that do not cause panic, fear, and hopelessness.

Here is a helpful video made by the World Health Organization, specifically for kids to have an informed grasp on the current situation.

They say that children do not need perfect parents – they just need happy ones. We live in a most unusual time – and, in fact, for the majority, a very difficult one. But keeping calm, resilient, and maintaining that childlike hope and wonder are things that kids could sense, see, and eventually emulate. This is the time to be the brave and radiant souls we aspire for our children to be.