This holiday break, kids across America will be home and looking to stay occupied. After the novelty of new holiday gifts wears off, chances are parents will hear those dreaded words: “I’m bored.”
Pediatricians recommend less than one to two hours of screen time each day for children. So how do you fill those remaining hours without handing over the iPad or popping in a DVD? Jeff Freeland Nelson (pictured above), founder and CEO of YOXO, and former technical director of the Minnesota Children’s Museum, has tips to keep kids’ creativity flowing this winter break and throughout the year:
- Create a maker space. Clear out an area of your home of traditional toys and fill it with maker materials: tape, paper, boxes, etc. This way, when creative inspiration strikes your child, they will be ready to create in their own workshop.
- Issue a creative challenge. Kids often need a push to get creative, and surprisingly, scarcity is good for creative play. Issue a challenge such as, “Build the tallest tower possible,” and then add a constraint such as, “using only straws and tape.” It is amazing how quickly kids rise to the challenge.
- Host a temporary black out. Turn off lights, smartphones, iPads, and other gadgets. When the house goes dark, kids’ imaginations light up. A trip to the bathroom with a flashlight becomes an adventure, and reading stories by candlelight is an experience that will stick with them more than just another movie night.
- Make something together as a family. Whether it’s cooking Saturday morning pancakes or building an abominable snowman in the front yard, creating something together strengthens connections and promotes a great sense of accomplishment. As Pablo Picasso once said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” When we approach these everyday activities mindfully, it’s all art.
- Create an “I’m thankful jar” for 2015. This can be started over winter break and continued throughout the year. There’s nothing more grounding and calming than taking stock of what you’re truly grateful for. Write it down, fold it up, and place it in the jar. Before you know it, the jar will be full to the top. Read the notes together as a family the next holiday season.
“Flexing the creativity muscle is important not only to build brain power, but also for life-long goals of making friends, getting a job and loving life,” Freeland Nelson says. “Our goal is to help kids realize that the world isn’t full of problems, it’s full of raw materials needed to create solutions. They just have to know where to look.”
For more ideas, visit www.yoxo.com.
In a world fueled by anti-creative, plastic toys, Freeland Nelson sought to develop toys made of sustainable materials that would inspire kids’ creativity. Thus, YOXO, building kits made of recycled wood pulp in the shapes of Y, O and X, was born. The YOXO pieces can be connected in thousands of ways and attached to toilet paper tubes, paper towel rolls, etc., inspiring kids to build anything they can imagine.
