Nature abhors a vacuum and where there is much freedom and emptiness, there will be sufficient room for idle activities. However, there is a clear difference between idle engagement and productive engagement.

Idle engagement is when you engage in activities with little or no impact, while productive engagement is when you engage in activities that increase knowledge, skills, wellness, and mental resourcefulness.

Our minds are typically conditioned to feed on anything they access, so it's our priority to channel our minds-on activities and meditations that positively influences us.

SO HOW THEN CAN CHILDREN BE PRODUCTIVELY ENGAGED AT HOME?

I understand how mentally demanding and stressful for parents and carers to get an ever hyperactive child to sit quietly or tone down their voices when wailing, or running around the house and roughly getting their hands on things.

The most frustrating experience is when they sloppily disorganize the whole environment with eats, toys, and play items, after several tidying.

Sometimes they end up destroying valuable items and getting the house all messy. Well, this restless attitude is expected from young children in their early years, because they are naturally hyper and when they are less engaged, they channel their energy into destructive actions.

These challenges can be minimized by productively engaging children in activities that create high impact and less destruction. Pay close attention as I list several helpful tips that fulfill these needs:

1. Create a Daily Routine:

Routines create structures at home, which would become a necessary commitment in a child's life over time. Children are more cooperative in school because there is a structured plan that every child must adhere to daily. And their minds are already conditioned to maintain good and cooperative behavior in the school environment. No matter how strong-willed a child is, at school he corporates because he already has adapted to the school's system. This strategy can be adopted in the home setting likewise. When creating routines to productively engage a child, make sure that there are allocated activities for each passing hour. No time should be left idle.

2. Outdoor activities Help:

Outdoor reveals the beauty of nature, and children need to connect more with nature than with artificial because nature is reality. Research shows that all outdoor activities allow children to have a wide perspective about things because there is a wide world surrounding them outside. (Ozturk, 2009) Children use their five(5) basic human senses outdoor. Which are; touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste.

Outdoors, they can feel plants and trees with their hands, they see animals and the vast blue sky. They hear sounds clearly from different sources. They can smell things around them, and taste fruit, snacks, and eatables. When these activities occur, their minds are opened to learning actively. Don't keep children indoors all day, it lessens their chances of connecting to the real world and developing mentally. In addition, outdoor activities are not with planning.

There must be plans set aside for the day to productively engage the kids. Examples of outdoor activities are, Running, painting, playing games like basketball, football etc. Hunt for bugs have a water fight, paint, go on a scavenger hunt, plant seeds, etc.

3. Plan indoor Activities:

A home is a happy place for every child because that is their place of living and freedom. These are why children are more jovial at home than in other places. So you must endeavor to leverage this opportunity to make the home a learning platform for kids as they grow, by productively engaging them with Age-appropriate activities. When creating daily routines, include varieties of indoor activities to develop the active mind of a child.

Varieties of indoor activities are, Paper Crafts, painting eggshells, reading books, playing Simon says, playing card games, doing a puzzle, building blocks, writing or narrating a story, putting on a fashion show, making rainbow rice, mold play-dough, etc. Whew! The list is exhaustive.

These activities contributes to the cognitive, literacy and emotional development of children.

4. Naps are Helpful:

Sleep is a productive activity because it allows the body and brain to recess and resuscitates. It is an important aspect for children in the early years and remains a significant part of their development in their adolescence and teenage years. Lack of sleep affects a child's mood and increases the chances of negative behavior.

Toddlers need about 11-14 hours of sleep daily, while naps range from 1 to 3 hours. It is required to Create a quiet environment during nap hours. Set the tone, so the child under your care will follow through. Take out screens, put off extra disturbances that might cause a distraction for the hour, and lay the bed neatly to give your child a better nap experience.

Leveraging storytelling, or softly reading out your child's favorite story from a book at this time, would also help to get your child's attention, and making them eventually fall asleep.

Here are five(5) Important reasons why napping is productive and important for growing kids:

• Decreases daytime sleeplessness and crankiness

•Lessens Behavioral Issues

•Increases attention and ability to Focus

•Reduces the occurrence of mood swings

•Increases Cognitive abilities to be

5. Actively Involve them In Age-appropriate House Chores

When you don't assign house chores to your kids, this simply means that you are skipping a significant part of your kid's childhood development, and ignoring the several benefits that your kids could attain by executing house chores.

Chores Help Teach Life Skills. The kids are young now, but they won't be young forever. Some of the house chores are what your children will need to survive when they become adults. Schools might not teach this, that's why home learning is indispensable.

Chores help kids learn responsibility and self-reliance. Assigning children regular chores helps teach responsibility. Tasks that personally affect your kids, such as cleaning their room or doing their laundry, can help them become more self-reliant.

Chores help build a strong work ethic. This trait is valued by working adults, so why not instill a work ethic in your kids from a young age?

Chores are commonly tied to a reward. Paying children for a job well done can also spark an entrepreneurial spirit, inspiring them to work outside the house once they are old enough.

In conclusion, if adults struggle to constantly keep their minds in check, and thrive to engage in productive activities daily, how much more children, who are developing and ever ready to explore the world around them with no care or caution? This tells us that it is our paramount responsibility to channel children to the right activities that contribute to their growth and innovativeness.

Do you have an idea of any other productive activities children can indulge in at home? If yes, please share ❤️

Esther E. Okoye

Childcare Educator