Using Online Games to Get Kids Interested in Sports!

One of the things most parents would like is to get their children interested in sports. Playing sports comes with a whole lot of benefits - sports keep kids fit, and can help build their social skills and confidence levels. However, it is not always easy to get kids excited about sports. Each child may have his own as-yet-undiscovered preference, and there might be some initial anxiety to overcome. The lack of space to play and the right equipment could also deter kids from getting started on sports.

There are many ways to ease kids into sports. These days, with kids being more adept at technology than ever before, mobile and online games are the way to go. Some children may not be ready physically to tackle a sport like football. In such cases, a game like Heroes & Rivals is a safer bet. With this app, kids can enjoy mini games, create their own team, and understand the game without physically playing the game.

“Getting Crazy…” by blake is licensed under CC BY 2.0

An excellent way to understand the types of games that excite your child is by exposing them to a variety of sports. These could be team sports or individual sports. It may not always be possible to have access to diverse sports. This is yet another instance where online games can be the right tool to introduce kids to a variety of sports.

Parents can join in and talk about sports, listening to the child to understand what interests them in a game. Online games can be used to explain the fundamentals of sports. This way, you can narrow down the list of sports your child wants to explore. You can then encourage your child to play because sports, after all is said and done, are about being physically active.

Things can get rough on the field if there is excessive competitiveness. Online games can help here by building your child’s confidence. It allows them to have fun without the stress of performing weighing them down. As parents we know that the best way to get a child interested in anything – be it food or homework – is to make the activities fun. The same goes for sports.

“Cornhole” by blake is licensed under CC BY 2.0

While online games can have their advantages when you are trying to get kids to explore the sports, they cannot replace the actual experience or offer the numerous benefits of sports.

Once you have them hooked, it is important to get kids out to the field for a ball game. What an online game cannot do is strengthen the child, and improve their co-ordination, flexibility and balance. These are benefits one can gain only when they are out playing the sport. If your child refuses to budge from the computer or mobile app, it will have an adverse effect on their health. A sedentary lifestyle can make them obese and can weaken their arm and grip strength. Remember, therefore, that while mobile and online games can be a great introduction to many kinds of sports and ca get kids excited about playing them, they also need to graduate to playing these sports physically.

By encouraging your child to balance the time between playing sports online and out on the field, you can help them enjoy the benefits of technology and good old sports.

Why Family Trees are Important

“Family History. 43/365” by francescarter is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Weekends often leave me wondering how to keep my kids busy. I try to come up with new ways to keep them engaged, be it with activities, games and occasionally a day out. Last weekend I was looking through worksheets for kids and came across a worksheet that dealt with family trees. This excited me as much as it excited the kids.

Family trees are a wonderful way to guide kids back to their roots, and give them a sense of personal history and identity. So we got working on it. The experience was fantastic and it felt like we were opening a treasure box full of stories and memories. As with most activities we share with kids, it got my children and me to communicate better, and created – I would like to hope – a deeper bond as the emphasis of this particular activity was on family.

Our genetic history leaves its imprint on us; they could be personality traits or more than a passing resemblance to an ancestor. By delving into the family history, kids learn a great deal about the family, cultures and traditions, adversities and fortunes, and more.

                            “Four Generations” by 7156988@N04 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

When kids work on family trees they come to realize where they fit in. It teaches them about continuity and belonging. They learn to take pride in their past, their culture that is the coming together of two distinct family groups, each with their own peculiarities.

A family tree begins to answer some of the questions that dog us through our lives – Who am I? Where do I come from? It could pave the way to deeper realizations.

This activity is especially beneficial for children who are from small families, which is becoming the norm these days. If relatives are not living nearby, it can further create distance and weak ties.  We cannot thrive in isolation. In fact, family trees have across cultures held a place of honor in homes and are a celebration of history.

By encouraging kids to go out and talk to their grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles to find out more about the family, you can get them to develop a deeper understanding of other people and to appreciate the importance of preserving connections with the family. Inadvertently, such interactions not only deepen the bond but also bring forth a multitude of stories. These stories can be hilarious and saddening or these stories can be of hope and courage. In their fortitude, we find ours.

Some discoveries can also be surprising – imagine stumbling upon an ancestor who was a hunter in the deep forests of Asia or even royalty!

There are many ways to go about with a family tree. You could start with worksheets for kids. The family tree can be a simple one with names and birthdays or you can use video snippets and old photographs. A visit to the cemetery or family get together can get things rolling. But be warned, once you get things rolling, it is not easy to put on the brakes. So, buckle your seatbelts and prepare to be surprised! 

The death and rebirth of Bilingualism

Being an educationist, I have come across kids in the system, who struggle to learn the mainstream language, because the exposure to the language spoken at home is stronger. But once they learn the mainstream language, many kids forget their earlier fluency in the language spoken at home. Many a time this creates an unbridgeable gulf between within families, like when gradparents and grandkids have no common language to communicate.

"f035" by John Tobe is licensed under CC BY 2.0

In many households learning the mainstream language is emphasized as it helps in the quicker assimilation into the mainstream culture. Communication is a necessity and this is correct from a family's point of view. But the fact of the matter is this: kids can pick up multiple languages without realizing that they are doing so. From childhood to puberty kids have a knack or a natural ability to learn languages. Once the critical period is over, people find it difficult to pick up languages.

In certain European and Asian countries, the language spoken at home and on the street are different. If parents speak different languages, the kids can speak the language on the streets and the two languages at home. They do it effortlessly: papa speaks this, mama speaks that and the shopkeeper speaks yet another!

In a country like Singapore, train announcements are in four languages - English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil - for the country has four official languages. In Europe, people in many countries routinely speak 3-4 languages.

When America was being built, the immigrants who poured in brought their language, ways and food. Speaking languages other than the mainstream English, became unfashionable. Schools encouraged a single language to emphasize cohesive education. It was believed that speaking the same language both at home and at school helped the kid pick up the language quicker. It was correct and was the norm then.

Now over time, scientists have realized the amazing capacity kids have in picking up languages. Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics at MIT, speaks of cases where for children from bimodal homes(one parents speaks a language and the other uses sign language) pick up both languages just like they would pick up say two spoken languages.

With all this information pouring out, bilingual teaching has picked up. Kids picture books are bilingual. E.g. a page will have the text in English and Spanish. Even the forever-a-favorite Very Hungry Caterpillar is now sold in the English+Spanish bilingual format. 

In such bilingual teaching, parents who know the non-mainstream language can also participate. A report by UNESCO highlights how a Mother Tongue is the key to learning. Here in America with our immigrant population, multiple languages can be heard, especially in a city like New York. This does make handling kids in a classroom difficult for a teacher comfortable in just English, but the idea is to be broadminded enough to make room for a child to speak more than one language.

With apps being created in the hundreds, it is heartening to see that many are non-English. I guess it's getting cool to be bilingual!