Are you afraid of your kids' brains turning to mush with overexposure to phone games and mindless videos? Give them something challenging to keep their minds active!

Crossword puzzles...

• Improve your mood
  Distracting your child from stress and boredom will help channel any of those negative emotions into positive ones, enhancing their life experience (and yours!) in the long run.
  
• Expand your vocabulary
  Exposing your youngin to brand new words will help form a solid foundation of literacy, both on paper and in their speech.
  
• Keeps the brain sharp
  Regularly doing crosswords will fire up those rusty brain cells, awakening and strengthening your memory and cognition through active learning.

But Blaire, aren't there other ways to do this?

Yeah! Probably! But the fun of the crossword puzzle is every one is unique so it's way more entertaining than getting stuck in autopilot mode staring at a cell phone screen or trying to find a certain striped-sweatered man in a sea of strangely similar looking people.

Added bonus: it keeps the kids quite for a little while;)