No experience in life can ever be as meaningful as that of spending quality time with your children. Watching that angelic smile bloom shyly on their face before erupting into an exuberant grin, the bubbling of laughter so pure no mineral water harvested from pristine icebergs in the alp can match—parenthood is its own reward.
Until you realise that you’re going to be spending the next decade or so together. Before you start panicking, here are three child-friendly—and parent-accommodating—activities to do in Singapore that will simultaneously preserve your sanity, keep your children entertained, and forge that quality bond together.
For the Hyperactive Child: Climb Central
Photo by climbcentral on Instagram
Climb Central is an indoor rock-climbing gym that caters to climbers of all experience. As long as your children are at least 5 years-old, heavier than 20kg, and above 1.1 metres tall, they can scale up the walls like the twitchy spiders they are. (It’s a great way to exhaust them so both you and your children can have a peaceful night at home.)
Climb Central conducts a compulsory safety briefing for all first-timers, so rest assured that safety is their top priority. With their range of traditional top-rope walls and auto-belay systems, you can be the literally supportive parent and belay your children, or race them up to the wall as both of you are hoisted up by the auto-belays. Your children will probably be much faster than you, though.
Climb Central Locations
Kallang Wave Mall, 1 Stadium Place, #B1-01, Singapore 397628;
Nearest station: Stadium
Novena Velocity, 238 Thomson Road, #03-23/25, Singapore 307683
Nearest station: Novena
Opening Hours
Mon to Fri: 11:00 AM – 11:00 PM
Weekend and Public Holiday: 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
For the Fearless Child: Airzone
Photo by airzone_sg on Instagram Photo by elfivenngiselle on Instagram
If your children have ever wanted to walk on air, Airzone is the perfect place to bring them. The facility comprises several nets spanning across multiple levels and suspended over the atrium of City Square Mall. Even though the nets are engineered to be super strong structurally (each net can hold two fully packed buses), they also allow anyone on them to look all the way down to the ground level. Once your children get over their initial fear (if they have any at all), it is pure exhilaration to feel like walking on air. Now everyone can be Elphaba, as long as you are below 120kg. Children who are below 7 years old must be accompanied by a supervising adult.
Airzone comprises several activity zones, such as a 3-dimensional maze, the world’s only suspended ball pit, and a suspended slide. In fact, you are free to join your children within the Airzone facility as it is open to people of all ages. But if heights are not your friend, there is always Don Don Donki at the basement of the mall.
Airzone
City Square Mall, 180 Kitchener Road, Singapore 208539
Nearest station: Farrer Park
Opening Hours
Daily from 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM (Last admission at 9PM)
For the Child of Nature: Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden
Photo by tsoymaoten on Instagram Photo by fin.barr on Instagram
Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, located in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, is the first garden in Asia built with children in mind, and it certainly shows. Unlike most other areas of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, the space in Jacob Ballas is highly interactive. Alongside the myriad of plants, there is a suspension bridge, tree houses, a farm, a forest with a stream and ponds, all features that are guaranteed to attract your children like honey to a Pooh bear. Moreover, children are encouraged to touch, jump, climb, play with everything in the garden, and in so doing, learn about the ecological environment.
What is a parent to do at a children’s garden, you ask? Well, after your children have played horticulturalist for a day, usher them to the main area of the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Take it from us: they’d be happy just running around the lawns while you lounge on a mat, a glass of ice-cold rosé in one hand and a bar of dark chocolate in the other.
Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden
481 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259769
Nearest station: Botanic Gardens
Opening Hours
Daily from 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM (Last admission at 6:30PM) Closed on Mondays except on public holidays.
