(collaborative) When we think about what ‘home’ means for us, it’s usually a place we think of for sleeping, eating, and relaxing. This is typical for every home. However, the pandemic has hit everyone hard, forcing mums, dads and carers to re-think other ways they can use their homes. At times a sense of being confined to the same dwelling has created a need for more families to get more space. But creating more physical space isn’t always possible. Instead, we need to think of Ways Parents Can Re-Think Their Home to create a better home environment for many activities that lockdown has now brought about. Much of this can be achieved by adjusting our homes to fit with what our families need in the current climate.
First Things First
If you sit down and evaluate how often you use some of the rooms in your home, you may be surprised to find that there’s a considerable amount of space that goes relatively wasted. First, identify all the rooms in your house and what they are used for. Secondly, note how often these rooms are used. Do you have a guest room? If so, how often do you host guests in your house? This will help you understand which rooms you can utilise for new areas of life – e.g. homeschooling, reflection, entertainment, and hobbies.
Practical Ways Parents Can Re-Think Their Home
Home Schooling
The various lockdowns have forced many children to be homeschooled. As a result, homes have turned from a place for just resting, eating, and sleeping to a school for our kids. Parents need to think about how best to set up a home learning space. A home learning space may be in a number of places – the kitchen area, dining area, lounge area even – but what’s important is that it enables parents to monitor and get as involved as possible in their kid’s teaching while being on hand to monitor their activity.
Hobbies
As the saying goes, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. And, one of the more encouraging consequences of lockdown is how parents and children have increasingly taken on new hobbies. With the skies getting clearer with less air travel, astronomy has become an exciting new hobby for many. If your kids are interested in astronomy, there are a range of kids telescopes for them to learn from and enjoy. My son loves to look outside at the stars and count them with mummy. It would be lovely to know what we are looking at in terms of constellations.
There are numerous types of hobbies you can try with your kids. These will help reduce boredom and helps strengthen your bond.
You can redesign certain parts of the living space or bedroom to fit into the kind of hobbies your kids like. If you don’t want to go fully into a new hobby, you can still re-think your kids’ time on screens by setting up spaces for brain-boosting puzzles, painting, and other fun activities.
Fitness
It’s no secret that staying at home during this pandemic has resulted in many people gaining weight and there have been reports of concern at the highest levels of our education bodies around the lack of consistent physical exercise for children. There are various ways we can start to redesign the home here. You can turn the living room or basement into a yoga or workout room during the daytimes and use it as a place for physical, mental and spiritual reflection.
If there is a room in your house rarely used, you can turn it into a home gym. This way, you will have a place for you, your partner, and your kids to burn off extra calories, while also clearing the mind.
My favourite idea though is to create a temporary assault course for the kids. Make use of items such as boxes, play tunnels, blankets, the sofa etc. Have sections where they need to throw something into a bucket or box, make it fun! They’ll desperately want to play and also tire themselves out!
We also think the Ultra Dash is pretty good to get the family moving. It’s suitable for both indoor and outdoor use so there can be no excuses and honestly, it’s great fun!
Home Office
Many people have had to resort to working from home during this pandemic period due to lockdowns put in place. However, not many parents had their homes set up to accommodate this initially. When redesigning your home to create space for a home office you’ll need to do is find a good location. This should ideally have a window nearby to let in natural light during the day and should be quiet for concentration and holding conference calls, in between all that homeschooling! It might not even be in the home, may be a garage, or even a shed in the yard. If you can invest in a bit of furniture that complements your workspace, for example, desk, chair (ergonomic), storage cabinets, and home office accessories.
Entertainment
After your child has completed the day’s homeschooling, they may find themselves with nothing to do. Then comes the, what can I do now question! And across the country, exasperated parents hold their heads in despair. But, you can re-think or redesign your home so that your kids can entertain themselves during their free time. You can create an indoor play area in various rooms. Alternatively, use your garden if you have one. the main thing is that the kids have fun. There is enough time for being serious later on in life.
