With families juggling multiple tasks of working from home as well as caring and assisting children with online learning, it is more important than ever to support the health and wellbeing of our communities.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) has brought with it times of uncertainty, disruption of our day to day norms along with feelings of stress and anxiety. Maintaining normal daily routines can make it easier for children to deal with stressful events. Setting routines is a very effective way to settle children into a new situation, make them feel safe, secure and looked after and give them a feeling of control.
The EACH Health Promotion Team have put together a resource booklet, 'Isolation Activities for Kids', which sets out some tips to guide parents and caregivers and provides some practical examples and a resource list with activity ideas. This resource will offer some guidance and support to families with young children to adapt to these challenging times.
Recent events have caused major disruption to normal family routines; with isolation, school holidays, learning and working from home, there is a need to re-create a more defined schedule to help everyone in the family manage. A good schedule will allow time for chores, daily movement, learning, working and rituals to be done effectively, whilst also allocating quality time together. Spending a bit of time now to create schedules, is an investment into the health and resilience of families to be able to cope.
Involving children in creating their own activity schedule will be far more effective in ensuring it is a success as they are then able to understand the importance of why this schedule exists. It’s also a great opportunity to discuss topics around health such as ‘What do our bodies need to do every day to stay happy and healthy?’
Why not share this resource if you are working with children or families.