5 Forgotten Freebies For Keeping Kids Entertained

The dollar is having to get stretched thinner and thinner every day. Between a stagnant salary and economic uncertainty in the grand scheme of things, the costs of keeping kids entertained can easily become too much to afford. To get the latest video game title you have to drop $60, and chances are your kid will play it once and forget about it immediately anyway. Yet with a full-time job, there’s no under-appreciating the power of entertainment when it comes to keeping kids busy and out of trouble. But who says you need to spend money to keep kids entertained?

Here are five free ways to make your kids happy that most parents have seemed to have forgotten in recent years:

1. Go to the library.

While it’s ideal that your son or daughter would want to go to the library and read on their own, chances are they’ll be much more interested in the DVD section. Unlike rental houses and DVD-thru-the-mail, borrowing movies at the reliable library is absolutely free, granted you return them on time. It’s a great place to stop by after work to fill up on titles to keep your kids settled when you want to relax on a Friday night.

2. Turn on PBS

If the cable had to get turned off, then take advantage of the awesome amount of public broadcasting now available in the aftermath of the digital transfer of 2009. PBS now has three different channels, one of which is 24 hours of non-stop kids cartoons. Per the PBS tradition, these programs are educational, entertaining, but above all free of charge (Just promise yourself to make a donation to PBS someday when you’re in better financial times.)

3. Take them to a playground.

Every time I drive by park playground equipment I’m always shocked at how unused that stuff seems to be no matter how nice it is outside. When I was a kid, there wasn’t anything more fun than jumping off swing sets and flipping through the monkey bars. If your kids are a couple of couch potatoes, peel them off the sofa and take them to a park. All it will cost you is the gas to get there.

4. Online video games

Sometimes outdoor activities aren’t suitable, in which case you should take advantage of the openness of the Internet to keep your kids busy. You might not be able to afford that new game for your son’s Xbox 360 but sites such as Miniclip.com feature hundreds of different free games with themes that vary from sports to outer space. The graphics aren’t exactly the most breathtaking but kids hardly care about that stuff; as long as the game is exciting, they’ll stay focused. As long as it’s free, you’re happy.

5. Rainy day games

Whether it’s hide-and-go-seek or a good old fashioned game of War with a deck of cards lying around, there’s a lot more that can be done around the house than both parents and kids realize. It might take some imagination, but it wasn’t that long ago when families were without a computer, cable TV, and video games. They managed. You can to.

We want to give our children what makes them happy, especially when they’re deserving of it. But in times such as these we can’t always do that. We can, however, take advantage of free ways to keep kids entertained. Whether it’s a jungle gym or an online game, you’re sure to find a free form of entertainment you’re kids will love.