How to Spend Family Time During Social Distancing

Written by alehner on March 19, 2020. Posted in Parenting

Spending a couple of weeks at home might sound like a relief from busy everyday life and, for some people, the idea can sound downright exciting! But when you factor in that the “retreat” from society wasn’t a planned vacation you had time to prepare for, you can’t spend the time visiting friends and extended family or travelling somewhere sunny, and that all the places your kids love to visit are closed, a couple of weeks starts to look a lot longer.

So, how do you avoid 2+ weeks of the kiddos watching streaming services from morning ‘til night? Try scheduling a couple of evenings each week for a fun family activity.

Here are a few of our favourite ideas for when you need to turn off the TV or video games and get the fam together for a bit of quality time.

Cook Dinner Together

If you want to keep the kids busy for an hour, encourage them to appreciate healthy, home-cooked food, and get some help in the kitchen. This one’s a no-brainer!

Do a quick online search for kid-friendly recipes and get cooking! Classic kid favourites like spaghetti and meatballs are simple enough to keep those little hands busy.

Don’t be afraid to get a bit more adventurous with your recipes, either. Even if your kids are picky and claim not to like the meal you want to make, remember they’re more likely to try eating something they had a hand in making themselves.

Have A Game Night

Dust off those board game boxes, make some popcorn, and let the competitive spirits out!

If your kids are younger, game night is a great way to teach them how to be good sports. It can also teach them important life skills like patience, how to take directions, and how to take turns. Many board games also give kids the opportunity to learn how to strategize and learn from their own mistakes.

Organize Family Memories

Remember that family trip to Florida when the kids were little? They might not. Gather everyone together to go through some older photos on your phones, on your Dropbox account or housed on your social media accounts.

Once you’ve had your fill of reminiscing, choose your favourite pictures and print them at home for a fun arts and crafts project: building scrapbook pages together! Have every family member take charge of a specific page – for example, one person can design a page for a specific family vacation, one for events with the extended family, and one for documenting how the kids have grown year over year (we think school portraits are the perfect way to show this off). Personalize your pages by decorating with stickers and coloured construction paper cut-outs.

If you don’t have a printer at home, why not build your scrapbook digitally? Upload your favourite photo memories to a service like Chatbooks, where you can organize your photos and add captions and designs to the pages.