They say that confinement has allowed many parents to ‘get to know’ their children. In my case it has helped me to ‘recognize’ my daughter. We already spent a lot of time together before the pandemic and during the closure we have spent all our time together: working, eating, sleeping and playing. That said, it doesn’t seem like a bad plan, especially when you’re with the family, right?
What has helped me these weeks of confinement has been to try to learn many new games and activities. When you only have to play a couple of hours a day with your child, you don’t have to spend your life innovating, but if it is all day, you should become a bit of an educator, a teacher and a little bit of everything.
After the first few days, we realized that we needed more games. And since there was no way to buy in stores, my wife became a specialist in buying all kinds of games online. My daughter is in a time when she has a lot of fun with crafts and we had to get down to it: we bought braided cords, cardboard, paint, scissors and more to satisfy her wishes.
I have to say that I never really enjoyed crafts. There is an anecdote that can corroborate it. At the end of the school in the plastic class we had to deliver a project, a kind of castle made with sticks and cardboard, etc. Well, I paid a colleague who was very good at the subject to do the project for me. She did a little wrong to make it seem like I had made it clear … but not too bad to pass.
But now I can not pay anyone to play with my daughter and I have to manipulate the braided cords, cardboard, rings and other gadgets to make figures, drawings, kites and a thousand other things. I was amazed at how entertaining it can be to do things with your hands. Let’s see, if it wasn’t for the girl, I wouldn’t get into this, but it’s more bearable than watching the same chapter of SpongeBob for the umpteenth time.