Anxiety and worry can be treated with a powerful medicine called fun. In this current climate of fear and uncertainty it is paramount that we, as parents, help our kids re-establish their ability to enjoy themselves. Coming out of lockdown: Put the bounce back in the life of your child. Jumping for joy can put some airtime in each bounce and with each encounter things are going to get better. Personally, I know how important it is to get away from the fever pitch news, social media and gossip to focus on something simple like fun. A kid can get grounded in some physical fun and laugh out loud once again.
Fun & Recreation are Intrinsic Parts of Our Society
One of the insights I have had from this whole coronavirus pandemic is how that we as a civilisation value recreation in our lives. Think about how much we tune into sporting and entertainment activities and information. The recent restrictions on large public gatherings at festivals, football matches and concerts brought this home to me. Large sections of the population are involved in these recreational industries for work and pleasure. Historically, this is a relatively new thing for humanity. Fun has only been officially recognised as a good thing for a few decades in our five thousand years of recorded history.
How Can We Help Our Kids Handle Things?
We, now, recognise the importance of fun in the lives of our children. Early education experts emphasise the integral nature of fun times to the healthy growth and development of our kids. I reckon that being a kid in the 21C is more challenging than in previous eras. It is tough to insulate our children from the onslaught of news and social media in the digital age. The recent COVID19 pandemic crisis is a perfect example of this. How do you maintain a balanced perspective in the face of all these concerning reports across all forms of media? How are our kids handling all this uncertainty? Are you worried about the mental health of your child?
There are no easy answers and solutions to the current situation. We are all doing our best in extraordinary circumstances. Sometimes it is the simple things in life, which can provide an antidote to complex problems. Having a good time with friends and family is a potent antidote for many issues. Coming together and celebrating our lives will hold us all in good stead. Sharing a bouncy experience and some inflatable fun can take our minds off the worry. Coming out of lockdown: Put the bounce back in the life of your child and let them simply have some fun.
You can have an inflatable arena erected in your backyard to entertain your kids under your supervision. You can establish the correct protocols to suit the health requirements of the day. You can control the hygiene procedures. Bring the fun home to your place. We cannot all lock up our children in bedrooms and inside our homes, as it will not benefit them in the medium to long term. We need to find some balance in how we do things and the social activities of our children. Life will go on and we all need to work out how we are going to go about things.
Fun is the best medicine for this all-pervasive uncertainty and fear. A return to the fundamentals of being a kid will help your kids get back on track. Putting the bounce back into their smile will ease your own anxiety as well. May the inflatable force be with you.
Our Kids’ Health & The Importance of Physical Fun
Circa 2020, and it is no Confucian exaggeration to say that we are, now, living in interesting times. COVID19 is a global pandemic and we are all asking ourselves, “what is safe to do?” Especially regarding our children and what we can encourage them to do, when so many things are changing in terms of public safety and the health risk to our loved ones. Our kids’ health and the importance of physical fun is the topic of this article and it seeks to answer the salient questions around this matter.
Can Our Kids Attend Parties & Partake in Shared Experiences?
New and unfamiliar terms are being bandied around right now in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. ‘Social distancing’, ‘self-isolation’ and an emphasis on hygiene protocols are all new things to consider when asking ourselves, what can our children do in this current environment. What about attending things like kid’s parties? Is it safe and wise to allow our children to jump on a bouncy castle with lots of other kids? I hope to answer some of these questions in this article about our kids’ health and the importance of physical fun.
The Facts Regarding COVID19 & Our Children
The facts are, according to experts like the Chief Australian Medical Officer and his Deputy, normal healthy children are not exhibiting any serious symptoms when infected with COVID19. Their experience of this virus is, usually, akin to a mild cold or flu. In most instances, they are not being infected with the virus at all. Many of the protocols around social distancing are to protect the older, more vulnerable, members of our population from being infected with the coronavirus. This is why we have not seen the ongoing blanket closure of schools around Australia, as a preventative policy. Public health officials are not overly worried about our kids and COVID19.
It is not going to be an ideal situation if we have our kids isolated in their bedrooms and living rooms at home. Children need to be able to express themselves via physical fun to achieve good health. Mentally and physically young human beings are best served by releasing energy through social interaction and fun times. Kids’ parties remain an important part of growing up within our cultures and it would be a crying shame if we cut that out unnecessarily. Obviously, this is a new emergency that we face as a community and our public officials are doing their best to protect all Australians. We must all pull together to do the right things, if we are to get through this crisis with as few casualties as possible.
Now that we have reduced the risk of infection rates to our general population and we are living with the reality of the coronavirus public health policy is relaxing many of the preventative protocols currently in place. Things like kids’ parties and social gatherings for children are returning to normal, as they are not essentially problematic in the long term. Fun stuff like jumping castles and having a good time will continue to be valued as healthy activities for our kids to engage in. Parents will be able to relax in the knowledge that their kids can safely go to kids’ parties and jump on a bouncy castle in 2020 and beyond.
The good news is that we will all take a renewed interest in and commitment to personal hygiene for our children and ourselves going forward. We have all learned that we live in an age of social responsibility to our fellow members of the human race. A crisis can, ultimately, bond us together and move us toward better times in-step with each other. Remember that a bounce can put a smile on the face of everyone
