Help Kids Understand Social Isolation
Social distancing can be challenging for adults, so you can imagine its effect on children. Your youngest family members have to grapple with a ton of emotions at a time when they’re out of contact with their friends, a difficult obstacle, to be sure.
You don’t want your child to develop any issues due to the strain. However, safety is paramount, and you also need to keep them safe. With that in mind here are ten ways to help your kiddos exercise their social skills even as they shelter-in-place.
Keep Them Current With Their Studies
Fortunately, your children have no shortage of options when it comes to keeping up with their schooling. How does this help them to socialize?
When they devote themselves to the material, they have more valuable information to share when they participate in virtual class discussions. Platforms such as Outschool and Khan Academy offer dozens of courses that they can take for enrichment or mastery of the basics.
Play Read-at-Home Bingo Online
If you have never played read-at-home bingo, the game goes like this. You draw or print out a bingo card, and you assign various reading tasks to each square. When your child completes that task, they fill in the square.
They can take this game into the virtual world with their friends and a little help from you if they are small. Get together an email list of your child’s playmates and touch base each week to display each youth’s progress and award prizes.
Setup Video Calls With Playmates
If your child desperately misses their best friend, help them to set up a video call. Apps like Facetime or Skype allow them to connect with friends anywhere in the world.
Go the extra mile by establishing a virtual playdate. You hold the phone or tablet and play broadcaster. If you have a Nerf basketball hoop, your kids can play virtual horse with instructions like, “you must shoot from behind your couch.”
Teach Them Fun New Tricks
Children love to show off new skills, so use this time to teach them something they can’t wait to show their friends when they reunite. Do a Google search and show them how to do magic tricks or play hacky sack like a boss.
Decorate for the Holidays
Yes, it’s April, but being home with family calls to mind the end-of-year holidays. This activity might make quarantine more psychologically manageable for your little one.
Maybe you feel like you put them away only yesterday, but dig out those festive lights. If you don’t have an artificial tree, you can decorate your mantel and houseplants.
Monitor Video Game Play
Many popular video game platforms encourage socialization by implementing a chat function. However, predators know that the majority of children use these rooms, and they can pose convincingly as other youth.
Learn how to adjust the parental controls of the games your kids love best. You can set the chat function to only work when you supervise, for example.
Encourage Responsible Social Media Use
Depending on your child’s age, you might allow them a personal smartphone and social media use. However, cyberbullying creates real-world problems, to say the least.
Make sure that you go over social media rules regularly with your children, and set reasonable limits on its use, even during the quarantine. Set a good example yourself by cultivating a positive online persona and encourage your child to join groups of uplifting, responsible individuals.
Take a Virtual Vacation
You probably have a touch of cabin fever, too, so why not take your family on a virtual vacation? This activity encourages socialization within your unit. While it might cost a mint to fly the gang to Paris during ordinary times, you can now tour the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay online for free.
Inspire a Neighborhood “Bear Hunt”
Do you use the Nextdoor app? If not, download it and get in touch with your neighbors. One creative mama used the app to entertain her children during quarantine by getting her neighborhood to participate in a “bear hunt.”
How does it work? Participants place stuffed teddy bears in their windows, and when the family takes a walk for exercise, you see how many you can spy.
Help Them Find a Penpal
Now is the ideal time to revitalize the traditional art of letter-writing. You can help your child find a penpal from anywhere in the world with whom they can correspond.
If your child is learning a foreign language during this time, they can find a native speaker who is learning English to exchange letters and practice fluency.
Help Your Children Avoid the Worst of Social Isolation With These Tips
Social isolation can hinder your child’s emotional development, but you can help them keep in touch during the quarantine. These tips will help your child manage their feelings and seem less alone, even as they maintain a safe distance from others.
About The Author
Dylan Bartlett writes about a variety of topics on his site, Just a Regular Guide. Check it out for more info on home improvement, DIY projects and remodeling apps. Follow him on Twitter @theregularguide for frequent updates!