Never in my life that I imagine that I will be stuck at home for the longest time. My husband is now working from home and my son is attending online distance learning classes. Just like that, we are forced to stay home, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to be safe.
The only thing that I like about pandemic is, we are spending more time together. But of course, we cannot deny that it is additional stress because we need to find ways to entertain our only child. As a parent, keeping safe and keeping sane is our everyday challenge.
“I’m bored” is the two favorite words of my son so keeping him busy while we are managing our daily lives is not easy. I’m sharing what we did to help my son adjust to this new reality and how we keep him occupied
1. Subscribe to Streaming Service
We already have a cable subscription but we rarely watch TV so I feel that subscribing to Netflix is not worth it. So for the longest time, I stay away from subscribing to streaming services because that is an additional expense on my budget but I realized, paying a monthly fee is still worth it because it entertains us. It helped us to reduce our news intake and give us a break from COVID19 news. Watching movies, TV shows and series helps us to cope with stress.
“Time you enjoyed wasting, was not wasted - John Lennon
2. Playing Online Games
COVID19 made me realize that life is short so since last year, I bend my rules a little bit and allow my son to play online games even on weekdays provided that he will help us with chores and studies first before playing. I accepted the fact that there are surprising benefits of playing video games like
A. It can reduce stress
B. It improves attention and concentration
C. It develops problem-solving skills
D. It improves social skills
E. It enhances memory.
My son has Nintendo Switch but we only have few games and I don’t want to buy a lot of games because Nintendo Games are not cheap. So I’m thankful that there are mobile apps and websites that offer free games for kids. All you need is an internet-abled device and you can play anytime and anywhere.
“Escape reality and play games”
3. Enroll in Online Classes
Although there are benefits in watching TV shows, series movies, and playing online games, we know that too much of it is also not good. We took advantage of the long summer vacation and we enrolled my son in 3 online classes; Young Engineers Enrichment Programs, Explore Scratch 1 and 2 and Explore HTML and CSS.
My son likes playing online games and at the same time, he wanted to create his own game so he really enjoyed his Scratch lessons because he was able to make his own games. The advanced lessons in HTML and CSS class were a big help because that was also their lesson in school.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest” - Benjamin Franklin
4. Reading Books
My son is not a bookworm but I still buy books from time to time to limit his screen time. I am hoping that someday, he will learn to appreciate books and he will realize that reading is not boring.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go” - Dr. Seuss
These are just few ways that we did to help my son during this pandemic. This school year is about to end and summer vacation is fast approaching so I’m currently searching for other ways to keep him busy again.
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