Setting yourself up for summer success may take more than a day, so I want to encourage you to stick with your morning routines every day this week! I know I’ve talked about this before, but if you can take time to read the Bible and have family devotions with your children each day, it will help immensely! Once we’re already working on the daily routines, we can plan a great summer break, and jump into the fun activities!
Again, I want you to challenge yourself to do one fun activity with your family every single day this month! Maybe it doesn’t seem difficult right now. To me, it seemed so doable before I actually had to do it.
Yesterday, I had a plan—we were going to play “Twister” outside on the trampoline. It sounded like a lot of laughs to me! But suddenly, it got really hot and humid out and I knew that my husband would come out of that hot factory like a sun chip and would not want to be outside when he got home. I had to think fast and adjust…which is not something I’m great at.
We came up with a plan to have a “paint night.” (That’s been on my list of to-dos since April!) Okay, plan in place. But as I was preparing dinner, my kids started annoying me to death! “What’s for supper?” times four. “Can I have candy?” times four. “What can I eat then? I’m so hungry!” Seriously. Dinner was less than ten minutes from being done! By the time I got dinner on the table, I just wanted to go to bed!
Nevertheless, the last thing I want to be here is a hypocrite. So, I asked myself, “Who misses out if I quit? ON DAY ONE!” And I barreled through. Let me tell you, it was WORTH IT! We had so much fun and my husband said to me, “Thank you for this! This was so much fun!” My kids enjoyed it and for almost a full hour, there was no bickering, arguing, and truly, our dining room was filled with the sounds of encouraging each other about their paintings. It may not always go this way, but the point is that this time, this first time, there was a major reward in pushing through!
Look at this art we came up with! The one in the lower right corner is my six-year-old’s. She has never followed a tutorial before and obviously, I’m a little biased, but I loved how hers turned out!
I know that life gets busy; life happens…even now, when things have been canceled due to Coronavirus. And sometimes, it’s hard to think of things to do. Maybe one child wants to do one thing and another wants to do something else and all this is really doing is causing fights!
What’s a mom to do?!
Here are Five Steps to Follow to Plan a Great Summer Break:
- Take the time to look at your schedule. Do you have a schedule? I hope so. If not, you need one! (I can help you with this! Check it out!) When can you fit in a fun activity? The amount of time you have to give to this may dictate the type of activity you do. On the other hand, the days that have fewer things in the schedule can allow for more creativity.
Look at your schedule for the entire week so you can plan your summer break more easily.
- Brainstorm some fun activities with your children. A family brainstorming session can be fun and hilarious! Remind your kids that there are no wrong answers (though some things are not doable, it will help you get inside those minds that might be SO DIFFERENT from yours!) Once you come up with some great and doable ideas, figure out which ones will take more time than others and plug them into your schedule.
Having these planned a full week at a time will help with the biggest part of the battle–getting it in your head that this is going to happen!
- Get the supplies you need. Make a shopping list—maybe you need cornstarch and sidewalk chalk to make that puffy sidewalk paint. Maybe you need the ingredients to bake and frost rainbow cupcakes. Or, maybe you need to get some groceries to plan a special meal. Whatever you have on your list for the week, plan ahead so you have the ingredients and/or supplies you need!
Hint: If something on your list requires more “specialized” materials, order them now so you can throw that into your schedule soon!
- Prepare! Moms, this is something I did not learn until my third child! This is absolutely key! When I teach pre-school, we prep all the projects ahead of time so that there are only a few steps for each child to complete. With young children, you get their attention for only a few minutes if you are planning a project. So prepping the project ahead of time is key.
If you are like me and have both older and younger children to include, you’ll have to be a bit more creative with some of these activities. Even the activity of jumping on the trampoline is difficult because my youngest daughter has trouble keeping her balance with other people jumping around her. It can be difficult to figure out games that she can play; movies that both the older and the younger kids will enjoy; and the list goes on. Never fear though! Tomorrow, I’ll have a list of activities that are family-friendly for all ages to get you going on your family fun! In the meantime, be creative in how you can include older and younger children.
One of the best ways is to pair up an older child with the younger child to help complete a project. Or, you may have a child who loves to help out in the kitchen. You can include your older children in the prep—for example, they can help make puffy sidewalk paint and then all of your children can paint. I have found that when my older sons help prepare an activity, they are also more likely to want to try it out. That’s how you get “buy-in” from older kids!
- Be intentional! This is going to be easy for one day…and probably only one day. Again, life will throw you curveballs and it will be easy for that pile of dishes, or those loads of laundry to take priority. Remember my questions from yesterday though:
“Why am I doing this?”
“What excites me about this?”
“Who misses out if I quit?”
“What do I miss out on if I quit?”
I know you’re probably asking, “Is this even doable?” I think we can all agree that we have done FAR more difficult things! Sure, there may be days when you don’t want to do any of this, but it’s 30 days! We can do anything for 30 days. Don’t quit! Commit! When your son is talking to his wife about the childhood you provided, do you want him to say, “Well, we didn’t really do a lot of fun things, but we always had clean dishes and clothes.”? I mean, as noble as it sounds (and as necessary as those things are), it’s just not likely that they are going to think that way! Instead, wouldn’t it be great if your children could say, “We had SO MUCH FUN when we were kids!”
Let’s do this! Get out your schedule and plan the rest of your great summer break!