It can be very hard sometimes to balance out your time and make time to play with the kids. We all know how important it is for kids development and family bonding though.
Daily play between parents and kids is a powerful tool in building the relationship and understanding to create powerful #Teammate bonds.
Depending on the games, they can also be a powerful teaching tool for parents. This play time allows parents to encouragingly reinforce good behavior and character traits to bring out the best in their kids.
Play time also allows parents to help encourage them to work on other skills. This is a good time to practice the 23 encouragement phrases for parents from our previous article.
I also know as a parent myself, that it is often just not feasible to be completely at the mercy of games they want to play. Let’s face it, we don’t have the same level of energy and excitement.
For that, we have put together some games for you that work on their energy while allowing you to play while conserving yours! Games that both you and your kids will thoroughly enjoy.
Here is a list of fun games to do at home that keep the kids active and working on important development skills. We have plenty more than these, feel free to reach out for more ideas!
Quick Hand
This first game is a great bonding game that is very simple to play and requires no equipment or toys. Quick hand will help kids work on patience (acceptance), timing, and reflexes! Even better, this game can be played with all ages, even 2 year olds and teens get a kick out of it.
Simply hold your hand up to get a high five. The game is simply for one player to try to high five the other, while the other is trying to wait and pull it out of the way before they can high five! you can also modify this game with getting kids to do a variety of techniques and movements. Such as getting the child to jump before you can touch the floor.
The Pass
The pass is essentially like hot potato. The pass can also be scaled in difficulty from using two hands to catch, to using one hand, to catching only between the wrists, or between the legs!
It is basically a short game of catch moving as quickly as we can. You can also add the challenge of not breaking eye contact to work on peripheral response.
You can add a consequence for throwing the object too far or not catching it. For example, they can do one pushup or one situp in each of these occurrences. If you follow the same rules, you get a little fitness out of it too!
Paper Break
PLEASE excuse that old beard. I had grown it out for a fundraiser.
This can be a really fun game that can also be mixed with a clean up game when you are done!
“How fast do you think we can pick up this mess? Let’s time it and see. We can show respect to our home by cleaning up after we play!”
Paper break works exactly how it sounds. Find some old papers, bills, newspapers, or whatever you have around that is going into the trash or recycling anyway. Hold a sheet or more up at a time as tight as you can and see if they can hit it and break it with their foot or hands.
This game is great for coordination, family bonding, quickness, and accuracy. You also don’t need a lot of energy to play!
Bonus, it also satisfies that urge for kids to destroy stuff, with the only mess being some torn papers that can go into recycling.
Balloon It
How many kids you know that don’t like balloons! I know there are a few, but anything with balloons is often a hit with kids.
There is also a version if you don’t want to use a course. You can say ‘hands only’ and each of you knock the balloon up one time each going back and forth to see how long you can keep it up. You can also do this with elbows, head, knees, and feet.
These games work on coordination with themselves using a course, or each other if you are just going back and forth.
All you need is one balloon, and if you want to use a course, anything at all that works for balance obstacles. Have them try the course while juggling the balloon instead of holding it.
The only rules, don’t let the balloon touch the ground, and don’t grab the balloon!
Consider Training Together
You can always train with your #Teammates by joining class yourself! If your kids are 2-4 years old we have a great parent participation kids karate class for preschoolers!
If your kids are 9 or older we have a great family class to you! You can always try a week free to see how you like it!
Training together can have great benefits for your relationships with your closest #Teammates
- Builds stronger relationship foundations
- Builds better communication skills
- Gives common ground interest
- Helps you gain confidence in yourself, and each other
- Helps you trust each other on a whole different level
- Gives you fun games and things to do together that make REAL human connections. We all know that is always a good thing!