I see so many kids (including my own child) spending their summer break and extra time watching television or playing video games. The wife and I argue with him all the time to go get some fresh air and find some sort of outdoor activities. We all know it’s only getting tougher and takes a lot of time running any household these days and keep a full-time career. Us as parents can’t always drop everything to go outside or be as active with our children as we would like which is not healthy for anybody especially the future generations. Next thing we know he is in his room playing video games by himself or watching television. When we talked with him, he said “I wish I could have a place or somewhere to find non-boring outdoor activities that are fun until you can come play too”
Finding an Age-Appropriate Activity.
Trying to find something interesting that keeps kids focused was going to be our biggest issue! Did I mention our son is 10 years old going on 11 and has a very short attention span especially if he is entertaining only himself?
Little did I know how old I was actually getting until I made some suggestions of the things I use to do at his age! Come to find out what I did at his age is not COOL anymore or he don’t know what it was. There were however a few activities that he perked up too and wanted to know about. After telling him the rules and how to play he said “NEVERMIND” he wanted to find something quick just to pass time until we could join him.
The other challenge I found to be hard was finding something that got him moving and being active with an END GOAL to achieve. Face it we all as parents or guardians enjoy seeing our children accomplish something they STARTED and being able to applaud them for achieving what they set out to achieve. The smiles you as a parent get when you look at a child ESPECIALLY YOUR OWN and say YOU DID IT means the world to them!! I know with our son when he feels accomplished and runs to us and said look what I did it drives him right into another activity to do. I come to find out when this all takes place, I find myself actually driving harder to go do the next activity with him to see how he accomplished it on his own! Boy did I learn very quickly how differently I would have done it, but it also showed me how him being active pushed him to think for himself and got him up and being pro-active.
I would also like to say the best part for him or any child (in my opinion) the more he gets out and does these activities the more active and happier he is all around. I will say as parents we couldn’t be happier because he has met so many new friends around our neighborhood. It is tough sometimes because his friends are all in a different age bracket and they can’t always agree on a certain activity without somebody getting bored!
Coming up with an Activity.
This I will have to say was the most difficult for us as parents. We wanted to come up with just the right activity that makes all the children feel involved when they came over to play with our son. We have seen so many times all of them playing together happy and 30 minutes go by, so we go to check on them and someone is bored or feels left out. We will obviously ask “what happened, did you include him/her” those kinds of questions a parent or guardian asks? What we found worked for us is one evening we all sat down to dinner (which a lot of families don’t or can’t do anymore) with a note pad and asked our son what he likes?
Much to our surprise one of these simple nights making this list led to another dinner into another! Before we knew it, we filled a whole page up with our sons’ incredible activity ideas not to mention the smiles on everyone’s face. Here his mother and I go from overthinking activity ideas to it becoming so simple and more family time. We all found that the children and even some of the parents where spending more time together which was bringing everyone closer together. Much to our surprise other families where doing the same and we were all putting ideas together and we were seeing more and more smiles. Much to my surprise we were outsmarted by our 10-year-old, and we quickly realized OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES don’t always have to be based on physical activities but can be better mental health also!
Simple Steps in Activity Planning.
- Simply talk amongst your family and set a dinner date without any phone, television, or any sort of electronics. You can even make a wonderful healthy dinner as a family and include the children because we realized ours talked up a storm during the meal prepping just from him feeling helpful.
- As you set the family table have the children grab a note pad and pencil. Simply hear them out because they WILL tell you what they like for fun (we learned a lot through this alone). Your children will also be letting you know what their friends like during this time also.
- After all this was said and done and there was a list of activities, they like to do NOT WHAT WE FELT HE LIKED we had a base to run with. We even combined some games and wrote a set of rules for a whole new game none of us ever heard of (that was an entertaining evening to say the least).
- Then all his friends got together and played some of these activities outside (what before might have been 30 minutes of everyone together turned into hours). Even the parents and gaurdians got a good chuckle.
- Then after all this let the kids add and maybe even improve on some of the game ideas. After all said and done everyone NOT just our own child but his friends had created some amazing games that led to hours of play and interactions.
Did we all Have Fun?
Bottom line for this fun and incredible journey we took was finding out how much fun we had and will continue to have. Us as parents and I know of a few other households in our small subdivision community had a blast. We met some incredible people we may not have met prior, and our children met some great friends and made some long-term memories while getting out exercising and had fun at the same time! Not to mention the adults are getting these memories watching their children laugh while we unwind from the stress of the world. Please if you or your child has a great idea, please feel free to let me know and I can pass it on so ours can put it to PLAY!