I admire two kinds of mothers, that mum who doesn't ever give junk food and sweets to her kids and that other mother who doesn't allow her kids to watch television or use the tablet. They must do monuments in squares for these kinds of mamas.
I am surely not one of them. My kids love watching television. We do play a lot together and we do all sorts of activities, but there is always a gap during the day, where I literally beg my kids to sit down and watch television, normally to have lunch. Or I give them the tablet or mobile phone to stay quiet for a while, mostly in a waiting room or going on very long drives. Mind you, they don't complain! They love it. Some days I am very busy and they do quite a few hours of screen time, other days we don't even have time to switch it on.
So I have a question to those mums who I admire so much. How the heck do you do it? What do you do with the kids the whole day? And how do you have the energy to keep playing with them all the time? How do you distract them?
Every Sunday evening, I do my plan for the week. I write down everything, what we will be having for lunch and dinner, the shopping lists, revision, house chores and also what games to play with the kids, or where to take them.
I think that the time I spend with the kids on games and outings is already more than I can take. I try to give them individual attention, but most of the time it's all of us together. With the little one I play with her in the baby gym, with her baby toys, tummy time, we just lie in bed rolling over, but she has also started to love cars and balls. Maybe because Aimee sees Sam play with them.
Unfortunately with Jaimee things have changed, since it's mostly school work and revision. But we still play board games and we cook and bake together. And then we have drawing and painting, which we both love doing and also crafts. Sam loves puzzles and flash cards. We do lots of those. He also likes playing in his bedroom with his cars, trucks, balls, and all he has. I try to involve them in a lot of things that I do.
But I think they all love the time we spend together best. So if it is a horrible day outside, I invent things to do indoors. The treadmill becomes a swing! They go to its front and slide out. We cook and bake together too. We play with the ball. To avoid breaking something in the house, we sit down on the floor and roll it to each other. We play bowling with things and their favourite is the drums with the pots. I hate it, because it's so noisy. I fill the bath to the top for them and put in all the beach toys. When Sam couldn't swim, I also put on the armbands for him! Working out has become a family activity too. As soon as they see me coming with the gym mat, they get very excited.
When it's a nice day during the week, we either go to the playground, or to the outdoor gym. Or what we all love doing is just go outside our house. We have our outdoor bag. I had bought them chalk to draw in the street. They have a very long piece of elastic band attached at each end, to put around the waist and someone jumps over it. Roller skates and skipping rope. Then we have the bicycles, scooters, cars, which we use regularly.
The games we played when we were young is also something the kids love, mostly when our neighbours and friends join us too. Hide and seek, catch, prisoners and races. Sometimes it's mummies against kids.
My point is, I do all this with my kids and they still have free time, when they don't feel like playing on their own or they want me with them or they are just tired. So I need my television to help me out a bit and babysit the kids till I finish something, get things done, get ready to go out. I think that they can learn lots of things from the television and from the internet if I use it well. I try to choose cartoons that have good English, I try to make them watch educational programmes and channels.
Jaimee watches a guy on YouTube who teaches the kids so many things. I watch it with her sometimes and I learn new things too. He is too good. Sam loves watching alphabet songs and numbers/colours/shapes songs. He watches them in every language. I mean I watched a lot of television when I was young, and I think nothing is really wrong with me!
I think if it's not lots of hours of screen time per day it's not such a big deal. And as long as we spend lots of time together, playing, learning, going out and having fun, it doesn't do any harm.
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