How to Get Your Kids Off the Couch

Parenting during the Pandemic

How to Get Your Kids Off the Couch

These days with kids home from school and patience running thin, here are some tried, tested, and true ways to get your kids (ages 2 to 10) up and about.

Last night I went directly from dinner to putting my kids to bed, cleaning the kitchen, walking the dogs and finally my own shower and bedtime. For those of you with no time to spare, this may sound like our version of Groundhog day. From wake up to bedtime, the kids needs and demands run paramount.

Checklists

Whether they are of reading age or not, kids respond well to checklists. We have a list of chores and expectations that need to be checked off before they are allowed any screen time.

Top 10 checklist items

• Dressed and brush teeth (without being asked)
• Clean the room / Toys put away
• Bed made
• Dishes left near or in the sink
• Drank a glass of water
• Read a book
• Homework (this could be school or music)
• Activity (see “Exercise” below)
• Water plants (see “Garden” below)
• Practice gratitude

Additional Rules for the Day

Rules are a big one in our household. I will randomly assign a task to the kids that they MUST do if they expect to be allowed an hour of electronic time. These are all items that may not be on the checklist but benefit from repetition.

• Practice your recital piece between episodes
• Read a short book between episodes
• Complete 10 jumping jacks and 10 burpees between episodes
• Get up and run around the garden/house 10 times between episodes

Exercise

Physical Education (PE) Class

In the first month, we managed with great hilarity to follow several online PE classes that were distributed on YouTube by enterprising PE teachers. After a week with the material remaining the same of the poor teacher calling routines from his living room, boredom ensued and the kids’ bottoms started to gravitate to the couch.

Ok mom, we’ll watch this. But we won’t participate. Can’t make me!

Yoga

There’s a brilliant series called Cosmic Kids Yoga. All three kids started following its host Jaime and we were back in business until a few weeks later when their bottoms again started to gravitate towards the sofa.

As the weather outside improved from winter to spring, we struggled with a variety of dance and song. Anything to give them an early morning workout.

Walks

When they all managed to come downstairs on time, I would dress them up and have them walk around the neighborhood with the dogs. Initially, picking up poop (yes, picking up poop) was exciting and interesting. After awhile my 9-year-old started reading books in the morning.

No mom, I don’t want to go outside. I’m too tired.

— The 5 year old at 8 AM

Spring finally descended and two out of the three excitedly wanted to go out biking or to walk the dogs the first thing in the morning. I was contented to let the third read his books.

Finally, with summer fast approaching I downloaded the Pokemon Go app to my phone. Suddenly, the older two find walking to be all the rage. We have very clear rules as to how long we are allowed to stop and where. There is no walking and staring at a device — but at least our walks have doubled in length and there is no more moaning and groaning.

Gardening

My younger sister who lives in an apartment but is lucky to have several balconies surprised me with the extent to her ‘gardening’ with her daughter over the pandemic. She planted several plants from seed or obtained plants from people or markets before the big shut down. The weather in Germany was more in her favor with spring coming early.

In Southern Ontario (Canada) we were not so lucky. It has only been about a month that we have had the ground thaw enough to warrant putting out plants. However, I ordered several tomato and vegetable plants from anyone who had them on offer. Not knowing much about gardening myself, I was determined to learn with the help of my kids.

One of the morning chores, when there is no rain, is to water all of the vegetables from our rain barrel. Yes, get your kids to do ‘hard’ labor.

Board Games

Board games have made a comeback but depend on the number of kids and their ages. I have found it incredibly hard to get them motivated to play a one hour game that sometimes ends in tears (as my younger son gets beaten in the game of Risk). However, layering your electronics with bouts of — thou shalt play a board game if thou wishes to continue watching your show — will trick them into starting said board game and continuing for several hours. Better yet, if they find it fun they will ask for it the next day.

This same trick works for practicing music pieces if your child is so inclined. My 5 year old took this so to heart that without even asking, he gets up between episodes of Pokemon TV series to play his recital piece before returning to his show.

Push electronics to the last part of the day

This one is pretty obvious but I take it a step further and very quickly compile the list of ‘distance education’ clips the teacher has collated from YouTube to insert before my son gets his allotted TV time. I also push him to watch at least one episode of the following (available via DVD, Netflix, YouTube, Disney, Prime, or cable).

List of parent-approved television shows

• Magic School Bus — encourages questions and looking up information
• Daniel Tiger — encourages good behavior and interaction between kids
• Sid the Science Kid — every question answered and let us look up and spend the day buried in a topic!
• SuperWhy — reading from the alphabet to words with both my 2-year-old and 5 years old engaged for very different reasons
• Cocomelon — for the toddler is a collection of nursery rhymes and songs that encourage social interactions, good behavior, counting and the alphabet

Finally, when you have no choice but to give in to the electronics because LIFE and you need your time. Enact a “Documentary only” watching rule or only “Cooking shows” during specific times of the day. The latter helps them to get excited about the creative homemade meals they are seeing day in and day out (and give me ideas for the next day meals).

I have my kids coming to me trying to explain why Power Rangers is ‘educational’. But it gets them thinking about the content of the shows they watch and what they have the chance of learning.

Consistency and making your kids work for their rewards is key and they will continue to be the little blessings that they are.