How to effectively engage children at home

Nature abhors a vacuum, and where there is freedom and emptiness, there is plenty of room for idle activity. However, there is a clear difference between idle participation and productive participation.

Idle participation is when you engage in activities that have little or no impact, while productive participation is when you engage in activities that add to your knowledge, skills, health, and intellect.

Our minds are usually accustomed to feeding on whatever they visit, so our priority is to direct our thoughts toward activities and meditations that positively affect us.

So how do you get kids to participate efficiently at home?

I understand how mentally demanding and stressful it can be for parents and caregivers to get an overactive child to sit quietly or lower their voice when they cry or run around the house roughly reaching for things.

The most frustrating experience is when, after a few tidying-up sessions, they haphazardly disrupt the entire environment with food, toys, and play items.

Sometimes they end up destroying valuables and making a mess of the house. Well, this restless attitude is expected of young children in their early years because they are naturally overactive and when they are not as engaged, they devote their energy to destructive behaviors.

These challenges can be minimized by effectively engaging children in activities that produce high impact and less disruption. Pay close attention, as I have listed several helpful tips for meeting these needs.

Create daily routines.

Daily routines create structure at home, and over time this will become a necessary commitment in the child's life. Children are more cooperative in school because each child must follow a structured schedule each day. Their minds are accustomed to good and cooperative behavior in the school environment. No matter how strong a child's willpower is, he is in business at school because he has adapted to the school system. This same strategy can be used in the home environment. When creating routines to effectively engage your child, make sure there is an activity assigned for every hour that passes. No time should be left unused.

Outdoor activities help.

The outdoors showcases the beauty of nature, and children need to connect more with nature than with man-made connections because nature is reality. Research shows that all outdoor activities give children a broader view of things because there is a wide world out there. Children use five (5) basic human senses outdoors. Which are; touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste.

In the outdoors, they can feel plants and trees with their hands, and they can see animals and the vast blue sky. They hear sounds from different sources. They can smell things around them and taste fruits, snacks, and food. When these activities occur, their minds are open and active in learning. Don't keep your child indoors all day, which will reduce their opportunities to connect with the real world and develop intellectually. In addition, outdoor activities are not planned.

It is important to plan for the day to effectively engage children. Examples of outdoor activities are games such as running, painting, playing basketball, and soccer. Finding bugs has water fights, painting, going on scavenger hunts, planting seeds, etc.

Plan indoor activities.

A home is a happy place for every child because it is where they live and are free. That's why children are happier at home than in other places. Therefore, you must strive to take advantage of this opportunity to make the home a learning platform for your child's growth by effectively engaging them in age-appropriate activities. Include a variety of indoor activities when creating a daily routine to develop your child's active mind.

The various indoor activities are, paper crafts, painting eggshells, reading books, playing Simon Says, playing card games, doing puzzles, building blocks, writing or telling stories, wearing fashion shows, making rainbow rice, mold play dough, etc. The list is exhaustive.

These activities help children's cognitive, literacy, and emotional development.

Naps are helpful.

Sleep is a productive activity because it allows the body and brain to rest and rejuvenate. It is an important aspect of children's early years and remains an important part of their development during adolescence and young adulthood. Lack of sleep can affect a child's mood and increase the chances of negative behavior.

Young children need about 11-14 hours of sleep per day, with naps lasting 1 to 3 hours. A quiet environment needs to be created during nap time. Set the tone so that the child in your care will follow through. Take out the screen, postpone additional distractions that may cause distractions for an hour, and make the bed neatly so your child has a better napping experience.

Using storytelling, or gently reading your child's favorite story from a book at this time, can also help to capture your child's attention and get them to eventually fall asleep.

Here are five (5) important reasons why naps are productive and important for growing children.

- Reduces daytime sleeplessness and crankiness

-Reduces behavior problems

-Increased ability to focus and concentrate

-Reduces the occurrence of mood swings

-Improves cognitive skills

Actively engage them in age-appropriate chores

When you don't assign chores to your child, it simply means that you are skipping an important part of your child's childhood development and ignoring some of the benefits your child can gain by performing them.

Chores help teach life skills. Children are young now, but they won't be young forever. Some chores are necessary for your child to survive as an adult. This may not be taught in school, which is why home learning is essential.

Chores can help children learn responsibility and self-reliance. Assigning regular chores to your child will help develop a sense of responsibility. Tasks that have a personal impact on your child, such as cleaning their room or doing laundry, can help them become more self-reliant.

Chores help build a strong work ethic. This trait is valued by working adults, so why not instill a work ethic in your children from an early age?

Chores are often tied to rewards. Paying for children who do well can also inspire an entrepreneurial spirit and motivate them to work outside the home when they are old enough.

In short, if adults strive to be in constant control of their minds and are actively engaged in productive activities every day, how many more children are developing and ready to explore the world around them without care or caution? This tells us that it is our primary responsibility to guide our children to the right activities that will help them grow and innovate.