29 January 2021

I’m running out of ideas to entertain my young kids during lockdown – what do other families do?

29 January 2021

I’ve got very young children and am running out of things to keep them entertained during lockdown. Can you suggest anything?

Adanna Steinacker, who is part of the Instagram and YouTube influencers The Adanna & David Family (@adannadavid_fam) and mum to Noah, 3, and Kian, 5, says: “It’s important to reflect on what lockdown 1.0 looked like. I believe we speak for most parents when we say it was a really unprecedented time. Never have we gone through a situation like this, that disrupted all our routines and left us scrambling.

“Speaking personally, the pressure of keeping up with what our kids were doing at school was real. In addition to working full-time, we had to put an enormous amount of time into planning every aspect of the day – from arts and crafts to reading, from baking to painting.

“Indoor play, outdoor play, nap time, snack time, even scheduling calls with parents of school friends for them to maintain social contact. Everything was planned to the T! It was tough, we were overworked and exhausted.

TODO: define component type factbox

“As the months have progressed, with the consistent uncertainty of when things will go back to normal, there’s been a rise in conversations about prioritising our mental health as parents. After all, happy parents ultimately result in happy kids.

“Fast forward to lockdown 3.0, after reflecting on the last few months, we realised a lot of the pressure was undoubtedly self-inflicted. As parents to children aged five and three years, we’ve come to the realisation that it can take a lot less to keep them entertained.

“Freestyle play and getting them involved in what we’re doing (including housework, even though it’ll take three times the amount of time) has worked well for us. Spending a lot of time outdoors – walking, running, riding bikes/scooters, hunting for bugs or planting herbs, is a great way to kill time and keeps our toddlers entertained.

“We’ve also stopped telling ourselves this is exactly what they did yesterday – it’s completely fine to repeat activities, this greatly decreases the pressure. Another thing we’ve found to be a great time killer is Face-Timing family members. We call the grandparents who are more than happy to either read a book, sing a song or ask the kids about their day. The kids are fascinated by phones anyway so engaging them in family conversations is a win-win.

TODO: define component type factbox

“Lastly, combining what they love doing with educational aspects has also been an extremely rewarding experience for both our children and us. Our top two activities are watching online videos of their favourite characters discussing numbers, colours, alphabets etc. (depending on the age groups), and using Lego bricks or any other toys where they have to be creative, and use their imagination to build and create their own things. Our two boys can sometimes spend one or two hours just building things up and creating imaginative scenarios.”

The best videos delivered daily

Watch the stories that matter, right from your inbox