Play the game of life
Utter the word games and all your child can think of are those complicated X-Box 360s and rather scary-looking creatures! Whatever happened to good old Scrabble, Chinese Checkers, Snakes and Ladders, Draught, Pictionary, Ludo...and what of those
traditional Indian games like ‘chouka-bhara’ (played with cowries in different ways in different parts of India) or Adgooni mane (played mostly in South India, typically with tamarind seeds)... Get your little child back into the play-mode. The best way to do so, is to play yourself! If your child sees you struggling to find a three-letter word with x, a, r while playing Scrabble, he will, with his inquisitive nature, sidle up to you and enquire what is going on. Get him addicted to jigsaw puzzles...there is nothing really more educative and more satisfying than seeing an octopus (like the one in the pic below) emerge out of oddly-shaped wooden pieces. In fact, if he is interested in craft, get him to make a jigsaw puzzle. Let him draw something simple, a windmill for instance, and cut the drawing into various shapes. Jumble them and ask him to put it back together.
A journey through wonderland
Reading is a habit fast vanishing among today’s children. You must have tried several ways to get your little one to read (and not watch Harry Potter on TV). Here’s one way that will not only ensure that your child demands more storybooks but also will let him conquer stage fear and discover hidden talents. Get your child a nice storybook with eye-catching pictures, a story that is simple and easy to enact. For instance, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Tell your girl or boy that she/he is the hero/heroine of the book and that he has to make up a skit based on the storybook. Get other children to play along, if possible. Give him freedom to put up whatever props that strikes his imagination. Let him drape around bedsheets, make paper crowns, use thermocol for thrones...just let him be. Let him perform the entire story if it is small or a chapter if it is a bigger tale. Give the performance gravitas and solemnity so that he takes it seriously. Get two or three relatives to be the judge and promise him a nice prize at the end of the performance.
This will spur the child to read the book first and understand it enough to perform it. It will also help him get over several inhibitions and perhaps bring to light a great talent in stage design or acting or scriptwriting — one never knows!
Hot on the trail of... ice cream!
Has your child run out of video games to play this summer? Or is he a single child, longing for some fun and company? Play detective with him! Writing in secret code was a popular pastime among us cousins when we were growing up. Fed on a diet of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Five Find-Outers, Hitchcock’s Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drews, we used to play elaborate charades, plant clues and write up codes. I remember one particular day in the summer when we were sure that a spy had entered our house through the backyard. We rushed out with pencils and papers and measured some suspicious looking muddy footsteps! (It turned out to be that of the domestic help.)
You can spin such a detective story for your child and make a secret code of communication. There are several secret codes that you can think up. (A cursory google search will throw up thousands). The one I like the most is the secret picture code. Say, you and your kid are detectives searching for a big treasure in your house and you have to reach the treasure before the villain does. Make up code names for yourselves and for the villain of course! Let another person play the villain. All the places in the house will have a code too — in simple pictures. Let these be designated as the various secret hideouts where the treasure might be hidden. Then make a list of verbs that will describe the things you will do to get to these hideouts — running, meeting, standing, waiting etc and make a simple picture code for these verbs too. And then string them together to make picture sentences. Get your child to decipher the code at every step and watch how quickly he masters adjectives and verbs! Finally, when you do reach the last hideout, let him get a clue...maybe a small chit on which is written that if he runs back and gives you a big hug, he will get a double-scoop sundae — the promised treasure!
Let them build the gingerbread house
Children, if they are growing up like I did, happily assume that food walks to the table, all by itself. One appetising way to introduce them to the world of food — and make them understand how hard mummy (or daddy) works in the kitchen — is to let them take their imagination into culinary land. The best way to get children to do some cooking and learn a thing or two in the process is to teach them to make simple chocolate cookies. If you have a single child, you can perhaps organise a cousins' get-together. Let them learn to knead the dough. Buy different cookie casts, such as a star, heart, and duck, and let them fill up the casts. Get them icing in different colours and let them have fun getting all sticky. Stand in a corner and listen to the joyous laughter.
Cooking together can help your lone child strike up conversations with his peers. It encourages him to experiment and interact with others as well as teaches him vital lessons about the art of co-operation.
Food is also a great way to let children sample the cultural fare of the world. Child counsellors say the best way to get children to appreciate and respect other cultures and nations is through the stomach. For example, you can choose an Italian meal to introduce Roman history to your kid. While tucking into pizza and pasta, they can rapidly pick up tidbits about how Rome was not built in a day. Best of all, happy minds plus yummy food equals thought-provoking questions! Children are naturally curious and you only have to whet their appetite.
