Schools out
May 28, 2009 by Marci
Today is the first day of summer break in our house. I have been looking forward to it for a while now. There is only so much getting up too early, driving back and forth to school, packing lunches and shelling out cash every 3 days for various fundraisers one can take! I, also, look forward to summer as a reset button for our family. Summer is the time where we are together the most, so it is the time where we can really learn about each other and figure out where we all fit in this family. However, we can’t do that if we are scheduled to the gills and BUSY!
A couple years ago, I bought into the lie that our kids should never be bored and needed scheduled activities outside the home to make the summer go smoothly. I enrolled my daughter in a week of bible school, 3 weeks of day camp, 2 weeks with the grandparents, swimming lessons, T-ball… and she was only 6!! Halfway through the 2nd week of day camp she told me with tears in her eyes “I just wanna stay home with you!” That was it. Right then I figured out that instead of helping her, all these activites were hurting her. None of them by themselves was bad, but all together they were too much. The sad thing is that of her friends she was the most unscheduled kid around!
After that summer, I started paring down our activities. I realized overtime that the more we were home together the more peaceful our family became. It opened up time for spontaneous family outings and conversations. We had more time to teach responsibility and the concept of privileges over entitlement. I found out that bored kids are creative kids. When there is nothing to do, they are forced to find something to do! I have discovered that when the kids argue and fight, its not a time to go in screaming and yelling and breaking it up by sending them each to their rooms. It is an opportunity to teach us all to get along. Its much easier to do this when we don’t have to rush off to the next camp or lesson.
I am looking forward to this summer. We have just a few plans: Bible school, softball once a week and trips to the grandparents. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan on sitting at home the whole summer and I look forward to the kids spending some time with the grandparents. I just want trips to the park or the pool or the zoo or to Grandma’s to be treats and not just the next thing on the schedule.
What are your summer plans? Are you going to be BUSY?
For some great creative summer activities for the kids visit Ann Kroeker’s blog for some ideas and links.
Comments (2)
Amen to that!
AMEN Marci! It will be nice not to have to get up early in the morning and rush to get the kids to school. I am with you on the doing too much. Been there, tried that! My kids seem to come home after those types of things forgetting the rules, fighting, expecting more, etc. We will do a few things that are already planned but in between it will be a treat/surprise!