The Creative Parent's Guide to Surviving Isolation During COVID-19

The Creative Parent's Guide to Surviving Isolation During COVID-19

In these uncertain and unprecedented times, we are all having to adjust our lives to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. As adults, we can rationalize the need to stay inside and protect humanity. Still, our children will not have the same ability to understand why they can't go out anymore, why they can't go to school, to their after-school activities, and why they can't see their friends.

Now that your children are home for the foreseeable, naturally, there will be a certain amount of education to take up your weekdays at home together. But depending on the age and personality of your kids, it's not always going to be easy to run your home on a school timetable. So, you will need a wealth of resources outside of school work to keep them on track and focused.

While we do our part in this pandemic, we also have to find practical and fun ways to keep our children and ourselves sane. Try some of the following techniques to help you as a family get through this unusual and unique time.

Indoor Activities to survive COVID-19

Get Baking:

Baking is a great way to bond with your children and to focus their attention. Sure, it's messy, but what's some cleaning at the end if it keeps them occupied for a few hours? Find your favorite recipes and work on helping your kids to do the work. It's fun, they will probably get a kick out of being allowed to make a mess, and it develops a new skill.

Online Exercise Classes:

During this crisis, a lot of celebrity trainers and fitness coaches are offering free live online classes both for adults and kids. Check out what's available and sign your offspring up to a kid's fitness class. Young children have an unimaginable amount of energy, and even half an hour doing a fitness class may not make much difference to their energy levels immediately afterward. Still, it can make bedtime at the end of the day marginally easier.

Gaming Tournaments:

If you have gaming consoles at home, hook them up to the internet if you haven't already and join some tournaments. Pay close attention to who else is online and always be safe. But if you can participate in the competition with your kids, then this is an excellent way for everyone to have fun and pass a few hours.

Old Fashioned Board Games:

They may be covered in dust and have had their noses turned up at them over the years by your tech-savvy kids, but now is the perfect time to engage their brains in some good 'old school' board gaming. If your children are particularly organized or focused as a personality trait anyway, the meticulous rules and organization of certain types of board game could suit them very well.

Build a Fort:

It doesn't matter how old you get, building a fort is cool! Spend a day collecting all your blankets, pillows, and cushions and build the ultimate fort. They're cozy and great fun to play in once they've been built. If you build your TV inside of your fortress, you can even take some popcorn and candy into the fort, and all snuggle down to watch a movie together.

Box Obstacle Course:

Much like with cats, the simple options can always be the most successful. Find a few old storage boxes. Sacrifice them for the greater good and turn them into an obstacle course for your kids by cutting holes in them in various places, so when you join them together, they can climb in one end, crawl through and come out at the other. If you engage your kids in an activity they like, the hours will take care of themselves.

Fun Online Learning Activities:

Though we like to keep our kids' screen time to a minimum, it will be harder as the weeks in isolation roll on. But you can utilize their screen time to make sure while they're having fun, they're also learning something. There are seemingly endless activities online to keep kids entertained, but here are a few standouts that might be the difference between a boring tantrum and an intrigued child.

Explore the Surface of Mars on the Curiosity Rover: https://accessmars.withgoogle.com/

The San Diego Zoo has a dedicated kid's website with videos, activities, and games: https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/

The Smithsonian has a guide to educational activities you can do at home with animal cams. You can access that guide and their animal cams here.

We love the Georgia Aquarium and their webcams are accessible for viewing on their website. Choose from the Ocean Voyager WebCam, The Indo-Pacific Barrier Reef Webcam, Jelly WebCam, California Sea Lion WebCam, Beluga Whale WebCam, Southern Sea Otter WebCam, African Penguin WebCam, Gator Crossing, Underwater Puffin WebCam, or the Piranha WebCam, by clicking on any of the specific links or by going to the Georgia Aquarium Webcams area by clicking here.

The Georgia Aquarium also has lesson plans, study guides and other resources available for download in their At Home Learning area. This area has exciting videos with supplementary study guides about deep sea learning.

As a bonus, try connecting these activities with Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, Spongebob Squarepants, and the Octonauts. All are popular movies or TV shows that introduce kids to underwater life and marine explorations.

Space Science for Kids: Check out the NASA kids club. https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/index.html

Engage your Kids in the World of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/online-features/metkids/

PBS Kids – Play with favorite TV characters with interactive games and activities: https://pbskids.org/

Outdoor Activities to Survive COVID-19:

Being able to enjoy the outdoors is highly dependent on where you live and the current laws of your area, which are changing daily, so before embarking on any of these, be sure to clarify what you are allowed to do in your area. If you have an enclosed back garden, there should be no reason you can't be out there, but always check your local laws on the matter.

Garden Olympics:

Keeping your children mobile and getting movement into their day is essential. But asking them to go out and run around in a circle for 30 minutes or do a bunch of jumping jacks will soon wear thin. Instead, you can create a game out of it with the garden Olympics. Use the prep day as an excuse for indoor arts and crafts making medals out of yogurt lids or similar, and then they'll be excited to get out and play. Use whatever you have to create Olympic style games they can compete in. Find a variety of games they can all be good at so everyone gets a medal.

Garden Bingo:

Your kids probably spend a lot of time playing in the garden, but do they know much about it? You can print out some activity sheets to include nature, flowers, and trees you have in your yard that they can identify and tick off as they find them. When they have completed their sheet, they win a reward.

Attract More Wildlife to Your Garden:

If you want to help engage your children's interest in nature, you could make a birdhouse, fill up some bird seed holders and plant flowers that attract butterflies to turn your garden into a nature reserve of its own. The kids can help plant them and then watch as more nature is attracted to your garden.

If you want to learn more about starting a garden or gardening with kids, Check out this post and this post.

Sit outside:

This one may seem obvious but fresh air and sunlight are very important. You and your kids will feel a lot better if you simply go outside a few moments every day. You don't have to do anything special, just step outside, stand in front of your door, and then go back inside of your home. Or even better, take a chair, and have a seat outside.

*When participating in outdoor activities, make sure you are being safe and maintaining social distancing.

Conclusion:

This is a unique situation, but it holds an opportunity to make memories with your family in a way that is usually never available to us. Bored kids are a challenge, and if you're trying to work from home as well as keep your kids entertained, it will be trying, but not impossible. Know that with the options out there, you can devise a timetable to help occupy your kids, give them fun learning opportunities, and find time to get your own work done too. This won't be forever so, try and find the daily positive opportunities for your family.

Keep communication open with your children. Let them know you feel isolated and frustrated too. Just as they miss socializing outside of the home, so do you. Whatever you do, do not dismiss your child’s valid feelings during these moments. We are all experiencing major changes. Even those of us who usually homeschool feel confined.

Unfortunately, most parks are off limits so you will have to find creative ways to get some fresh air and sunlight while obeying your local laws and keeping yourself and your family safe. Keep checking with us as we continue to update our site with more ideas. Remember, to be safe in whatever you choose to do. Don’t forget to wash your hands often!

*Take proper precautions for yourself and those you intend on helping. Check this link for more info from the CDC about How to Protect Yourself and Others during COVID 19.

*If you are concerned about food safety here is another link from the FDA.