How my family and I cope up with boredom and stress while on quarantine during Coronavirus

 

Experience a lot of family togetherness during quarantine

We must all have experienced lots of family togetherness since most of us are currently in quarantine. Let's face it, being stuck at home may not necessarily be synonymous with fun. But there are lots of enjoyable ways to combat self-isolation from COVID-19 with a little help from your family. 

Boredom can get to you during quarantine

While it's not fun being cooped up due to self-isolation and social distancing, it needs a little effort to come up and create entertaining things to do at home as you help the time pass while at the same time still making memories as a family.  Yes, boredom can get to each member of the family after some time. 

It has been more than a year that we stayed at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. How I survived the boredom, you ask? Well, playing online games helped me and my family cope up with all the stress and boredom.

Play online games with the entire family

Plays.org website

I recently stumbled upon this website called plays.org where they offer free and fun online games for the whole family. They are still in beta test mode since it's a relatively new game site that's launched just this year. But the good thing about their site is that they have various games to choose from arcade favorites, simulation, role-playing, puzzles, word games, math, logic, sports to kindergarten educational games. Plays.org caters to all ages--so regardless of your age [yes, kids-at-heart are very much welcome], you don't necessarily be a hardcore gamer, for as long as you know how to follow instructions and you are totally rad about playing online games, you're good. 

Plays.org Spellschool is a hit among pre-schoolers

Fact: Our kids love games and so do we [those kids at heart like me]. Kids are always excited to learn new things and can retain information better when the process we applied is enjoyable. Thus, we often try to make learning fun. This is what I love best about Spellschool, one of the games available at Plays.org. They have amazing game materials where you can exercise your brains and learn at the same time while having fun. Their Spellschool for instance is designed to develop skills in word recognition and correct spelling among other lessons. 

I've tried a few games from their site and I was really happy with the ones I've tried. I even asked my fellow family members to try it out themselves including my pre-school niece, and I saw how much she had enjoyed playing a game from the site. There are games for children (3-6 years old) that will make them learn and have fun at the same time, as parents like us must guide them. My 5-year-old niece Miles was so excited and enthusiastic to learn as she studies English spelling while enjoying it so much. 

Spelling's never been this fun!

I love that Plays.org games for very young children have a guiding thread for learning and reinforcement. If you don't know the answer, there are clues to help you with. Kids take part in their own learning process. You help nurture your child's curiosity with immersive activities and games that make learning an adventure. With spot sight words, kids would definitely have fun as they explore the online games. The educational and interactive games on the website encourage independent learning with engaging gameplay that brings important school subjects to life including math, logic, language, arts, science, and even social studies. 

As we make our way through a pandemic, one skill well worth teaching our children is life skills. In times of upheaval and uncertainty, being able to stay calm, clear their minds, and stay focus can be of great use for them. But how does one get started in teaching children life skills and the ability to stay focus? 

The best way to teach a child (or anyone for that matter) how to focus well is to ease them through it, doing small tasks one at a time. And introducing them to online educational games can help them to stay alert and focus. You have to be careful though, give them free time to explore (with your guidance as parents, of course) and give them timeout time as well. 

The family that plays together, stays together

As a child, I remember how I love board games and electronic games. I had days when I would also be allowed to play on the arcade in malls as it my mom's way to motivate me to strive harder in class to earn good grades. The reward system used to be something I looked forward to during weekends. Even now, I refrain from going out and I choose to stay home and entertain my free time playing. 

Super Tetris

Whoever said online games aren't good for one's mental health may not have played at least once in their lives. Online gaming also teaches one not just focus, but also techniques to outplay a bot or a virtual partner. There are strategy games as well which basically sharpens the mind. The games at plays.org are free but if you're a hardcore gamer, you have to course through all their games to find which best fits your liking. 

Each game's difficulty level is given prior to starting the game. The mechanics of the game is also given so the player knows exactly what to expect on each game.

The website offers a variety of games that may be a bit nostalgic to some especially for people like me who was born in the '80s. Worry not though, because even milennials would be able to relate well with the user-friendly online game website. But it would interest the Gen-Xers to know they've got games like Pacman, Tetris, Brick games among many others that would bring back wonderful memories from your childhood. You can even play and compete with your family members and whoever gets the highest score wins! 

Pac-rat is similar to pacman

Parents would also be happy to note that the website is certified kid-friendly. It's absolutely free to play, no ads to click, no need to download and you need not spend a single cent to level up or upgrade your skills. All their games are browser-based. They also offer cross-device gameplay. So you can play on mobile devices like iphones, Google Android phones and even tablets like iPad or Kindle Fire as well as Window powered laptops. Their games work and are compatible with Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. So compatibility will never be a problem. 

You just need to have a stable internet connection, a working browser, mouse to help you maneuver the game and keyboard as well to act as your "joystick." So go ahead and reminisce your childhood as you play your favorite games growing up (just as I did!) You can choose from a variety of categories from puzzles, sports, logic, and don't forget the classics. As parents, you'd be at peace to know that your kids won't be clicking "accidentally" on some "Pay Button" and overcharging your credit cards. Check out the many games they offer and see which ones that best fits your interests. After all, researchers found a significant positive factor in people's wellbeing (particularly, mental health) when they spent time playing games. 

Of course, I'm not saying that you will depend on games alone, you also need to bond with your family offline and have that quality time and guide the kids on their screen time as well. But do something productive with the entire family, where you get to bond and learn more about each other. Use the given free time to let your family know that they are your utmost priority especially at this point in time where life seems uncertain and everything seems bleak. As long as we have our family together, we will all be alright.