Online hobby classes, games, school, tuition, and even get togethers have become the much-needed social interaction windows for children.
But kids are amazingly resilient and adaptive. Not just physically, mentally and emotionally too. They have invented newer games to play at home, even learning to play with each other through the online sessions, and across balconies.
My seven-year old daughter has concocted imaginative games for not just herself, but also for us adults to be involved in. And I'm rather proud to say that I've stolen some of her games to use them as ice-breakers for my team meetings.
Since last year, we started with simple word games such as Name-Place-Animal-Thing and Animal-Sounds moving on to Using Rhyming Words in a limerick, Jumbled Words, Describe an object in the room. It's been amazing to see how my daughter has improved her prowess at words and language.
We've played Chess, Snakes & Ladders, Uno, Carrom, Guess Who?, Pictureka, Scrabble, and some board games that she invented on her own. We've done hide-n-seek, role playing (doctor-doctor, school, hotel, visit to beach, staying in awesome hotels with room service, which is of course provided by my daughter).
She has been a traffic police, doctor and patient, teacher, PT instructor, yoga instructor, pilot, cruise captain, fire fighter, police, paramedic helper, ambulance (the vehicle, all with the beeper sound) and even a robot over the last year. How can you say that the year has not been happening and exhaustive?
I've seen her play and chat with her friends through online meetings, holding art classes for her friends, story telling sessions with her grandpa, and even daily video calls with grandma showing her new plants, activities, and even reading out stories.
She has written funny stories, a few chapters of two new novels, spooky stories, comic books, Chacha Chaudhary stories, and has moved on to write poems.
What is incredible is how imaginative this new life behind doors has been. I don't deny that kids haven't had enough physical activities, and they are missing out on playing out in the open. Yet, they have learnt and adapted.
There are a couple of kids who stay in a building opposite my house. They both stay on two different floors, but their balconies open out to the same side. Throughout the day, they are constantly calling each other, asking questions about daily routines, such as have you had your lunch, what are you having for lunch, what are you doing now, and all such questions, providing an awesome, free entertainment for us.
The other day, they decided to play hide and seek. I admit that this has been the most creative and imaginative hide-n-seek play that I have ever heard. Each took turn crying out, "Alright, I am ready! Guess where I am hiding!" Mind you, this is across balconies and across floors. The kids are at their own houses. And they are just imaging themselves hiding in the places. So the other kid would guess, "Under the bed, inside a cupboard, behind the sofa!" It was so much fun to hear them play!
I was not just astonished at their imagination but extremely proud at seeing them so adaptive and innovative.
We've all been harping about how excessively and utterly boring it has been being stuck inside the four walls. But we forget that windows, doors, balconies, and terraces are still open!
