Entertaining kids - CareforKids.com.au®

Entertaining Kids
…a true Olympic sport
by Sophie Cross

With Olympic saturation of everything over and done with for another four years, well no, three years if you count the lead up to the next one, even if you are not a fan of the games and all the so-called Olympic sports that now have a place in the schedule, we'd like to draw attention to something that actually deserves to be the biggest Olympic sport of all time: Entertaining Kids. Without the same fanfare, this happens pretty much 24/7 every month, year, without the huge advertising and sponsorship deals or the four year break.

Entertaining Kids, a high velocity, multi-faceted and ball-juggling endurance sport is as knackering as the marathon event, as strategic as chess, requires patience, training and teamwork, nerves of steel, an ability to think on your feet and boundless energy. A multi-dimensional sport that requires you to be as fit as any Olympic athlete. Have you ever seen a fat Wiggle?

In fact one Olympic athlete, I forget who, but I swear I'm not making it up, once spent a month when, instead of training, he simply did what his young kids did. Ran when they did, jumped when they did, spun around, skipped, played, fought etc. He said it was the most tiring month of his life and at the end of it he was fitter than ever.

If you're a stay at home Mum or Dad you probably have a better chance of winning Gold than working parents. Stay at home Mums and Dads would probably be the "professionals" of this sport and deserving of higher sponsorship deals, whereas the working parents are most likely amateurs. No offense, but let's face it professional kids entertainers like stay at home mums, teachers, child care workers, nannies and The Wiggles really have to train very hard to fill entire days with things to do, whereas we working mums are really only part-time entertainers at holidays and weekends, which we find particularly knackering. Yes, there's no doubt that going to the office and dealing with adults, even the juvenile ones, is less tiring than entertaining kids all day long.

Many kids do most of the sports in their day to day activities: Taekwondo, Judo, Wrestling and Boxing is just fighting basically and kids do that all the time, especially siblings; cycling is well, cycling (can you believe they have BMX in the Games now?); football, basketball and handball – standard playground activities; diving and swimming are pretty obvious if you do nippers etc; running – er hello, easy peasy; high jump and gymnastics aka jumping up and down on beds; trampoline – pretty much every back yard has one.

Weightlifting is mum's domain, as is Modern Pentathlon and Triathlon, aka doing lots of things in one day to tire oneself out, and if you go to the gym at all you'll most likely have rowing down pat. And possibly archery and shooting in your worst parenting moments or at least in your dreams/fantasies.

There are heaps of very useless, pointless sports in the Olympics (handball, archery, fencing, canoeing, badminton…), but they do give you some great ideas for entertaining children and they're pretty easy to replicate in the home or at the park.

So, over the Olympics we had our own Chite Games (we live in a village called Chite in Spain, pronounced ch-ee-tay, not shite, although we called the Games the Shite Olympics for effect). There was slightly less dedication to training and a bit of adaptation of the rules of various games – often as the games were actually in play, but we managed to get a fair few in and when it comes to competition, there's no denying that kids can be just as competitive as any Olympic athlete. AND the best thing is that you don't even have to give them any prizes, a couple of Hot Dollar medals will do or even just points. Funny isn't it that despite all our efforts for instilling a sense of "it's not the winning, but the taking part that's important" in all forms of childsplay (i.e. everyone's a winner, prizes in every layer of "Pass the PC Parcel" etc), there's nothing a child loves more than "being the winner".

Anyway our games gave us endless hours over the holidays for healthy competition that didn't involve a remote or a Nintendo, iPod, iPad, computer etc etc. There was Table Tennis/Ping Pong and you had to also have your own special Chinese name for this too, because as everyone knows the Chinese are past masters at ping pong, so you feel much more professional with your Chinese name and the kids loved coming up with them. We had Wai Yu So Tan; Chin Too Phat; Sum Ting Wong; Stin Ki Poo and Thai Ni Po Ni amongst others and we've never had such a laugh with the game. Sum Ting Wong won by a point over Wai Yu So Tan.

Chess isn't an Olympic Sport but it is another great game to get some serious competition going, especially in bad weather, and if the kids are too young for Chess then Drafts/Chequers is a good alternative. Or any sort of strategic kids game really. Of course with Chess you have to have a Russian name if possible.

Then there's mini tennis (everyone has to have a tennis name), mini badminton (Australian Geographic has a great line in the mini sets which are brilliant value); tiddly winks (the more "old school" the game, the better), Uno Attack, the egg and spoon relay, three-legged race; sack race, throwing balls through a hoop or into a bin (Basketball/netball!) and if you're lucky enough to have a pool, synchronized handstands and diving competition – no belly flops allowed – not even dads.

Anyway despite the fact that the Olympics themselves always seem to be a bit of an anti-climax when they actually arrive, we definitely had the best two weeks of Olympic events on record and I think they may well continue on until the next ones.

Yes Entertaining Kids should definitely be the 29th Olympic Sport when it goes to Rio next time (how many parents would like to go to Rio for a couple of weeks?), because all mums and dads deserve a Gold Medal and when it comes to your own Olympics at home, it's great to know you can still entertain the kids with minimal outlay, old school games and fun for all the family. And occasionally the kids let you win too.

Sophie Cross is a public relations consultant and writer who has publicised and written about everything from makeup to The Muppets, child care to celebrity chefs and perfume to Partners in Population and Development! Originally from the UK and as a languages graduate she has worked around the world, living in Australia for the last 11 years where she runs, PR Chicks.

She is sometimes devoted wife of Stu and always devoted mother to Francesca and two cats, with whom she's embarked on her latest adventure, living and working remotely from their little piece of Spanish heaven in Chite, the Lecrin Valley, just south of Granada. And FYI it's pronounced "ch-ee-tay" not shite.