I really enjoy reading and writing every day, but now that the Summer seems to finally start here in the Netherlands, I really don’t want to spend more than 3 hours a day in front of the screen. I had to remind myself what I did write in an earlier post about screen time for children. And I really need to do the same too. So I set the clock and realized that 3 hours were nothing. I could hardly read all the posts on the blogs I follow and leave a few comments. I usually read two to three newspapers per day (that would be another hour). Not to mention all the emails, the organizing of all the school events (I’m classmum in my children’s classes and parent’s representative for a yeargroup, i.e. for 60 children (and families)) and social contacts of our whole family. And then there are the language lessons I have to prepare and some other articles I have to write. – I really enjoy doing all this, but I didn’t realize how time consuming all this became in the last months.

Therefore I decided to reduce my screen time. I will try to be as productive as possible, but I also need to get out, do sports, spend time with my children.

I’m working from home, so it’s always very tempting to sit at the comupter even when the children are home and play or read. But I shouldn’t. As parents we are role models for our children. Not only for the small ones, but also our teenagers copy our behaviour. Especially the one concerning the use of electronic devices. So, the new rule in our family is: not more than 30 minutes for the children (per day; except homeworks, as they often have to search informations on the internet for this…) and for mum 3 hours for work and max. 1 hour for “fun”.

Today I enjoyed the sun, did some work in the garden, we all went for a bike ride and I had my screen-fun-time already. Therefore I wish you all a relaxed off-screen evening. Tot gauw.

Related articles

• Screen time worse than sedentary time for children, study suggests (local-news.jtn-network.com)
• Children turn away from books in favour of reading electronically (independent.co.uk)
• Children turn away from books in favour of reading electronically (schoolsimprovement.net)

I don’t want to make a statement about childhood and „screen time“ in this post, I just would like to give some hints for alternative indoor activities that are not too energy consuming for parents.

Parents often don’t look forward to spending hours with more or less excited children around the house, asking all 5 minutes what they can do. When these long rainy or stormy days start, it’s harder for all of us to get used to spend more time inside and find the way back to what I call the „winter-routine“.

Here are some of my kid’s favourite indoors activities:

1) Craftworks

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Usually children like to do things with paper, clay, wood, different fabrics etc. If you’re not the crafty sort of parent, there are plenty of sites with instructions about what you need, how to make them etc. or just to get inspired.

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Especially before Christmas, the kids can do something to decorate the house or to offer as a gift to family and friends. These activities can take hours, days, weeks to make.

In a few weeks some of us will celebrate Halloween: you can already start with decorations etc. In some european countries we also celebrate Saint Martin (11.11.) where children make a walk in the evening, holding colourful lanterns and singing songs.

2) Audiobooks and music

In general, while doing all sorts of handicrafts, my children like to listen to audiobooks. If your children play instruments: it’s very nice to let them set up a concert – with tickets, a real programm etc. for after dinner. They will be busy for hours!

3) Help cooking

When I’m not too much in a hurry, I like my children to participate in cooking. They all can make pizza, salads, quiches etc.: everything you do in the kitchen is great fun. And your children can exercice a bit of maths doing the measuring.

4) Reading

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During this period of the year we really read a lot. We have books in almost every room and our children love to read. We also go regularly to our local public library to get some new “reading-food” (that’s how we call it in German: “Lesefutter”).

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5) Write a story

For children who are already a bit older, writing a little story can be very thrilling. They can write a comic or a „novel“, add some pictures (or not). And for those who are not fluently yet, they can illustrate a story and you can help them to add some words.

6) Showtime

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My children like to act and often set up a whole role play, sometimes based on books or just invented by themselves. This takes them hours to organize and we often enjoy nice after-dinner shows. Smaller children might enjoy some puppet-plays or dress-up games.

7) Dancing in the house

We all like to dance and hop around from time to time. It’s also fun for mum’s and dad’s and it helps to get rid of the extra energy.

