Activities for the Hyper-Active Child

What do you do with a child who is always full of energy and always into everything? I have one such child. She is good-natured, but is BUSY. Sometimes its a challenge to find constructive things for her to do (she's only three, so its hard to find age-appropriate things for her). But I find that she THRIVES when given some constructive activities instead of just commands to “stop touching that” “stop climbing” “stop getting into everything!”

So here are some ideas of how to get their energy out & learn something or accomplish something in the process.

1. Make cleaning up into a game. Race to pick up the toys. Or “go put this in your room and come back and give me a five.” Then next round.
2. Touching and counting items in the house. When Daddy first gets home, my three year old gets so wound up so we have her run around the house touching and counting the objects in the house – like “go touch all the beds in the house and then come back.” Next lap, go count all the chairs in the house, touch them, and come back.” After about six laps like that, she is calm enough to interact with Mama and Daddy without climbing all over Daddy.
3. What's this made of game? We are learning the differences between metal, wood, plastic, etc. I have the kids go “touch something made of wood” “go touch something metal.” For my three year old, hands on and moving is the key to her learning. The kids also like to take small magnets and touch them to objects in the house to find out what is magnetic (helps in determining if something is metal). Sometimes, I'll find a random magnet stuck to the metal of our folding chairs.
   
4. Learn the ABCs through movement. My daughter for the longest time would not sit still to even look at the ABCs. So one day, we made the letter B out of blankets and bean bags. I had her run the shape of the letter B and we talked about bean bag and blanket and bounce all start with B. Amazingly, she began to recognize the letter B, but only when I had made effort to get her moving.
5. Tip-toe through the Tulips. This is a song I learned as a kid, singing different actions for different verses. The kids tip toe or walk or run or crawl or jump or spin through the tulips. Or roll or skip or scoot or somersault through the tulips. The kids like the song and it gets their energy out.
   
6. Simon Says or as we sometimes call it, the obey game, to practice obeying. Jump up and down, do a somersault, go touch the door. Or we can even play it in the car, to keep the kids from messing with each other – raise your hands, kick your feet, wiggle your fingers, or whatever else.
7. Finding Constructive Activities to keep busy with – playing playdough, helping Mama in the kitchen, coloring, washing dishes (or at least allowing them to play in the water a little with a few small bowls or measuring cups), building a tent with a blanket and some chairs, playing hide and seek, playing outside in the sand or playing ball.

It seems to work much better to give the child SOMETHING to do rather than constant directions to NOT do something. It is also wise to have allowable places in the house to burn off energy, while still setting limits. Maybe jumping on the bed is off limits, but allowing them to put pillows and blankets on the floor to bounce on might be okay. Limits are a must with hyper-active kids but not everything should be off limits.

Busyness is certainly better than laziness, so we don't want to squelch that productive spirit in a child, we just want to channel it in the right direction. My daughter loves to help and as she is able to master more skills I hope to channel her energy into productivity – to be like her dad, who can't sit still but loves to work and build and fix and accomplish.