SCH 056 Self-Care Hacks to Help You Plan the Best Ever Summer for Your Kids

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:54 — 9.1MB) | Embed

Want to have the best ever summer for your kids? These self-care hacks will help you keep your kids happy this summer and make life less chaotic for you.

Want to the Plan the Best Ever Summer for Your Kids?

I grew up during an era where parents expected kids to entertain themselves. Both of my parents worked in the summer, but not always on the same schedules. I remember endless games of kick-the-can, catching fireflies, and riding my pony with my friends all over town. Occasionally we did things we shouldn’t do, such as make prank phone calls or pick sun-warmed apples from the trees in the neighbor’s orchard as we rode through.

If we ever had the audacity to say, “I’m bored!” my parents would tell us to go outside and play. We didn’t even have a television until I started high school.

But those days of carefree summertime have passed. Along with the driver’s arm as a safety belt for children and helmet-less bike rides. During our girls’ childhoods, we gave them two-way radios and let them entertain themselves in the Enchanted Cow Forest (our eldest read all of the Anne of Green Gables books shortly before we moved to Montana), down by Bear Creek, or anywhere they wanted to go within radio range.

If our kids had the audacity to say, “I’m bored!” we would usually ask them, “What are you going to do about it?” Fortunately for us, they both loved to read and explore, so they did a lot of playing outside. One summer they organized a club with the neighborhood kids and set up a lemonade stand. They raked in the money and we used to the money to take all the kids on an outing to Virginia City, an old mining town.

Kids These Days

Children these days (I teach full time, so I’ve kept current on kids and what they do) often don’t know how to entertain themselves. Unless they love video games, watching YouTube, or TikTok. But what they enjoy doing might not be the best for them. If you’d like to limit screen time, but don’t want to deal with whiny kids, this episode shares practical hacks for getting kids involved in planning out their own summer activities.

If you want to have the best ever summer for your kids, you’ll want to make sure they have buy-in and investment in their choices. I learned this from planning outdoor school programs for my students. Once I put them in charge of the food, the restroom stops, the activities, and the options, they quit complaining about all of the above aspects.