Jeremy:
I’ve seen this question pop up several times in the last week. The weather’s changing and people are starting to freak out about being locked down again with their kids during COVID time in the winter. What are we going to do? Jeff and I wanted to do a quick little listicle, a few ideas for how to get your kids energy out during lockdown. Okay. My first one, Jeff, is family PT time. We’ve been in very desperate straits a few times. One time, we were locked into a sixth floor apartment with all five of our kids for months in Israel, during tough weather. We had to come up with a few ideas. We’ve done this a few times, where we will literally put on the calendar, in the daily rhythm, a couple of, PT stands for physical training, if you guys have ever been in the military, where we would do exercises with our kids, get the whistle out.

Jeff:
I love that. Yeah.

Jeremy:
Just like jumping jacks. You got to work your kids a little bit. It’s just too much to ask them to sit there for 12-plus hours a day inside and not get energy out. A lot of people don’t think about just running your kids through PT and finding exercises to do. We would literally do this. We also did this when we were RV-ing. We would pull over and just get out for 10 minutes and just do PT for 10 minutes. Just come up with a list of 10 to 15 exercises on a clipboard, and then just run your kids through those exercises until they are exhausted and you are happy again. That’s my first one.

Jeff:
I love that. That is a really good one. Yes, we do the same. What I’ve noticed too, is that some kids even love that. When I’ll do little at home workouts, they’ll just jump in. There’s something about, kids just love it. It’s fun. It’s Olympic game-y. Do that one.

Another one I would say is forts. Just build forts. Get on the floor with your kid. Do pillow forts. If you’re one of those people that, “This is too messy,” “I want the living room to look perfect,” you have to get over that. You have to get over that and not make your kids shape and bend into that. Of course, have rules and all those stuff with certain things, but just let it go crazy sometimes and put the forts out in the chairs. One thing I would say is, we love the cardboard tunnels, the cardboard boxes. Our family gets so much life and mileage out of cardboard boxes. I would highly suggest that, too. If you’re a high Amazon Prime family like us, maybe in Hawaii, it’s just cause we have to. Yeah, Jeremy, what would you say is the next one?

Jeremy:
That’s a really good one. I’ll say, too, I just was at somebody’s house over the weekend who turned their entire basement into a castle with cardboard, and they were just crawling through it, mazes, all the time. It was crazy. Okay.

Third one, you guys, is there are a ton of videos on YouTube that you can dance along to and jam out. Obviously, there are these things, like with Just Dance or with some of the game consoles, but they can get a lot of energy out, be competitive, have fun. Again, I really like to do these things together as a team and scheduled.It’s a totally different experience, like having a free for all with video games versus having a scheduled time where the whole family is together having an experience. If you can have an experience while you’re getting their energy out, while they’re having fun, those are just a lot of boxes to check at once. I would really encourage, if you guys can use the video game consoles to get some of those dance games or you can just go to YouTube and find some dance stuff. Avoid Tik Tok like the plague, but besides that, it’s really a good way to get some energy out.

Jeff:
Exactly. Then for the last one, what I would say is, let your kids even be what I said in the first one, but whether it’s skateboards, whether it’s scootering, whether it’s sometime a little bodyboard, let the kids do that in the home more than you think. Again, that’s one of the best things that we’ve said yes to in our family, for family culture. Our kids, you’ve seen it if you follow us. Our downstairs is like a full circle. They actually can race in a track and it’s a blast.

Now of course, honor the home and respect the home. I pay attention to what wheels those are. There’s certain rubber ones that just make no markings and no nothing, like when you wear certain shoes at the gym. When you play basketball, they say you have to wear these ones, and not these ones because of markings. It’s very similar. Then that’s like, “Oh no, that one can’t come in because of what it does.” You wouldn’t even know type of thing, if you come in our home, that we do that because it doesn’t actually affect our house at all. It’s really, really fun to say, “Hey, our downstairs is a scooter track at the Becky 500. I would definitely suggest that as the last one, too.

Jeremy:
Yeah. When we stayed with the Bethkes, it was so much fun watching Kinsley and Kannon just cruise around your house in those scooters.

Jeff:
They go fast.

Jeremy:
They would stop on a dime. Yeah.

Jeff:
Yeah. It was crazy.