8) Board games

In this time of the year, we often sit down after dinner and play a board game. It’s not only fun for all of us, but it’s also a great opportunity to exercice several skills. – You can also ask your children to invent a board game by themselves, using materials you have in the house.

9) Make a mess

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If you don’t mind your house getting a bit messy, your kids could build castles with blankets, cushions etc. or set up an obstacle run or just use all their lego’s or playmobiles or else to “enjoy” them once altogether.

10) Just get bored

I must confess that I like my children to be bored from time to time, because I think they need to learn to figure out by themselves what to do when the input from school, after school, parents etc. ceases. And most of the cases they come up with great ideas. I even experienced that this boredom stops when they’re used to spend more time using their imagination.

These are just a few hints for parents who’s kids don’t know what to do. But I’m sure your children will have lots of ideas to add. Would you like to share them?

Related articles

• 15 Classic Board Games for Kids (untrainedhousewife.com)
• Teaching Parents to Play (dramykids.com)
• A great list of tips on helpstayathomemum.com: Holiday Project

Maybe you’ll find families who share the same language, but they don’t have children in the appropriate yeargroup, or these children don’t share the same interests with your children. In this case there are other solutions. DVD’s and TV aside, we found it very useful to read books, listen to audio books and Cd’s with nursery rhymes or songs.

If we read to our children right after birth and have the habit to read every day in a passionate way, this will not only help them with brain development, speech skills etc. but most probably they will be turning into passionate readers as well.

Especially if your children grow up in a multilingual environment, it’s vital to “feed“ them with books. In early years, reading aloud helps to develop vocabulary and “builds a strong emotional bond between parents and children“ and the language you’re reading to them. Even if they are big enough to read by themselves, if they’re not exposed regularly to the language, reading them aloud can be an important help for them to grasp the variances in phonics.

Reading is still the best way to build up a linguistic competence, not only it builds up vocabulary but it also helps to give our children an immediate and natural access to the grammar. Obviously it’s important that parents, as role models, read a lot too or that the kids’ peers love reading.

Why is reading so important for us? Well, it’s the time we can bond with our children. In our family we have a reading routine: every afternoon we sit and read for an hour. And we used to read to our children until they were able to read alone at bedtime. Now they prefer reading by themselves before sleeping but sometimes we all enjoy me or my husband reading to them. These are memories that our children will (hopefully!) remember when they will be parents too. I would even say that the habit of reading (a lot!) is a legacy I want to pass on to my children. And our children are passionate readers of German, Dutch and English books so far. – I guess I can say it’s already a success.

Obviously you can also rely on child appropriate TV channels in the minority language(s), to give your children a “language shower“. But TV is not a substitute for books.

If you are looking for shows for your children, try to choose wisely. Choose some where your children are stimulated to think, whose topics can be shared afterwards in a discussion with you or within the family or friends. Some shows for children are also accessible via internet.

You can also decide to buy or rent DVD’s in the minority language(s). We have several films in one to three of the languages our children are exposed to. Lately, while watching one of these films, my son (9) noticed that in the translated version some of the sentences weren’t translated in a very accurate way and came up with very good alternatives: this is one great aspect of raising multilingual children (and there are many more)!

Rita from did write posts about “Why reading is important” here and here.

Related articles

• Building Strong Readers (piplustutors.wordpress.com)
• Over 80 Films Dubbed In Minority Languages in Gansu Province (chinaheritagewatch.wordpress.com)
• Students Learn about the Importance of Reading (wtok.com)
• The Best Websites For English Language Learner Students In 2012 – So Far (larryferlazzo.edublogs.org)
• http://beingmultilingual.blogspot.nl/2011/03/learning-to-read-in-multilingual.html
• http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Word_lists
• Please check this later post about reading aloud to children: http://viviankirkfield.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/world-read-aloud-day-tips-on-reading-aloud-to-young-children/