Have fun with your kids from home!

By now, many of us are going crazy with cabin fever. How can you keep busy at home while making your child feel special? Here are some different activities you can do with your children to have some fun and make them feel good about themselves.

1. Send your child a funny greeting card by mail. You can make it, or you can buy one especially designed for kids.

2. Ask your child's opinion of the solution to a problem. A child's judgment needs to be exercised, starting with simple matters such as the dinner menu.

3. Make handprint cookies. Cut around your child's hand on cookie dough with a blunt knife, and after the cookies are baked let him or her decorate the "hand" with a frosting tube.

4. Make your child's interest a family hobby. Following his or her lead in rock hunting, ice hockey, or coin collecting can open new interests for all while quietly emphasizing the significance of your child's ideas.

5. Create a special bedtime ritual that you follow in addition to reading a book or sharing talk about the day. Consider a silly good-night rhyme such as: Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite, and if they do, grab a shoe, and hit them till, they're black and blue. (Ouch!)

6. Bring a snack with you when you pick up your child from school or daycare - it's a visible sign that you were thinking of your child.

7. Look at old snapshots with your child, taking advantage of the opportunity to sit close together. Talk about your childhood - children love to hear about "the old days." (Encourage this activity with extended family members such as visiting grandparents, aunts, and uncles, too.)

8. When you are shopping together in the grocery store, let your child "decide" which item to buy by giving him or her a choice of two items - "this one or that one?" - either of which would be acceptable to you.

9. Outline your child's body on a long sheet of white or brown paper for cutting out and coloring. Then hang it up for all to see. (Write name, date, and age on the back).

10. Give your child an award ("BEST DISH WASHER OF THE WEEK," for example) on occasion. Make a small ceremony out of it.

All of these activities and simiple gestures are sure to put a smile on both your face and your child's!