To combat the toxic stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I have created a list of activities to positively involve children during this time. The following list contains a description of each activity, the materials needed (with the understanding that many families are in financial difficulties) and the possible psychological benefits of the activity.
These activities are aimed at entire families, including adults, to reduce stress and promote healing during the pandemic. Most of these activities can be done either indoors or outdoors and can be tailored to individual interests, ages and skill levels.
Obstacle Course
This activity will get the whole family moving. Use items around the house to involve the family. This can include climbing under or over chairs, throwing a bundle of socks into a laundry basket, turning, using paper strips instead of lasers, etc.
A slower pace can be selected inside to ensure that nothing breaks and nobody is injured. If you have access to an outside area or a sidewalk in front of your house, you can create an obstacle course from chalk. Here is an example.
This website contains a list of the materials to be used.
This slideshow contains ideas for children in wheelchairs.
Materials: Whatever you have in the house
Age: Infants and children of early primary school age
Psychological Benefits: Obstacle courses can target many aspects of a child's brain, including sensory inputs, motor planning, coordination, sequencing, and problem solving. They can also reduce psychological stress and anxiety. As more people participate, teamwork and competition can enable some of the social interaction that children have missed in environments like school.
Broadway game
This activity enables children to engage in an imaginary game by creating actions for their own stories. Once the story is written, let the child cast the characters in the story, find (or imagine) props and direct the scene. If there are not enough family members to play the scene, you should play multiple roles at the same time or have the child draw the characters instead. Children may need guidance and instruction, but allow them to have control over the creation of their own narrative. Activities that could be added include designing sets and props, and creating movie posters.
Materials: Whatever you have in the house – paper, markers, drawing materials, materials for making props and so on
Age: Infants up to early middle school age
Psychological Benefits: During the pandemic, children may have problems with inability to control the situation. Being able to control a scene and a story in a healthy way can reduce stress and promote individuality and resilience. In addition, creativity reduces anxiety and depression and can help children deal with toxic stress.
Board games and card games
When everyone is stuck at home, board games and card games are a great option to help the whole family connect. For younger kids, games like Go Fish, Candy Land and Guess Who? might be hits, while older kids might like Monopoly, Clue, and Sorry!
If you don't have board games at home, use paper or cardboard to make your own. WikiHow provides information on steps you need to follow if you want to create your own board game. Make sure your child is part of the creative process of creating the game if you choose to create your own.
For more information on why board games are good for a child's mental health, as well as a breakdown of age-appropriate games, visit this Manhattan Psychology Group link.
Materials: Cardboard, paper, markers, small toys etc.
Age: Any
Psychological benefits: Playing fun games reduces anxiety and can increase trust in children. Some games include aspects of problem solving and can access the cortex for children who feel safe. Board games enable healthy cognitive and social development for children.
Labyrinths and Finger Labyrinths
Labyrinths and finger labyrinths are easy to make at home. They are a great brain teaser for kids and can also be extremely relaxing. Finger labyrinths are like labyrinths, but instead of drawing a line to the exit, a finger is used to follow the path. In combination with breathing exercises, this can have a meditative quality.
For help building labyrinths from materials such as rice, play dough, paper clips, and more, visit this website.
The Labyrinth Society offers an online resource for downloadable and printable finger mazes.
The All Kids Network has many printable labyrinths for children.
Materials: paper, printer, something to write with
Age: While labyrinths are most interesting for children aged 3 to 6 years, finger labyrinths are a good mindfulness activity for children of all ages.
Psychological Benefits: Labyrinths offer many benefits for a child's development, including problem solving and motor control. Children need patience and perseverance to solve the puzzle, and can be trusted once they are done. Finger labyrinths were created in prayer, but are also used as a grounding exercise.
Dance Party
Turn up your favorite songs and move. Make sure you create a playlist that the whole family can switch to. Just happy jams! Spotify is a free service that allows you to create playlists when you set up an account. Here you'll find Spotify playlists that could make for entertaining dance parties. You may have to look around to find a playlist without explicit text, but Spotify offers an explicit content filter in its settings. Other free services include Amazon Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and YouTube, but most have ads and can contain explicit text. So be careful.
