How Quick Games Make Daily Walks More Fun

Every family is a little bit different, but if you have babies, toddlers or little kids often a walk or outside adventure is a daily activity. Sometimes it is necessary because your furry family member might need a walk, sometimes it is just a good way to break up your day and get some fresh air. Whatever your reason, one thing I know is that even if it is part of your daily routine and you have a kid that usually loves it, sometimes you need a few tricks up your sleeve to keep it interesting and exciting.

 I’m not going to pretend that I’m an expert, but I do have kids, we do have to walk the dog everyday and sometimes my kids love to go and other times they just don’t want to go. I’ve found that making up a quick game is usually what we need to get out the door. 

This happened the other day and my 6 year old, who usually loves a good walk, was not having it! I had to come up with a game on the fly to get her to go. She calls it backwards/forwards because that's basically what we ended up doing. Walking in circles for 30 minutes. But the dog got a walk, my daughter LOVED it and we got some fresh air. Now she wants to do it on every walk. 

PS - I totally made this up on the fly and you can too. I literally changed the rules about every 100 meters because my original rules didn’t make sense. 

Here is the jist of the game. You do you and make it fun for your family: 

• Take a die and some scratch paper and mark N, S, E, W on four of the sides. The other two can be “wilds” so let your kid pick what they like. We used a star. For toddlers, you  may want to use forwards, backwards and right and left.
• Pick an interval (every block, every corner, every stop sign) to roll the die and then go the direction the die tells you. We decided that if it told us to go back the way we came, we would roll again (this is where I started making up rules). If you roll a wild, your kids get to pick which way to go. 
• Pro tip - you may want to set a timer for 20 minutes or so for the game, in case you get really far from home and the die isn’t leading you back in the right direction. Then when the timer goes off you can stop rolling the die and head home. 

The bottom line, don't be afraid to just make up a silly game on the spot. You don't have to play this game, it's just an example of how a quick and easy game can change the mood and make your daily walk for fun.

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