Battling the media beast is an epic quest at our house as well. They are 6 and 2.5. (The 2.5 year old recently discovered you can play on our phones so there are a lot of meltdowns about not being allowed to play on the phone.)Not sure how old your kids are. Mines don't have a lot of initiative to do things on their own either, though they are on the younger side. I play with them and watch them a lot but I often find myself saying, "My parents never played with me when I was a kid." when I need to get something done and they keep asking me to play.
Today I turned off the tv and sent them in the backyard with bubble mix, a plastic shovel, pin wheels and a plastic toy wheel barrow. I told them to occupy themselves. I think they spent a lot of time catching bugs and putting them in the wheel barrow. Later, when they came back in, I gave them kinetic sand to play with. This killed about 2.5 hours.
My 6 year old has a lot of books and toys in her room so I often tell her to go find something to do in her room. I get push back from her but after awhile she gets so bored of doing nothing she finds something to do. Today she came back with a list of facts she had copied from a book about rocks and minerals. Sometimes I give her a challenge like go build an airport with lego.
I also tell them that there are certain things that need to be completed before they can watch t.v. I don't mean to treat T.V like a reward but if your room isn't clean you don't have time to be sitting and looking at a screen.
If your son likes to draw creatures I would go with that. I'd drop some modelling clay in front of him and say make a model of a creature. Then if he came back and showed me the creature I'd say okay make me a play with the creatures and then we'll record it. Or write me a story about the creatures.
I find that when I give my kids an idea to work off of they have an easier time getting creative. Hopefully this will grow into them learning to come up with the initial idea themselves in the future.
ETA: Just saw cookie's post. She has some great ideas.
Last edited by eyreapparent; 09/20/15 03:23 PM.
