Screen-Time Substitutes for Kids Stuck at Home
Novel ways to occupy children when you’re trying to be productive.
“When parents ask me what they can do to occupy kids, they usually mean without the parent,” says Julie Bogart, who spent almost two decades home schooling five children and now runs BraveWriter.com, a home school writing program. But, she adds, “The parent is often essential. Sometimes kids don’t even know how to sustain their own attention.”
Parents, of course, are strained right now balancing work and caregiving. Often they go to the same bag of tricks to try to stave off endless hours of screen time. “We try to pacify children with a smorgasbord of options, and all those options stop being interesting—like the wallpaper,” Bogart says. Novelty is key. It takes planning, but that can reap benefits. Here are four ways to change things up: