How to Get Your Kids Playing Inside and OUTSIDE
Kids Playing Inside and Outside
I ❤️ love being outside and am lucky to have had a happy childhood full of fresh air, room to run and explore, and places to play.
With the increase of fun, indoor activities for adults and kids alike to engage in, children today are losing the necessary skills to play outside.
I have had many parents relay to me that they have had told their children to go outside and play only to 🦻 hear protesting of,
“What is there to play with???,”
or
“But what would I do?”
This is becoming more and more frequent in children and adolescents with and without special needs.
So what can be done? 🤔
The answer is relatively simple.
Kids Playing with Parents
Children learn through modeling which is why educational researchers have spent numerous hours defining the different types of play:
- solitary play
- parallel play
- cooperative play
When adults are engaged in activities, children are likely to mimic these situations.
My advice is go ☀️ outside with your child and do productive tasks when your child is around.
I’m not suggesting that you have your three year old help you change 🚗 your oil.
What I am suggesting is that when you are changing your oil, you encourage your child to bring their 🏎 toy cars outside to.
They can drive their vehicle or use your tools to “fix” the vehicle.
If you are washing your car, have your child wash their toy car, give a baby doll 🛁 a bath, or just play in the water from the hose.
Kids Playing in Dirt
If you are 🪴 gardening provide some dirt, water, pans and utensils for your child to make a mud pie.
Teach your child to appreciate nature by searching for four leaf clovers or making clover necklaces.
Check out my post on Clover Necklaces for more fun.
If you are going outside to water plants, give your child a 🔫 squirt gun to help you water.
My husband’s grandma loved having 🐸 toads in the garden and paid him five cents per captured and delivered toad.
If you have lighting bugs or firefly in your area, go out and capture 🐉 bugs when dusk sets in.
Let’s say you are doing a task that you just can’t think of a way to include your child; maybe it’s a dangerous project involving power tools.
Have them be a supervisor organizing tools or a janitor cleaning up scraps.
Kids Playing Painting
Going to do a painting project?
Give your child a bucket of water and a 🖌 paint brush and let them paint till their heart’s content.
How about using sidewalk chalk with a large circle or rectangle that you’ve created as an area for your child to stay inside and 🎨 add pictures to?
Of course, let’s not forget 🫧bubbles or dandelions that have seeded out!
Not only does blowing bubbles or seeds ignite lots of fun outside playing but it helps children develop the oh so important muscles in the face needed to speech.
Sprinklers 💦 are a great fun outside activity for a hot day of playing outside.
All of these examples are great ways to introduce children to outside activities and the joy of active living.
Now, the next time you tell your children to go outside and play, stop and think. 🤔
Are you setting a ✅ good example?
Are you providing them with examples of what to do outside or are you pushing them out the door 🤞 hoping they will figure it out?
Model the behavior you want and provide your children with the foundation for a healthy, active lifestyle.
Use Rewards
Schedule in ⏰ time to play outside by using daily visual schedules.
If your child needs motivated to play on something other than a device, use a ⭐️ reward chart.
No matter what, get kids playing inside or outside with engaging activities.
Click here to grab all of Caroline’s ideas for kids playing inside or out.
