Summer Holidays are that part of the year which are not bounded by school. It is that time of the year when kids find lots of time to play, to explore and to just wander in laziness. Good Parenting involves keeping the liveliness of the place and enjoying the freedom with the kids. If your kid is just glued to the computer or is complaining of boredom, then its high time to get involved as a parent.
Spending quality time is the major part you would need to play when it comes to engaging your child during these holidays. Sending children off to summer classes is not a solution, though you might tell yourself that your child would be learning lots of things apart from the curriculum.
Childhood nowadays encompasses a lot of pressure that was not present until a little earlier, I do not remember me or my friends complaining of boredom, we in fact were having too less time to play and enjoy.
The games children of one generation earlier used to enjoy were more fun and advantageous in all ways to the children. Most games were played in groups, hide- n-seek helped one in better counting, gilly-danda would help you concentrate and aim, golly was again an eye exercise with giving you extraordinary eye to hand motion.
Pallanguli is now said to be promoted in China, as children there has never been a day without playing this mental math game, which is far better than your abacus, we would not need those finger pushing tricks to calculate and all the calculation would be done in a jiffy.
What about the nondi-pudikarthu or the one legged catching game, it is such a great balancing art that all our Tadasanas done in a gloomy mood. The catching games, dragaon trapping, butterfly chasing (and remember the huge swarms of butterflies that used to visit us during summers), kootanchoru that was the test to our earliest cooking skill.
The list seems to be never ending and still we would find time to play all these games, parents would never see us around because we had our own plans. There were no complaints about the heat, dust or even food.
Today, parenting in itself seems to be an herculean task, and with both parents working and families becoming nuclear, children are getting bored during holidays. As a parent it becomes your responsibility to engage them and keep them occupied, however, more often parents tend to let children sit in front of TV or computer. Here are some tips to modern parenting and techniques of engaging children this summer
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Spend Quality Time: Even if you are a working parent, spend some time with your kids every day during the holiday. Whether you water the plants together or read a story during bedtime, it does not matter but get involved and connect with your child. Summer will end soon and so will be your child?s childhood, isn?t it?
Stick to the Routine: It is always healthy if kids, particularly smaller kids know what is happening during the entire day. A consistent and predictable environment makes a child happy. For example, if the child is going to play every morning, then he/she should know that cleaning will be the next task.
Time to Learn Something New: Summer is a great time to learn, experiment and play. Encourage your child to put his creativity at work. Even if it involves learning to throw a ball or writing short stories.
Teaching Life Skills: Summer is a time to learn life skills without any pressure. They can learn to swim, ride a bike or learn to skate. In case of older children, they can learn things like taking a train or bus on their own, how to shop and pay at the counter, etc. If the children are going far away for higher education, then they can even learn to do laundry, cook food or even take a first aid course.
Doing Household Chores: Holidays are the best time teach the kids to share household chores. The best thing about parenting is to change the usual rules of the house and share it among the family members. While the younger children can be given the task of cleaning the table, making the bed and tidying the house, the elder ones can help clean up the garage, do some gardening, help with shopping and even take care of the pets.
Restrict the Use of Technology: The more your kids sit in front of the television or play computer games, the less creative they are going to be. Hence, reduce and limit the technology use, and let your child do more creative things.
Inculcate Reading Habit: Books are the door to the world of imagination. As parents, read to your child and tell them lots of stories. They will start reading by themselves one day.
Connect with Nature: There were times when children climbed mango trees and played in the pond. Take your child on small field trips so that they enjoy and play in the nature.
try teaching some composting techniques to children, you can get them engaged in terrace gardening, let them learn how plants grow and how they need to take care of the plants and animals.
To enjoy with your kids does not need any money or travel. A good parent will always try to spend a lot of time with the kids. It all takes some time scheduling so that you would be able to complete your regular works before time so that some time would be left for spending with children. After all what would success mean if your child is not happy.
