Getting Kids Involved

[too true]

My K3 aged son is starting to get square eyes from all the TV he watches. We live in town so he can't run around outside our house very much - there are too many cars in the evening. I'd like to get him involved in something.

For those of you with kids - do your kids just stay home and play, or are they into organized sports or music or stuff like that?

I'm not sure what's good for a 5-6 year old. It seems like Thai parents just throw their kids into more school after school. That's not really what I'm after. Anyone know what my options are for this age, or have any advice on what works and what doesn't?

Thanks.

Cheers,

TT

[sbk]

Can't tell you what Bangkok parents do but I can tell you what my sister did to get her son more active instead of watching TV and playing video games.

First, she enrolled him in Karate (for kids) --yes at 6. He is now 10 and almost a brown belt. It has taught him discipline and increased his attention span, thats in addition to the exercise.

Then, she found out his other interests (piano) and enrolled him in piano lessons.

My other nephew (thai kid) got involved in soccer (football for you Brits) at school, and that (hopefully!) keeps him out of trouble.

You could start by looking around and seeing if there were any kinds of classes like that for your kids.

[BKK90210]

Well for sure....Don't over-schedule your child and bombard him with a million different activities, because this can have negative results later on!

If your child excels at a particular sport or musical instrument, you could encourage that talent. At this young age….. It is important that he spends time playing and just being a kid, and not always alone with the books, hobby or TV only.

In order for your child to have the best chance to succeed in the real world, is for you to prepare him for the real world..... by exposing him to many activities and meeting many different children as much as possible. By getting him involved with other children his age, other children that like to do what he does so your child can create a peer group………peers that are his friends. This is the best way for him to learn of .....How to make friends? .....Does he know how to share?.....Can he teach his talents to other children and without showing it off?..... Does he know how to adapt to situations as they arise?.....

The parent’s job is to making sure your child is prepared for the world outside of your house and outside of his hobby and school. Children need to know what this is like, so they can adapt when it happens, especially if their parents are not around.

[Nawtilus]

We have a genral rule in our house, no TV on during the day.

Every now and again this is ignored, but my son likes to play around, 4yo, after school and will play outside by himself for hours. But we have a big garden, so different.

I also have plans to take him to karate up the rd to watch once a week and see when he is comfortable to enter and also go-karting soon. He loves to swimm, so we go swimming once, somteime more a week after school and thats about it.

Because he likes all the other stuff, we let him watch dvd's sometimes during the day when its hot or he has already been playing a lot. No harm in watching a little bit of fun, he loves Mr Bean movies.