A low-tech school vacation: Keeping kids engaged and happy without screens

9 Ways to Encourage Children to Connect, Create, and Play Away from the Screen

Is it almost time for school vacation? Are you wondering how to spend that time? Given how exhausting holidays can be, especially for working parents, it's understandable that children are frequently allowed to spend hours watching TV, playing video games, or using a tablet. After all, happy, quiet children make for happy parents who can finally get some work done — or relax.

However, children are spending an excessive amount of time in front of screens. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, children aged 8 to 12 spend four to six hours each day watching or using screens, while tweens and teens spend nine hours.

Given how appealing devices and social media can be, those figures could easily rise during unscheduled periods such as weekends and school vacations. That is why it is important to be proactive and come up with alternative activities. Here are some ideas for parents and caregivers to try. These are mostly appropriate for elementary school-aged children, but some may also appeal to tweens and teens.

Taking time off the screen

Go outside. This may sound obvious, but kids spend less time outside than they used to, and it can be a lot of fun. If you have a yard, go outside and play hide-and-seek or make a fort out of snow or other materials. If you don't have a yard, visit a nearby park or simply go for a walk. A scavenger hunt around the block or a game of I Spy could be a good incentive.

Walk to the library

Do this early in your child's vacation to ensure that they have plenty of books, puzzles, and games to keep them entertained. Check out as many as they allow you to carry. Ask if a Library of Things is available at a branch near you: crafts, tools, musical instruments, birding kits, telescopes, and even metal detectors can be borrowed for free.

Create a fort in the living room

Use blankets or sheets to cover chairs; if you have a small tent, set it up. Bring in pillows, sleeping bags, and flashlights; allow the kids to sleep in it at night. Allow it to stay up throughout the vacation.

Build a city in your living room. Use blocks, Legos, boxes (or anything else) to create roads, cars, people, animals, trains, and other toys. Allow it to remain up throughout the vacation, growing larger with each passing day.

Getting creative off-screen

Get creative. Visit the craft store and stock up on inexpensive supplies. Purchase poster board, large pieces of paper (which you could also use in your city to create parks, roads, and parking lots), paints, and markers. You can create a paper mural, a comic book, a story, posters, or whatever sparks your child's interest. If you know how to knit or sew, consider teaching your child or creating a simple project together. Play music while you work.

Read aloud

There are many books that are enjoyable to read aloud. When my children were younger, we read aloud the Harry Potter series, the Chronicles of Narnia, and books by E.B. White and Roald Dahl. Act out the voices. Have fun.

Perform a puppet show

If you don't have any puppets, you can construct ones out of socks or hold up dolls or action figures to do the talking for them. You can create a makeshift stage by cutting out the back of a box and taping a fabric (such as a pillowcase) to the front.

Bring out the games. Checkers, chess, Uno, Connect 4, Sorry, Twister, Clue, Scrabble, and Monopoly are just a few examples of games that work for all ages. We forget how enjoyable these can be.

Bake

Don't overindulge; using mixes or pre-made cookie dough will suffice. Nothing beats baked goods right from the oven, and adding frosting and toppings makes it even more enjoyable. Turn on some music and dance while the food bakes.

While some of these activities require parental or caregiver involvement (such as those requiring the oven or reading aloud), many of them can be completed independently once started. Which is precisely what youngsters require: time to explore their imaginations and simply play.

However, after you've started, you could find yourself wanting to play as well.

Photo by Jill Wellington