Keeping Your Children Active during the Summer COVID-19 Shutdowns

It’s the middle of the summer and most places do not have summer camps or other activities available for children. Many areas have closed parks, playgrounds and sports fields. Despite all these restrictions, it is very important to keep your children active as shutdowns have already led to the exacerbation of childhood obesity rates.

Scientists were concerned from the beginning of the lockdowns that children would be negatively affected. Their reasons included children not being able to participate in organized school activities or eat subsidized school lunches as well as being exposed to more snack food at home all day long.

Researchers recently found that compared to one year ago, “children ate an additional meal a day; slept an additional half hour per day; and spent more than 5 hours per day in front of a phone, computer or television screen” during the lockdown. Those are shocking findings indeed!

The World Health Organization recommends that children be physically active at least 60 minutes a day. In confined spaces, there are many activities in which children can participate. Consider online videos with activities. So much is available on YouTube that it just takes a bit of your time to search them out and select the ones your children will enjoy. Your children can even assist you in choosing those videos. Also, try old tried-but-true fun such as building indoor forts, playing hide and seek, dancing to music and jumping rope.

Experts recommend keeping a journal of activities and even rewarding children afterwards. The key is to reinforce positive behavior and build good habits.

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Some Important Things for Parents to do to Raise Successful Children

Dedicate your children to God and point them in the way that they should go, and the values they’ve learned from you will be with them for life.
Proverbs 22:6 (TPT)

During these days of quarantine due to the Coronavirus pandemic, parents are staying home with their children. With a growing body of information filled with all kinds of recommendations of things that parents should do with their children, how can parents decide on what are the most important? Although this is a Christian blog, I will concentrate today on what the world of science promotes.

Here are some of the best recommendations:

Read with and to your children. Importantly, when reading a book, take your time and make it exciting. Change your voice depending on the characters. Talk with your children about the plot. Look at the pictures. As a children’s author, I know that pictures in a book are very important so don’t just read the book quickly with a monotonous voice and move on.
Have them do chores to build a work ethic. Once a task is assigned, monitor them and explain to them how to do it better. Don’t nag and don’t accept complaints from them. Make sure that they follow through.
Have dinner together regularly as a family. Studies have shown that children who have dinner with their families have lower substance abuse, depression and pregnancy issues and do better in school. Children want to be loved and one way to show them love is to spend time together as a family.
Limit the use of mobile devices and screen time, especially for younger children. Too much screen time has been shown to negatively affect children. Again, it’s important for you to monitor their activities and ensure that they are abiding by the rules.
Praise your children properly. Don’t praise them for their innate abilities – example: “You aced that exam because you are so smart!” Instead, praise them for their effort – example: “You aced the exam because you really studied hard and put a lot of effort into your work.” With the former praise example, there is truly nothing they can do about improving as they will think that they are “naturally smart”. In the latter example, they learn that their success depends on their positive efforts.

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