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Parents used to limit their child’s “screen time,” but things are different this year with so many parents working from home and children learning remotely. Now it’s just the opposite with “x” number of hours a day mandated by their education.
Some parents, especially those with school-aged children, have difficulty remembering what their offspring look like without the glow of a computer screen. Even preschoolers get their fair share of screen time. (How about the “Baby Shark” YouTube video one more time?!)
Here are a few ideas for gifts that will get the kids away from the screen — and maybe even (gasp!) outside.
‘Imagination’ toys
Dolls and dollhouses, action figures, costumes and other toys that don’t have a pre-existing storyline (like video games) encourage creativity.
When today’s parents were children, Barbie’s Dream House and Transformers were a hit. Now, instead of a Dream House, children can play “Food Truck” with the Li’l Woodzeez Honeysuckle Sweets & Treats Food Truck, a miniature version of the real thing that includes tiny versions of food-truck favs like pizza slices, french fries and ice cream as well as utensils and trays.
The new version of what RV Barbie and Ken used to have in the ’80s is the Li’l Woodzeez Camper, complete with the car and hitch, for stuffed woodland creatures to use on their adventures.
There are many updated versions of building toys. Legos and blocks are still awesome, but now kids can build with magnetic pieces. Magna-Tiles are brightly colored tile magnets that let kids as young as 3 to build houses, cars, or whatever they want. With Marble Genius kits, children can build marble runs and mazes and even marble launches.
Physical activity
In the non-quarantine world, kids play team sports. New ideas are needed to keep kids active and away from the screen, and some of them can double for P.E. class during remote learning. There are really unique, inexpensive “one-player” toys available to get kids (of all ages) moving.
“Smart” fitness balls, like the smart basketballs, soccer and medicine balls by Dribble Up, offer gamification to improve ball-handling skills at home — inside or out. A virtual coach instructs how to do the drills and where to hit the onscreen targets. This helps build muscle memory and maintain accuracy.
Reflex Ball or boxing ball is a gadget with one or two soft balls attached to a headband by elastic strings. The wearer punches the ball, and the harder the ball is hit the faster it comes back. It helps improve reaction time, agility, speed and hand-eye coordination, and burns a lot of calories.
For more than one player or the whole family, Spike Ball is all the rage this year after making it big on the television show “Shark Tank.” The outdoor game has players smacking a ball onto a circular trampoline trying to keep the opposing player or players from returning it. And it has LED lights so the spiking can continue after the sun goes down.
Games
For indoor fun there are, of course, the traditional games like Candyland, Monopoly and popular Cards Against Humanity and Exploding Kittens. For those ready for something new, a couple recently introduced games might be of interest.
Throw Throw Burrito is being touted by the creators as “the world’s first dodgeball card game.”
Players try to collect matching sets of cards faster than opponents while ducking, dodging and flinging squishy — and cute — burritos. Points are earned by collecting sets and lost by getting hit by a flying burrito.
Bounce Off is a family-friendly version of beer pong (without the beer). Balls are bounced into a form to recreate a pattern shown on a card.
Pandemic has players as skilled members of a disease fighting team working together to keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics while gathering resources for cures. (This might hit a little too close to home.)
Yes, the long-awaited video game CyberPunk just dropped and Hitman 3 is on the horizon — and they are probably on many wish lists. But encouraging the kids to come out from behind the screen is as easy as finding “real world” fun.
