Play Tents for Kids

Play Tents For Kids – A Truly Great Investment

If you are looking at play tents for kids then there are a few things you need to know.  Firstly, I know that not all children are the same, but some things do seem to be fairly universal – one is that no child ever wants their play tent put away.  You need to bear this in mind when you buy!

There are several areas which require some decisions before you buy a play tent, so here goes:

Where are you going to put your play tent?

If you want your play tent to only be used outside then you have to some how make ‘unsuitable’ for inside.  Perhaps you need to have one too large for inside?  Just bare in mind that these are light and easy to move and if you don’t deal with this issue you will suddenly find that it has taken up residence in your kids bedroom and getting it out will be a battle.  Equally, if you are only going to use it inside then you need to think of some good reasons why it can’t go outside.

What should your play tent look like?

This can be a bit difficult.  I have two boys and originally thought about getting a camouflage style one – until a little girl told me that she had visited friends and they had a ‘horrid’ tent, it was all ‘boyish’ and since she wasn’t a boy, she didn’t want to go in it.  After a more detailed conversation with her mother, it became clear that the boy had been keen to share, but she was not having any of it.  This rather put me off the camouflage option.  I realized that spider man and many of the other designs were going to lead to similar problems.  I finally settled on a multicolored tent with different colored sides; red, blue, yellow and green – I have never had a conversation about my play tent being either girly or boyish – so I guess I got over that hurdle.

Do you need the play tent tunnels?

If you have the budget and the space for these then do invest, they are great.  The tunnels are a wonderful way to either link two tents together or you can have one tent with tunnels going out of each side.  The combination’s are just fun.  One word of warning, my kids have always pulled each other around in the tunnels, so we have always needed more tunnels than tents and the tunnels never have the same life span, so it is worth choosing a design where you can get replacement tunnels easily.

Finally, remember that play tents for kids is about the kids creating their own environment in which to play – so don’t get too involved.  Their imaginations will lead them to places which you would have never have thought off, so just let them loose on it and watch with joy as you see what they are capable of achieving.