Summer activities are usually outside with other children or inside with other children. Getting kids ready for summer is a tricky activity. Especially preschoolers and tweens.
1 Children will need special encouragement to be active.
This is peculiar after lockdown because some have become attached to what they were doing at home, or some are just physically unfit. Those who will go out are not sure how to behave with strangers and other children. Peculiar behaviors developed while at home now become evident and are hard to lose.
As kids get ready for summer break, keep an eye out for these social behaviors lost or acquired during lockdown, and point them out to the children. Camp counselors will be trained to correct these. Screaming and shouting should be allowed pretty freely until it is naturally curbed. Summer for Preschoolers/tweens is now a new experience.
2 Choose the right activities for children so that you do not bore or frustrate them.
Focus on the fun for the children. Give them plenty of opportunities to be active when they need to be.
Encouraging children to be physically active is to integrate it into their daily lives. Children between the ages of 6 and 13 should exercise for 45 minutes or more a day.
This includes free play at home, active time after school and participation in classes or organized sports. In pre-school, they have to play and exercise in order to be able to perform important motor skills. These include kicking and throwing a ball, playing tags, follow the leader, jumping on one foot, riding a trike or bicycle with training wheels, and running an obstacle course.
Tweens and preschoolers should play several times a day. They are so ready for summer break.
3 Parents/caregivers can facilitate summer activities for kids in a number of ways:
- providing equipment
- signing them up for classes or sports teams
- taking them to the playground or other active places.
A 2009 study found that one in six children has sensory problems that make it difficult to learn and function well at school. When getting kids ready for summer school never forget that sensory processing problems are common in autistic children, but they can also occur in children with ADHD, OCD and other developmental delays, among other diagnoses.
Some children with ADHD may also have a sensory problem. Outside therapy, there are no drugs to treat sensory processing problems, but there are practical changes you can make at summer camp or at home to help your child feel better. It is always a challenge to identify and deal with these problems for preschoolers and tweens.
Keep in mind if children enjoy an activity, they want more of it.