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Keeping your kids from getting bored thi summer
Harpreet Kaur Dhaliwal is a social worker. She can be
reached at tel: 416-892-7362.
Tuesday July 17 2007
http://www.southasianfocus.ca/printArticle/29182
With summer already here, I am sure many parents are
listening to their kids say: "I am bored, I have
nothing to do..." and so on and so forth, over and
over again.
Most parents might say, "What do you mean you're
bored? You have so many toys to play with." But the
kids still say the same thing-- "But I'm still
bored..."
At this point perhaps parents feel angry and
frustrated.
Most parents find themselves in this situation because
they don't plan for weekdays in summer. The children
may be right about getting bored. They have neither
the village to play in nor do they have the trees to
climb on or the river nearby where they can just go
and dive in.
We live in a very structured society, and so do our
children. Summer camps can be expensive, and we may be
able to afford to send our kids to such camps for only
one or two weeks-- but what about the rest of the
summer?
This is where I suggest planning for summer holidays
should be given a priority. Here are some of the
things you can do at home with your children:
* Make sure your children don't start their morning
with television. Remember, kids have a lot of energy
when they get up in the morning. After they eat their
breakfast, send them out to play for a couple of
hours-- but don't forget to impose a time-limit for
them to come in.
* Once they have had the chance to play, tell them to
read a book. If they are at home with their
grandparents, tell them to read to their grandparents
and teach them English. Encourage them to explain the
story to the grandparents in their mother-tongue,
whatever it may be. This way they don't feel it's
going to be boring reading a book.
* For lunch, have a backyard picnic-- you don't always
have to go to the park.
* Have an activity time. Some examples of such
activities: simply save toilet paper and kitchen towel
rolls and tell them to make the biggest marble maze
they can from the rolls. Give them empty boxes and
tell them to make a truck or an animal. Or instead of
buying a birthday card encourage them to make it at
home for family and friends. All you have to do is
provide them with construction papers, glue, tape,
paint, brushes, scissors, etc.
* At the end of the day, they can write about things
that went well and things that didn't go too well.
* For our littlest people, here is a recipe for
play-dough:
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup salt
2 tablespoons - cream of tartar
2 tablespoons - oil
1 cup water
Food colouring
Method:
Put 1 cup of water on the stove on medium heat (5).
Add food colouring to the water first and then add oil
& stir.
Mix flour, salt and cream of tartar in a bowl. Add the
mixture in the hot water.
Take the pan off the stove once the mixture starts to
form into a ball. It only takes a couple of minutes
for the play-dough to cool and it is ready to play
with. Get some cookie cutters from the dollar store
and let the children have fun!
* Remember, sometimes all it takes for us is to
provide them with the simplest things: make a schedule
for them and they will come up with the ideas.
Children are one step away from becoming creative when
they are bored. TV should be the last resort to end
the "I'm bored..." syndrome.
Planning will not only help them to keep busy but will
also give them consistency for when they go back to
school.
I hope these suggestions will encourage more ideas of
your own. Don't forget, these tips are only good if
they are put in practice.
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