Feeling that we ought to keep kids happy and entertained is a comparatively modern mind-set and speaks to certain resources and luxuries. If you can’t take your kids to cultural events, have your kids bring culture to you. “Be like Louisa May Alcott,” Mintz suggested. Instead they make up fantasy plays, write newspapers, craft costumes, stage their own circus, act out stories from Dickens’s “The Pickwick Papers.” (“The Pickwick Papers” are not exciting! Their efforts may be painful, but the 20 minutes your children spend preparing a deeply revisionist “Frozen 2” is 20 minutes you can spend doing something else.

Source: New York Times June 18, 2020 20:48 UTC