Be creative, have fun. Some kids love to do things that imitate their parents. My daughters used to love to pretend to go shopping. They would open cupboards, collect a few items and then go to their sibling to pay. It goes without saying that you’ll need to make sure the cupboard contents are child friendly. You can find toy tills that are perfect for this sort of game. If they don’t have siblings, use a teddy as a cashier. It’s all about encouraging your child not to be overly dependent on a parent for entertainment.
From the tips mentioned whilst we looked at Practical Ways Parents Can Re-Think Their Home, which tip did you like most?
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We have limited space so at the moment everything happening in living room so heating costs kept down
That sounds like t would work well to help with heating when it’s colder.
Thanks for the ideas. My house feels so cramped at the moment. We will be selling it soon to upsize but there are some good tips on this blog to make the best use of the space in the mean time.
Oh wow, Laura. Good luck with finding the right house. I’m sure you’ll find a lovely one that’s a great size for you.
Some very timely tips in this article especially during the lockdown. I have tried to stay organised but you have given me some more ideas to work on.
I’m glad to have inspired you Nicola. I’m glad you found the post useful.
A good balance of playing and schooling is needed I feel. We get the homeschooling done in a morning mostly then playing and outdoor time in the afternoon. It’s a great balance.
That’s really good to hear. It’s hard works sometimes when the kids just want to play.
I’m lucky to have a big kitchen table which serves as for eating, food prep with the kids, baking, jigsaws, games etc and then for imaginative play with a blanket over for a den. We’ve even turned it upside down as a boat
Oh wow, that sounds like a fab table, perfect for fun with the kids!
it’s hard isn’t it, we are spending so much time indoors that it has made us realise how small our house is! My daughter is 6 and literally takes over every room if I let her. When I was working from home i was sharing her crafting table as a desk. It has been difficult but I have invested in some storage drawers to help a little.
Honestly, it’s not something we would have ever thought would happen. It’s good that many have been able to adapt.
I really like the idea of this, I think we need to rethink our home
It is a great way to adjust it to your needs. Our requirements change over time and so we need to make sure we adjust our homes to allow for this.
Great ideas. I actually made part of the living room a crafting area for my daughter and brought four lots of plastic draws for her to put her bits in as it was just getting everywhere during lockdown.
That sounds great Carly. It’s great you had a space you could od that with.
We have had so much readjusting to do in our lives lately
Great luck, hope you find a new house that you love soon!
I think in a time were we’ve all been so busy organisation and a place for everything, and everything in it’s place really is key. We’ve brought a fold up/down butterfly table for our lounge that we can use for home schooling in the day and then pop it down to make room for play. It’s really been such a good buy for us and gave us a set area for work.
Some really great ideas here. I really love the Ultra Dash one! Exercise doesn’t have to be as organized as I originally thought – all the bits of kit I have bought hardly ever get used but the Ultra Dash is just heaps of fun. Thanks so much !
Some may have felt that their house / home was inadequate when it came to attempting to Stay Home, Stay Safe, etc whilst aiming to meet the additional needs of family members :- Such as Home Schooling, Exercise whilst gyms etc closed. Individual Health and Wellbeing being an Issue having to be dealt with. Whilst living with limited resources, etc.
Ideally people may be reviewing how appropriate their home is for their Family lifestyle/s. Options vary. As some are Homeless, some renting, many financially challenged (particularly given present circumstances of job losses, business closures, etc, etc).
Perhaps architect, builders, town planners will come up with new and better ideas for Communities. Leisure, Recreation, Exercise Opportunities for EveryOne may benefit our Wellbeing in the future.
It’s really important to stay organised at the moment, it would be so easy to let things slide but that would just cause us more stress. Keeping everything in its place helps when your children are at home. Good article.
Great Ideas my home is beginning to look too cramped but have my 7 year old grandson a lot . Have invested in some storage boxes now to get things in them