Search icon

Parenting

19th Mar 2020

Keep calm during coronavirus: things to do when your kids say ‘I’m bored’

Trine Jensen-Burke

“Mummy, I’m so bored.”

Chances are you’re hearing this phrase a lot at the moment and it can be difficult to figure out new ways of keeping your kids occupied, particularly when you don’t know how long this way of life will continue.

The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc globally but all you can do is take it day by day and do your best for you and your family be social distancing, staying home and navigating a new kind of normal.

It can be so (so, so) easy to just hand them your phone or tablet, but I know most of us are trying to cut back on the time kids spend on tech these days.

And with that in mind – here are 12 fun activities to engage them in when kids complain about being bored or having nothing to do. Most of these cost nothing at all, and the added bonus? You get to spend some actual quality time together.

1. Construct an indoor obstacle course.

2. Go on a walk and let kids take pictures (with a disposable camera) of their favorite things around the neighborhood.

3. Have a potato-sack race.

4. Bake cookies

5. Host a movie night. Plan for it by drawing tickets, making popcorn and setting up the room like a theater.

6. String together macaroni for jewellery.

7. Make homemade play dough.

9. Build an indoor tent or fort with couches and some bed sheets.

9. Plant something.

10. Try to replicate a famous painting.

11. Make an eye-spy scavenger hunt (something shiny and blue, something round that makes noise, something clear, etc.).