Materials: A phone, laptop, tablet, or other device that plays music
Age: Any
Psychological benefits: Dancing is both a great exercise and a form of creative expression. Dancing keeps your heart healthy and your muscles strong, improves coordination and balance and provides an outlet for emotions. Music activates the cerebellum, stimulates the release of hormones that reduce stress, and improves self-esteem.
Karaoke Party
Similar to a dance party, a karaoke party could be another option for the family. Since you want family members to sing, I recommend using YouTube and allowing anyone to choose a song of their choice unless you have a premium subscription to a music streaming service. As a finale, try singing a few songs that everyone knows together. For an added bonus, try creating a song by creating your own lyrics and finding objects in the house that can be used as instruments.
Materials: A phone, laptop, tablet, or other device that plays music; maybe a prop as a "microphone"
Age: Any
Psychological Benefits: Singing releases hormones that reduce stress and make us happy, improve mental alertness and help us control our breathing flow, which can help us regulate. Singing also helps children's communication skills and self-esteem. Studies show that singing stimulates the vagus nerve, which is responsible for our senses, motor skills, digestion, breathing and heart rate. When stimulated, the vagus nerve reduces stress, lowers heart rate and blood pressure, and reduces inflammation.
Game teacher
Let your child become an expert and pretend to be a teacher of everything they are passionate about. This can be a more "formal" approach by pretending to be in school or it can be more informal by simply asking them questions about the things they are interested in. This helps children understand that adults don't know everything and allow them to develop as individuals.
Materials: None
Age: Elementary School Age (Note: It is useful and important to ask children of all ages what interests they have in order to strengthen their relationship with them)
Psychological benefits: The adoption of a formal “school” scenario requires an imaginative game. Imaginative play enables children to experiment with different interests and skills. In addition, children who pretend to play understand social relationships, express and understand feelings, express themselves both verbally and non-verbally, and practice problem-solving skills. If imaginative play is not your thing, talk to your child about what they are passionate about or interested in. Having these types of conversations can help you and your child relate more.
Yoga
Although it can be difficult to practice advanced yoga poses with younger children, it is possible to find something that suits your level. One of the most important aspects of yoga is breathing. Try doing the yoga poses with your child. Model a positive attitude and willingness to try new poses and compliment the child when trying poses. Make sure that the poses for children are not too advanced, otherwise they can get frustrated.
Here's a free YouTube video of yoga poses you can do with kids. If you do not have access to a video device or the child would not benefit from the structured instructions in a video, you can find printable yoga poses in Kids Yoga Stories. If you and the child are new to yoga, it is extremely important to follow a guide to ensure that you do not harm yourself or the child.
Materials: Instructions (either pictures or a video)
Age: Any
Psychological benefits: It is no secret that yoga has therapeutic properties such as a feeling of calm and relaxation. Yoga also improves children's flexibility, strength, coordination and body awareness. Yoga can reduce muscle tension in our body and is another activity that stimulates the vagus nerve, reduces stress, lowers heart rate and blood pressure and reduces inflammation.
Indoor Sports
This category may depend on whether there is space to move and interact with, but there are also options for small spaces. Every activity should be fun for children and can be created with several objects around the house.
On the Fatherly website you will find many ideas such as balloon tennis for larger rooms. Roll up some paper and make a ball or puck to kick, throw, or hit the house. Use a balloon to play volleyball or to keep up. If you have a smaller space, finger soccer could meet your needs.
Materials: Everything you can find around the house
Age: Early primary to early middle school age
Psychological benefits: If your family does not have a lot of space to run around and play, even the simplest games like finger soccer improve coordination. In addition, these sports require multiple participants, which contributes to the child's social development.
Video games
Many video games are not family-friendly or age-appropriate for children. For younger children, however, there are many options available both online and offline. PBS Kids offers many educational games for young children. Older children can benefit from playing online with their friends. Popular options include Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, League of Legends, and titles typically found on consoles like NBA 2K and Call of Duty. Many of these games are not free (some can be very expensive) and many are not suitable for all children. Talk to the kids in your life about what their friends are playing, and then set healthy limits on screen time.
There are also online video games that you can play with your family and friends. Popular options include Kahoot !, Jackbox Party Pack, digital board games via apps, Mario Kart Tour and others. Many of these games only require your phone or other device with internet access.
