Most parents are already aware of the importance of spending some daily quality time with their kids. Depending on the age of the child, quality time can either be through having a one to one discussion, one to one playtime, or anything that the child enjoys which the parent can participate in. One of the favourite quality time for kids is actual playtime with them. Many parents however are not really patient enough to sit and play with their kids. Some simply don’t enjoy that stage because they don’t know how to entertain kids and they don’t enjoy kids toys/games. They dread phrases like “mommy can you come and play with me?”. I personally enjoy playing with my kids but I do get bored from the repetition of games over and over and over! something which all kids like to do. They enjoy a certain game and they keep asking you to play that game with them.
Arts and crafts remains to be the most creative and entertaining activity you can do with your kids.
For me, the discovery of it came when we moved for the first time and I was, all of a sudden, surrounded by all sorts of cardboard boxes. Disposal of them wasn’t as easy as it is in Cairo. So those boxes ended up staying in our house for a quite some time. They looked ugly and took a lot of space. Being the pinterest freak I’m, I started searching what I could possibly do with cardboard boxes. My daughter was 4 at the time. Following pinterest steps, we ended up working for hours on small projects using those boxes. My daughter enjoyed every single minute of it and those cardboard projects were her favourite toys. We made an oven, a washing machine, pirate ship, and a helicopter.
After the success of this project, my daughter and I became aware of how much fun it was. We therefore eversince, always kept a drawer in the kitchen for recyclable material. Things like, egg carton boxes, plastic bottles, carton milk/juice boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes and toilet paper rolls. Anything and everything. Whenever she came up saying she was bored, we would open the drawer, check what we have and I would google what can we do with what we have. Really creative stuff always came up and there was always easy steps to follow.
By the time my second son was born, my daughter was already very good at doing stuff herself. She no longer even needed to google or check pinterest. She would look at the boxes and know what we can do with them.
She made my son this beautiful car when he was less than a year old. He absolutely loved sitting in it.
Cardboard was by now our number 1 entertainer. We especially used it when we had to spend long hours at home, whether because kids are sick or weather is bad. We did small projects and big ones. I remember doing my son his favourite story character when he was once sick. It was the hungry caterpillar. We did a caterpillar and a butterfly and acted out the story.
My daughter was now also really capable of coming up with cool stuff. She built her own castle for princess figures she had. The castle even had a functioning gate.
Their friends who came over for playdates were always fascinated by cardboard toys much more than real ones.
We even took using cardboard to the next level when we started using it for costumes. We would discuss what my daughter wanted to be and we would use cardboard to make accessories needed or even the costume itself. My daughter’s latest costume was a super cool barbie in a box costume. The challenge was to find an appropriate box but once we did the whole project took a couple of hours.
Spending regular time with my kids doing arts and crafts has had so many beautiful effects on both them and me. It’s increased their valuing for “things”. They no longer look at anything as rubbish, instead they look at things as useful tools. It has massively expanded their creativity and problem solving skills. My daughter who is 9 now will always come up with a creative way to using the stuff we have. She impresses me sometimes and I know its because of all the projects we made. Moreover, quality time spent doing crafts is a great stress relief for adults. You become so mindful in what you’re doing unlike regular play where you are probably thinking of a grocery list or things to to do list for tomorrow while talking to your child. Crafts need all of your attention so you end up having to really focus on what you’re doing and thus becomes a form of meditation. Last but not least, it’s the cheapest way of entertaining kids. With the huge increase in prices of toys/costumes, making your own cost almost nothing. You need to invest in a good drawer of arts and crafts tools like glues, strings, paint, scissors, staplers, make pinterest/google your best friend, allocate a drawer for recyclable materials, then you are good to start your journey of making your own toys, spending valuable quality time with kids and investing in their cognitive and small motor skills.
Diary of a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious MoM 