We'll be reviewing Steve Bennett's 101 Offline Activities book later today, and I'm very happy to have a guest post from Steve this morning!
It seems like there are new forms of digital entertainment every week. New games. New sites to visit. New apps. It’s dizzying. And disturbing – with so little time spent AWAY from the noise of the digital world, parents and kids are forgetting how to simply kick back and enjoy a moment of solitude or moments of real, face-to-face human interaction. Here’s where low-tech/no-tech family activities come into play. Twenty or thirty minutes a day shutting off devices and engaging in good old-fashioned fun does wonders for kids and adults alike.
For example, there’s nothing a good round of Kitchen Cup Bowling (aka “Toilet Paper Tube Bowling”) to start off a family game night. As the name suggests, just arrange a bunch of paper cups or TP tubes at the end of the hall or outdoors on a smooth surface, provide a rubber ball or foam ball, and . . . bowl! Encourage your kids to come up with their own scoring system, unique set up (who says the “pins” have to be in a triangle, why not a square?) or special rules (e.g., perhaps knocking over the red paper cup doubles your points).
Giant checkers is another easy and fun way to spend some family time. Use paper plates for the checkers (you’ll need two sets) and tape squares of colored paper to make a board. Kids will delight in playing the time-honored game with a jumbo twist to it!
Finally, consider a simple dictionary game in which everyone does a little homework (ok, doing the prep online is allowed) to find unusual words. Each person then takes turns presenting the actual words along with a made up word or two—the others must guess as to which ones are real, which are invented.
But will kids actually want to do this low-tech stuff when there are so many fast-paced digital things to do? As we saw when our first book of TV-free activities came out, the answer is a resounding “yes” — IF you’re willing to get in on the fun, too. Sounds like something from another era, but kids still want the biggest non-battery operated companion of them all: you So unplug and let the fun begin—you might just find yourself eager to take more digital breaks yourself!
Steve Bennett is the coauthor with his wife, Ruth Bennett, of 101 Offline Activities You Can Do With Your Child (BPT Press, 2011). Visit him online at www.offlineactivities.com.
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