Dozens of Ways to Keep Kids Busy

Research shows that young people who spend their free time involved in fun, challenging and constructive activities with peers and adults are much less likely to use drugs or alcohol.

VOLUNTEERISM

  • Enroll them in Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts
  • Clean up the neighborhood
  • Urge them to help an older neighbor by taking out trash, shopping for groceries, etc.
  • Urge them to set up or reorganize the library at your local place of worship
  • Volunteer with them at a soup kitchen
  • Encourage them to volunteer at a hospital
  • Encourage them to read to patients at a local nursing home
  • Help them to set up a recycling program in your neighborhood
  • Help them coordinate a School Clean-Up
  • Sign up the family to build houses with Habitat for Humanity
  • Have them care for animals at the local SPCA
  • Encourage them to write a letter to their member of Congress
  • Ask them to paint old school buildings with you

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

  • Have them advertise their babysitting services to friends and relatives
  • Encourage them to become the neighborhood dog walker
  • Employ them around the house—give them fix-it or clean-up projects
  • Help them start a neighborhood newspaper reporting on the latest news
  • Assign them weekly errands, such as shopping
  • Encourage them to hold a "fun fair" for younger kids
  • Hold a multifamily garage sale
  • If possible, bring them to your office a few days a week to help out
  • Help them start a petsitting service
  • Have them research and make a budget for a major family purchase
  • Help them start a business teaching older people how to use the computer

SPORTS/GAMES/ACTIVITIES

  • Encourage them to play on a baseball, basketball, softball, or soccer team
  • Make one day a week Adventure Day and explore places you haven’t been
  • Have them join a soccer team
  • Register them for a scuba class
  • Arrange for a game of Capture the Flag
  • Organize a water-balloon fight
  • Enroll them in a street-hockey league
  • Coordinate a scavenger hunt
  • Take them to the driving range to hit golf balls and improve their swing
  • Install a basketball hoop in your driveway or yard
  • Participate in nature walks together
  • Have them join the swim team
  • Urge them to take lifeguard training
  • Take them horseback riding
  • Hold a monthly swimming-and-pizza day
  • Visit state parks and take guided hikes
  • Get season passes to the local minor-league
  • baseball team
  • Take them camping, even if it is only in the
  • backyard
  • Establish an annual family mini-golf tournament
  • Get a season pass to a nearby amusement park
  • Help them build a soap-box car and then hold a derby
  • Sign them up to be officials in kiddie sports leagues
  • Organize a neighborhood Olympics
  • Play flashlight tag on a warm night
  • Build a skateboard park for kids
  • Teach them to fish
  • Take them bowling
  • Schedule family game night
  • Send them to cheerleading camp

 

 

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EDUCATION/CLASSES

  • Teach them astronomy and star gaze together
  • Set aside space for a garden; help plan and plant it
  • Send them to activities sponsored by religious
  • institutions
  • Help them start a global e-mail club
  • Enroll them in fun classes (LEGO-building,
  • etc.) at the local university
  • Urge them to conduct a family history
  • search on the Internet or at the library
  • Enroll them in a CPR training class
  • Help them start a book club
  • Take them to zoos and museums
  • Take a cooking class together
  • Tell them to do a land survey of the
  • 10 square blocks around your house
  • Give them the camcorder, and let them
  • make their own home movie
  • Conduct science experiments
  • Help them create their own Web site
  • Encourage them to play the stock market
  • and monitor their investments
  • Help them start a collection (shells, coins,
  • stamps)
  • Inspire them to design their dream house
  • Help them find a pen pal

 

CRAFTS

  • Start a neighborhood art group
  • Encourage them to paint a mural
  • Teach them to do bark rubbings
  • Build and maintain a birdfeeder
  • Give them the supplies to create their own personalized stationery
  • Have them find pictures of their favorite moments and make a scrap book
  • Teach them to knit
  • Set up a craft room for tie-dyeing T-shirts
  • Show them how to create their own postcard
  • Encourage them to write a song, and then let them record it
  • Build a treehouse together
  • Have them decorate pots and plant seedlings as gifts for the elderly
  • Make sock puppets. Write a script together, then put on a show

OTHER IDEAS

  • Visit with grandparents
  • Take them to a local pick-your-own farm and then feast on the produce
  • Make homemade ice cream together
  • Organize a pet parade
  • Coordinate a weekly family film or video festival
  • Organize a neighborhood block party
  • Create and tend to an ant farm together
  • Create an award for special achievements

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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