Looking for indoor activities to do with your ADHD kids with the recent school closings? If your like me, hearing school is closed makes you cringe. Whether it’s a snowstorm, teacher day or corona virus, my first reaction is, what will I do to get my ADHD kids energy out?
Some moms come up with ideas like make play dough or do a puzzle. But my kids, depending on their age would eat the play dough and a puzzle wouldn’t hold their attention. Not to mention the last time I made homemade play dough, it made an incredible mess and the coloring stained the counter and their hands. There are the usual things to do on a day off, like make slime, read a book, bake cookies, watch a movie… but if your kids are off for a week or more, there’s only so much of that you can do.
Below is a list of things I have done in the past with my ADHD kids at various ages. You’ll notice that most of them have NOTHING to do with electronics. We try to limit electronics because both my kids showed huge electronics addictions at a young age. That and I learned my lesson allowing them a lot of electronics time on a day off… they were mean and like addicts who just wanted more, and more, and more.
Below are our top 10 indoor ADHD kid activities that require minimal supplies and you can adapt most of them to fit kids of all ages and interests.
Get Zen
This is one of my favorites. If I know my kids are home I like to let them wake up on their own (for once), have breakfast and then I slap on a YouTube yoga video and we spend 30 minutes doing that. My daughter loves how much more flexible she is than me and my son struggles but finds it funny how much less flexible he is than me. It doesn’t last long, but it also sets out a good positive, relaxed vibe for the day. This can also be done in the evening if they are getting to ramped up. If your kids are younger check out Cosmic Kids videos like ‘Squish the Fish’.
Mind Games
ADHD kids are known for their creativity. One of my kid’s favorite past times is making up things. The floor is lava, there’s an alligator under the bed, pretending they are in outer space and so many more. These are the same games we played as kids, but with so many easy options for electronics we forget how fun they can be for kids. My kids were electronic-addicted at a young age, so I would have to give them scenarios and ideas or play along until they got the hang of it.
Build a City
This could apply to building a city of legos, which is great fun. But if your kids are younger, they may prefer instead to build indoor tents or forts. If they are a bit older and not into legos, you can also use cardboard boxes and construction paper to build a cardboard city. So they don’t get overwhelmed, help give your ADHD kid ideas, like build xx for their favorite toy, or a city for space aliens.
Let Your Kids Fidget
Not too long ago fidget spinners were all the rage. Today most of my kids fidget spinners and cubes are either broken or lost. Having your kids home for a few days is a great time to find ways for your anxious ADHD kids to fidget. Recently I shared how my daughter made a calming water bottle as a gift for her brother.
Depending on how well stocked your home is, you may want to make some inexpensive homemade fidget toys for your kids. My son is not that artsy but he still enjoys taking part, usually letting his sister do most of the making. And of course he’ll use and play with whatever is made. And Next Comes L has a great list of 40 alternate ways your kid can fidget.
Get Active
Two winners for getting my kids moving have been balloon volleyball and dancing.
Balloon volleyball is simple. You blow up a balloon and use it as a volleyball! When my kids were younger, we played it more with the goal to keep the ball in the air and not touch the ground. As my kids got older, we put a line across the floor with ‘out’ zones and added in extra balloons to make it challenging. Best thing is you can also play this with only one child. As they run back and forth to both sides, that should tire them out!
Dancing in our house started because I was losing my mind with my kids. I would just crank up some music and dance away. Both my kids thought it was great fun and would join in. They even have online kids playlists now so you can ‘baby shark’ the day away. You can play freeze dance, musical chairs or any variation. As my daughter got older she likes to play videos or movies like highschool musical and keep pausing them to see if she can copy their dance moves. You can search lots of videos and find plenty like this one from Perez Hilton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ8iUKTUl-s or hip hop dance tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWTyO8npkOQ
Make Your Own Book or Comic
ADHD kids are creative, with an endless imagination. Both my kids, but especially my son LOVES to draw intricate scenarios that play out in his mind. He ends up with pages that are covered from end to end which may look chaotic to the untrained eye, but all have a special place in the plot. As he got older, he will hyper-focus and spend so much time drawing pictures into more of a concise plot through empty comic book pages. I usually search ‘blank comic book page’ on Pinterest and get lots of options.
It’s Time To “Go To The Mattresses”
I love that line from the Godfather. It’s kind of the same too, after spending too long with my kids inside I kind of feel like I have gone to war. This idea is simple, move your kids spring mattress to the floor and let them do gymnastics, jump and if they are like my older kids now, wrestle. This really depends on your kids and if your ADHD kids are like mine, it’s a last resort because jumping always leads to someone getting hurt, but it’s still a great option to have.
If you don’t want your kids jumping on mattresses you can take painters tape and mark off a ‘jumping-only’ space on the floor. You can challenge kids to jump for a certain amount of time in that space. Mine also liked it when I made a hop scotch trail on the floor and they had to jump from square to square.
Get ‘Board’
Days off are a great time to break out board games. We are a family that loves board games and is some of our favorite family bonding time. Your ADHD kids will have so much fun playing they won’t even realize they are building skills in focus, memory, strategizing and social skills.
Some of our favorites that are great for ADHD kids are:
- Battle Ship
- Checkers or chess (my kids have even made a checkers board out of paper when they were bored enough).
- The Memory game (great for younger kids)
- Headbanz (My daughter is a huge Ellen Degeneres fan so we play the free game she made popular ‘‘Heads Up’)
Treasure/Scavenger Hunt
I am a HUGE fan of Treasure hunts. We do them in our house all the time, for holidays, birthdays, etc. Perhaps I spend the time doing them, because I love seeing how excited my kids get… or because I wish I could do them myself. When my kids were really young, we started with just drawing pictures of things in the house that would lead them to where the next clue was hid. As they got older, it got a lot more fun and the riddles get harder.
You could make your scavenger hunt a list of hard-to-find things around the house. I did this one time with things I knew were hidden in their bedroom and after they found them, I convinced them they would find more treasures if they cleaned their room! You could also make it to a list of things they need to collect to do an arts and crafts project (like building a recycling robot). Or if weather permits a list of things they can find outside.
The Spruce has a great set of clues for scavenger hunts. They have 30, but you can pick to use as many as will fit within your home. Kid Activities has another list, some are similar but wanted to give you easy options.
Use Electronics as a Reward
My ADHD kids have learning disabilities, so I like to encourage my kids to do a bit of reading and writing every day. Some days they will grab their journal and write away no problem, other days they need to be encouraged. Usually they can earn ‘extra’ electronics time (over their 1 hour a day limit), by writing in their journal or reading. Sometimes the kids start to get really bored and find it hard to keep focused on even a simple task, so I encourage them to finish what they are doing or clean up their activity BEFORE they can move onto electronics.
Teach them chores
This may not be as fun for them as it is for you, but having your kid home for the day is a great opportunity to teach your children responsibility and life skills. If you have outdoor activities like shoveling or raking, this will be best for them to have a calming and simple single-task orientation. My kids like that they can do laundry, clean a bathroom or make a meal. Most of those things I sat with them and showed them how to do it on a day they were home and we weren’t rushing with our normal activities.
Do you have indoor activities you enjoy with your ADHD kid? Share in the comments below.
