My next-door neighbour has two kids. They were generally well behaved before the lockdown, although, now that I think about it, this was because their hours were spent in school. And after exhausting most of that pent up energy, there’s just a little to be spent at home.
Sadly, during this lockdown, it looks like they became cute little devils, wanting to go out at every hour. It was as if they too sensed that things were not going on normally. Daddy and Mommy too were also home. Something must definitely be wrong
Soon, they were complaining that they wanted to go back to school (a place they dreaded before) or buy something, do something. Their restless spirits did not want to stay put. Now we can fully respect the number of effort teachers put in their work. Hah
Here are some of the strategies my neighbours adopted to help manage their energetic kids.
Organize Tutorials
This could be on the subjects being taught in school and it would help in keeping them at pace when things get back to normal. You can have fun with it too, giving them little gifts when they get a maths sum right or trying to relate the subjects with real-life experiences.
Get Learning Apps
Age of technology and all, they’re some amazing apps for kids that I just found out over this isolation period, YouTube for kids has a lot of content and specific settings for preschool, younger and older kids. There’s also kids learning tube which teaches a variety of subjects and follows the regular school curriculum. Both apps are available on the play store.
Bond with them
If you didn’t before, this is a time to catch up, read bedtime stories, share laughter and actually listen to them. Talk about their fave tv shows, reminisce about old pictures and just be there in general
In addition to these, depending on their age-grade, tell them in whatever way you can, what’s going on around the world and the safety precautions they should take, try reminding them about personal hygiene and how to be better in it, this period is a really great chance to make the family unit better. As they say “charity begins at home”. Let’s start the education from there and pass it on.
Stay safe and stay healthy