When it comes to entertainment options, it’s easy to suggest that children today are a little bit spoilt for choice. Whether it’s the range of channels to watch on TV, the choice of apps to download on to their tablets, or games to play on the Xbox, it’s not often that they have to find a way to make their own fun anymore.
However, the most precious resource of all is a child’s imagination; a view endorsed by educational consultant Sam Flatman of Pentagon Sport.
“It is a wonderful thing to watch children at play and powering their adventures with their own imaginations, and it’s incredible just how creative even really young children can be,” he says.
Flatman is a firm believer that throwing your kids back on to their own resources every now and again will do them nothing but good.
Build a den
Kids of any age love to build dens and forts. You can construct one easily with twigs and sticks, branches from the garden and old scraps of carpet that may be lying around the garage.
“Once they’ve built their den they can transform it into anything they want,” says Flatman. “For instance, if they’ve been learning about the Romans at school they can pretend to be part of a Roman legion.”
All this, he says, ties into the whole “Bear Grylls outdoors thing, which is very popular with kids.” When they’re out in the garden one afternoon, they may like to pretend that they’ve been shipwrecked on a desert island. How can they come up with a survival plan?
It’s worth remembering that working together is good for children’s personal, social and emotional development.
Create an adventure
Flatman is also a fan of that old truth that many a parent has learned on Christmas morning — give a child a cardboard box and they will be in heaven. “It’s amazing what they can do; a cardboard box can become a car, a spaceship, or a robot,” he says. “And a series of shoe boxes will convert into the best doll’s house ever.”
And it’s always a good idea to encourage children to get out into the great outdoors: “In terms of inspiring their imagination there is nothing better than the world around them. Just sending them out to collect leaves to make a collage is great fun,” says Flatman.
You can also encourage kids to put on their own show. Pick a theme and ask them to come up with a little play — they can even write some songs too.
Finally, Flatman believes it’s always important to have a few costume changes on hand: “Dressing up is always a firm favourite and it’s a great idea to have a fully stocked dressing-up box. Kids can turn themselves into superheroes, cartoon characters, or famous people from history.”
If you buy one thing ...
Kids love being the centre of attention, so why not let them be the stars of their own show? The battery-operated Paper Jamz Boy Pro Microphone (RRP £34.99) is MP3-compatible, so kids can download and sing along to all their favourite songs.
