Here are the ways to engage children meaningfully during this lockdown that will facilitate their personality development in preparation for the future.

Source: https://www.tobivibes.ng/10-ways-to-engage-your-child-meaningfully-apart-from-academics-during-this-lockdown/

This period of lockdown seems frustrating for us all since the emergence of the Corona Virus in Nigeria. Our businesses, general lives and the world at large is on a hold. The children are at home as a result of the closure of schools with little or nothing to keep them busy. Parents too are at home and have to deal with the havoc they cause at home daily due to their idleness. Even parents who rarely stay at home are now fully at home and have to contend with the children because caregivers may have all left them.

But let's look at the bright side of this lockdown as an opportunity to inculcate values and skills hitherto absent in the children. Use this opportunity to make up for your absence all these while in the up bringing of your kids. Apart from academics that we lay so much emphasis on, there are other little but important values and skills that are essential for the all round development of the personality of our children. We can use this lockdown period to teach them the following:

1. You can teach them how to speak your language:

It is embarrassing that many children brought up in urban cities these days find it difficult to speak or even understand their mother tongue. They only know how to speak English because it is taught in the school and used as the medium of communication in most literate homes. Some rich parents even don't want their child to be associated with anything local including their native language. But this is bad! It is important for every child to learn how to communicate fluently in his or her mother tongue because it may be required of him or her someday in a difficult situation where there might probably not be another choice. You can even use that local language to communicate privately with your child without others getting into your conversation. You child will also benefit from this when in the environment and company of those who can only speak the said language. Please use this time to teach and communicate with your child in your local dialect because the importance of this learning cannot be over emphasized.

2. Household cleanliness:

You can teach your child how to sweep the house, mob the floor, wash plates and do other house chores. Children of these days can barely do anything. They entirely rely on machines and househelps to do everything for them. But this shouldn't be so. They will own their own homes tomorrow or might even find themselves in a situation where they have no machines or helps. What will be their fate in such situations? Please use now to train up your kids properly.

3. Enhancing Personal Hygiene:

Use this period to teach your child how to have a proper bath, how to wash his or her clothes etc. They will need it in the future. You, helps or machines won't do that for them forever!

4. Older children can be taught some minor technical skills:

You can teach your kids to do little repairs like electronics, little carpentry works, general equipment maintenance etc.

5. Values:

Teach them some necessary values like respect, greetings, good manners, table manners, etc. This will make them behave more courteous and civilized in the future.

6. Cooking and baking:

Older children can be taught to cook and prepare little foods like pap, tea, noodles, boil yam, rice etc. They could also be taught how to bake cakes, breads and other pastries. Some of these things are never taught in school and they may need to fix their meals by themselves someday.

7. Improve their spiritual lives:

You can teach your kids how to pray, sing choruses and worships to their maker. This will improve their spirituality and better their lives tomorrow.

8. Farming:

Those in rural areas or in houses with gardens can teach their young ones how to cultivate, plant seeds, weed the garden, prepare moulds etc. This can be an area of investment for them in future. Agriculture is fast growing and will soon take over the economic sector of Nigeria.

9. Tailoring works:

You could engage your child this this period by teaching him or her how to fix minor clothing problems like how to fix a button, how to stitch up a tear or patch etc. The child may have talent in that area.

10. Finally, you can teach your child some basic knowledge of the civilized:

Things like how to knot a tie, tie shoe laces, etc.

Although academics is very important and supercedes all other knowledge, it can still be augmented with these other basic skills, values and knowledge . This will ensure the all- round development of the child in character and learning.

Why not adopt these strategies to keep the children very busy and to make the best of this lockdown period?