Keeping Busy When You’re Stuck Indoors
Here in the Midwest we’re pretty used to snow in the winter, but this winter has just been crazy. It’s either snowing or raining. Or else we have high winds with blowing snow temps in the negative twenties and thirties or inches of freezing rain. We just can’t win. My kids have already missed several days of school. At this rate they will be going to school until the Fourth of July.
My younger kids are easily entertained. The boys play cops and robbers or Power Rangers or they dress up in their old Halloween costumes and chase each other around the house. My daughter spends the day making jewelry, drawing or writing. But my teens aren’t as easy to entertain. Actually they do keep themselves entertained. They stay on the computer or in front of the Xbox ALL DAY LONG.
By the time today’s storm ends tomorrow afternoon we will likely have more than a foot of snow. I think it’s pretty safe to say that school will be cancelled again tomorrow. So I’ve been trying to come up with activities for my teens that don’t involve burning their eyeballs with pixels from the TV or computer. This is what I’ve come up with so far.
- Dance. Your teenagers may think it’s lame, but I bet they will join in when they see you jumping around the living room like a crazy person. My eight-year-old daughter and I dance to the new Hannah Montana CD a few times a week. After the first few times my teenage boys started to join in. It was more hopping around the room then dancing, but we had a blast. Plus we got some exercise.
- Get old school and play a game of Hangman or Tic Tac Toe.
- Break out the boardgames. Not every game needs to be on the computer. Sometimes it’s fun to actually look at the person you’re speaking to rather than IMing them or talking to them through a microphone.
- Bake cookies or make Rice Krispie treats.
- Teach your kids to play chess (even if it means you need to check the internet to find the rules).
- Have your own comedy show. My thirteen-year-old thinks he’s a hilarious comedian and loves to tell us jokes.
- Use the snow day as an opportunity to have the sex talk with the kids
- Go outside and make a snowman.
- Build a complex snow fort with tunnels and everything.
- Find a nearby hill and go sledding.
- Have a snowball fight.
- Get the teens to shovel the walks. Ok, so that one isn’t exactly fun, but it does get them out from behind the computer.
How do your teens stay busy when they are stuck indoors?
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POSTED IN: Fun Stuff to Do
1 opinion for Keeping Busy When You’re Stuck Indoors
Kelly
Feb 7, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I definitely feel you on the kids being on the computer all day. We don’t exactly have the snow issue here in Florida, but it doesn’ matter… every spare minute she gets (even if it happens to be an entire day), my 11 yo daughter is on that computer, usually on Virtual Magic Kingdom. I don’t give her TOO much of a hard time about it because she’s a straight A student and keeps active with things like gymnastics and Girl Scouts, but I would still rather see her go ride her bike or something.
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