All children love staying outdoors. Fresh air, sunlight, and wide open spaces invite jumping, running, and climbing. In fact, not so long ago these were the only activities for kids. They went out of doors if they wanted to play. Living a healthy and active life was as natural as breathing. Nowadays there is a major change in lifestyle patterns. The main cause of this is the advent of the television, the video game, the computer, and all forms of electronic gadgetry in our lives.    

Today’s parents who want their children to be healthy and active will have to learn to pull the plug. This would be easy if the parents themselves were not so dependent on these so-called instruments of entertainment. Children after all learn by example. The thing to do is to let children spend time out of doors as much as they can. It is a good idea to invest on toys that encourage physical activity such as balls, jump ropes, racquets, and the like.

Some of the time though, due to uncontrollable factors, the children will have to stay indoors. Possible reasons for this are bad weather conditions, the inaccessibility of parks, playgrounds, safe outdoor spaces for play; or simply that the parents are too busy to take the children out for outdoor play time. When this happens, indoor activities do not have to be limited to watching television or computer and video games. With a little creativity and some planning, you can make fun stimulating indoor activities for healthy and active children. A household with children should have a stock of toys and materials for such times.

When stimulating creativity in children with arts and crafts activities, the materials that would be good to have on hand are pencils, crayons, a paint box and brushes, art papers, scissors, glue, and the like. Some materials that are just around the house could be recycled for these arts and crafts projects. Intellectual play could be encouraged with board games, jigsaw puzzles, construction block sets, cards; also games that don’t require much equipment like role playing games, singing songs, telling each other stories. Hobbies like stamp and coin collecting could be encouraged. And then there is the all time favorite quiet activity for the rainy day, which is simply reading. A resourceful parent could even make doing chores a fun activity. Things like cleaning up, cooking, washing dishes, setting the table, folding clothes. All of these simple chores are a potential for play and learning.

Indoor activities for healthy and active children need not be complicated or expensive, and the benefits of these alternative-to-electronic activities are tremendous. You will observe in your child an improvement in mood and overall health, increased creativity, better socialization skills, and the development of a lifelong healthy and active lifestyle. Now that cannot be truthfully said of television watching.

All these suggestions of indoor activities for healthy and active children will indeed keep a child busy, but when the sun shines he will be ready and raring to go for the next session of outdoor playtime.

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