5 SCREEN FREE ACTIVITIES TO EXPLORE WITH YOUR CHILD

 There’s nothing wrong with children spending some time on their tablets or watching TV, particularly if they’re engaging with educational content; it’s important for kids to relax. However, too much screen time can prevent them from playing with friends or getting outside, or spending time with family. If you’re conscious of how much time your child spends in front of a screen, you might find these suggested screen swaps from a girls’ prep school in London useful. 

 

Non-digital games

 

Consider swapping your usual family movie night for a family games night instead. Gather any board games or puzzles you have and spend quality time playing, chatting and laughing together. Your child might be reluctant at first to give this a go, but they’llmost likely have a lot of fun once you get going. 

 

Get outside

 

Go for a walk somewhere you’ve never been or find a new play park. If the weather is nice you can’t beat a picnic and a kick about in a park, or drenching each other with water guns in the back garden. The key is to make it fun and exciting, and incorporate a bit of variety by discovering new places and activities to do. 

 

Baking and cooking

 

Getting your child involved in cooking has several advantages - they’ll learn something in the process and everyone gets something yummy at the end of it! Let them make some decisions along the way, such as what food colouring to use or what sprinkles to top the cakes with, and they’ll get so engrossed they’ll forget about screens (at least for a little while). 

 

Reading

 

Children can be reluctant to read if they don’t think it’s as exciting as watching TV or playing computer games, but getting the whole family involved might change their perspective on it. You could make it more fun by getting each member of the family to take turns reading paragraphs from one book, or acting out something you’ve just read and asking each other to guess what it is. 

 

Get creative

 

Set up some paper and paints or crayons and let your child experiment. They’ll love it if you get involved and create with them. Let your imaginations run wild and see what you all come up with. 

 

Screen-free time doesn’t have to be boring, and getting away from the screens can help you spend quality time with your children while they’re developing valuable skills to set them up for life.