Posted: August 25, 2016
Spending time with your child is very important. It can help set up conversations where your child feels the opportunity to talk to you. It can also create a better bond between parent and child. Children value their time with their parents because it makes them feel important and loved. These are all reasons why parents should set up time to do fun activities with their children. We know how important this is so we found 5 fun activities that parents and children can do together.
The first activity is coloring! Grab some markers or crayons and coloring books. You can purchase adult coloring books for the parents and a few children’s coloring books. Make sure to make a lot of conversation as you are coloring with your child. Talk about the colors, pictures, and possibly even make up a story about the picture on the coloring page. Also, follow your child’s lead; talk about whatever they want too. Let them hop from page to page and color what they please. It isn’t the quality of the coloring, it’s the quality of the time spent together.
The next activity is puzzles. Puzzles are a great way to engage the brain and to work on fine- motor skills. You can buy puzzles based on the age or skill of your child. Some puzzles have larger fewer pieces, while others have smaller, but more pieces. Take your child’s age and skill into consideration. If your child can’t put the pieces together, you can do that for them. Have them pick up the pieces and try to figure out where they go.
Pokémon GO is a new craze right now and you can utilize this with your child. Get your child active while playing this game. If your child is in a wheelchair, make sure you are in an area that is accessible for your child. Go on a walk and try to catch as many Pokémon as you can. Let them try to find the Pokémon and also catch them. You can help do the catching if needed, but make sure to include your child as much as possible.
Home Olympics is another great parent-child activity. It can even turn into a whole family game day. You can start off with having your children create Olympic medals. You can use construction paper and string to do this. The next part is coming up with games. One game could be throwing ping pong balls into buckets and seeing who can get the most in. Another suggestion is balloon volleyball. You can look at other ideas by clicking here. Just make sure all games are adjusted to your child’s needs.
Our last fun activity is baking cookies. Your child can help do this by helping mix the ingredients. They can also watch the timer and check on the cookies as they are baking. If you don’t want to make homemade cookies, you can buy the break off ones and have your child help place them on the tray. They can still help watch the timer and check on the cookies. Don’t forget to sample the cookies together after they are done cooling.
It may be hard to find time to do activities with your child, but it is very important that you do. Children need to spend quality time with their parents to engage in conversations and to feel loved and valued. A lot of our activities are simple and easy to do, but your child will love the time spent together with you. We hope that some of these activities work for your family or inspire you to create other fun parent-child activities. We would love to hear what activities you do with your child; please submit them through a comment!
If you have any questions about Cerebral Palsy or activities with your child, don’t hesitate to call us at (800) 692-4453 or fill out our contact form on Facebook or our website.