Materials: Games to play with and something to play with
Age: Any (as long as you monitor which games you are playing)
Psychological benefits: Your child is likely to miss his friends from school and other settings. When children can play video games online with their friends, they stay connected and have fun. Video games offer opportunities for all age groups to develop motor skills, release stress reliever hormones, social interaction, problem solving, developing leadership skills and increasing vigilance.
Call and Response Songs
If you have ever been to a summer camp, you are familiar with call-and-response songs. These songs are started by one person and imitated by another person or group. For children, especially children with special needs, transitions between activities can be challenging. Side note: I worked with children with autism spectrum disorder in a summer camp and meals were one of the most stressful parts of the day for them. Singing a simple song like "We put our foot on the tree, we put our foot on the tree, we put our feet on the tree so we can eat" makes these times less stressful for everyone.
Performing a quick redirect activity like a call-and-response song can lighten the mood and provide an entertaining incentive to complete an activity. Although there are already call-and-response songs that you can use, you can also create your own songs (or change the words into an existing song) to meet the child's needs. This activity could also be combined with dance moves or even a camp day.
See Ultimate Camp Resource for a list of Call and Response songs. Design Improvised offers a large list of themed summer camp ideas that you can use when you want to host a camp day at home.
Materials: None
Age: Infant up to primary school age
Psychological benefits: Singing has profound benefits for mental health. Singing forces a person to control their breathing. If someone is scared and has trouble regulating their breathing, singing can help. Singing also improves mental alertness and self-confidence.
Grounding activities
The purpose of a grounding activity is to focus on reality again. It is particularly effective in children suffering from anxiety, high stress, trauma, dissociation, self-harm tendencies and thoughts of suicide. When children experience these events, they are more likely to find themselves in a fight, flight, or frost state because they feel in danger. Grounding techniques help to put the brain in a calm state by survival mechanisms.
Although grounding activities may use higher emotions, they should be practiced frequently (and even if children feel happy) to ensure that children can perform them in a disturbed state of mind. You should take the time so that all family members can practice these skills together.
Sound search: Sit quietly in a comfortable position. The person lists the sounds they hear. Concentrating on other senses helps to bring the child back to safety and stabilization.
Color Pause: Although this is most effective for younger children, it can be used for all ages. Even if you have no coloring pages, encourage the child to draw or paint on a piece of paper. Support everything you need to create right now. Crayola has printable coloring pages for kids and adults.
Sensor container: A sensor container is a container that is filled with materials to stimulate the senses. You need to know what types of sensations soothe the child and what sensations can upset the child. When used with soothing items like water or sand, a child may be able to focus on the container instead of worrying. The good thing about sensory containers is that they are easy to manufacture and easy to store when needed. This technique is mainly used in younger children, but a child of all ages can appreciate a sensory container if it is filled with the appropriate items. Under Your Kids Table you will find a list of ideas on what you can put in a sensory container.
Positive Affirmations: It may be beneficial to create a mantra based on a child's strengths that the child can repeat if they feel overwhelmed. The idea of having a child repeat a positive mantra when overwhelmed is to help the brain focus not only on the words it says, but also on the breath it takes to form the words becomes. Whenever a family member or friend sees that the child is overwhelmed, they can support the child by guiding them through the mantra.
Breathing Techniques: You can teach children to use many different breathing techniques. Breathing exercises calm the brain's reactions to threats by absorbing more oxygen. The adult should make sure that the child is not afraid of cessation of breath and that the child is slow and deliberate rather than hyperventilating. If the child is hyperventilating, try to make him exhale longer than inhale. Model the techniques for them. Repeat the technique until the child has calmed down. Breathing techniques take many forms, such as:
Sniff the flower, blow out the candle: the child imagines holding a flower in one hand and a candle in the other. The child must concentrate on breathing in through the nose while bringing the "flower" to his face as if he was sniffing it, and then exhaling his mouth while bringing the "candle" to his face.
4-7-8 Breathing: The child should inhale through the nose for 4 seconds, hold the breath for 7 seconds and exhale the mouth for 8 seconds.
One nose breath: The child should put his finger over a nostril and take a deep breath. The child should then switch to the other nostril and exhale.
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Carson Eckard is an aspiring sophomore in Thomas Jefferson University's community and trauma counseling program. He graduated with his B.S. He studied psychology at Thomas Jefferson University in December 2019. He is passionate about clients, especially LGBTQ + youth. Contact him at [email protected].
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