Summer can be a fun (humid), busy, and joyful time of year! However, with kids out of school and different activities, vacations, or family gatherings planned, we often see mothers or parents in our office who feel frazzled and stressed about the transition. Here are our 6 tips for parents looking to empower their summer:
1. Empowering Your Summer Tip 1: Create A Day-to-Day Schedule
Create a daily schedule. Scheduling will reduce whining because children will know what is coming and be empowered to know when they will have time to do what they want. Scheduling will also reduce the “out of control” feeling for parents, too!
2. Empowering Your Summer Tip 2: Create a Master Calendar
If you haven’t already, start making a master schedule for your children’s plans now. The best-laid plans are the plans that are likely to succeed. Schedule out day trips, free movie and library events, and fun afternoons on the calendar to ensure the events will happen. Make a plan for some fun events like water balloon wars and neighborhood talent shows. Putting them on the calendar will ensure that they are more likely to happen.
3. Empowering Your Summer Tip 3: Plan Fun Activities
Have fun with your kids! The internet is full of different resources for ideas, and here are two to get you started:
https://www.danielle-moss.com/summer-activities/
https://www.delineateyourdwelling.com/28-fun-ideas-for-summer-kids/
4. Empowering your Summer Tip 4: Stay Connected with School Friends
Make sure your children continue to connect with school friends throughout the summer to make the inevitable transition easier and reduce back-to-school anxiety. If your kids do not have school friends in the area, you can create a schedule for regular school-friend play dates.
For example, when my children were younger they attended a private school and most of their friends did not live in the same area. We developed a repeating schedule where we invited school friends to a play date at a local park or to meet at the swimming pool. It was good socialization for both the parents and the kids. The weekly schedule was given to friends early so parents could incorporate it into their summer schedules. Park days would run from 10-12 AM and pool days from 12-3 PM.
5. Empowering Your Summer Tip 5: Boundaries with Children
We love boundaries! Especially this resource, which has 7 tips for setting summer boundaries with your kids:
http://www.boundariesbooks.com/boundaries-with-kids/7-tips-summer-boundaries-with-kids/
6. Empowering Your Summer Tip Number 6: Remember- It’s Temporary!
Remember to affirm to yourself that the feelings of stress and frustration you’re having are the pains of transition and not a reflection of the love you have for your kids! New elements of summer hit your households– school work has ceased, siblings are together more, bedtime and wake times shift, and your entire family needs to adjust. By constantly restating that transition to the new ways of summer is occurring, you hopefully will reframe your current reality and not be powerless, fearful, or hopeless in your reactions to the changes going on in your household. The positive byproduct of your reframing will be teaching your children that change does not come seamlessly.
We hope these tips are helpful to you! What are your favorite ways to empower your summer?