Thursday, July 02, 2009

Don't Over-Schedule your Summer and Family

Allow for an adequate amount of free time this summer and be flexible. It's not your job to entertain your children every minute of every day. Empower them to think of possibilities and to be creative.

Richard Carlson Ph.D, states in his book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Family, "Children who have too many opportunities, choices, scheduled activities, and things to do are often the ones who are the most susceptible to boredom." He adds, "You'll be doing your kids a tremendous favor by teaching them that there's nothing wrong with not having something to do every minute of every day."

What about you? I admit, I'm keeping my kids pretty busy this summer, but we do have down time, too. I find that if I don't plan ahead for certain activities, they just won't get on the calendar. I also love last minute surprises and I can be flexible. Yesterday as a special treat, I took the kids to see Ice Age 3. Swim lessons were cancelled because of the cold!

4 comments:

Shanoy Coombs said...

Hey i really like this. Its short, but speaks volume. In fact, I made a link to your page over at my blog http://jamaicanmommies.blogspot.com. Keep up the good work.

Shan

Journey on! by Kelleye said...

Oh Paula! This is great! I can't begin to tell you how wise this advice is..... This summer makes 13 summers of where I have booked/scheduled my 4 children in constant VBS, Camps, various summer rec's, family vactions etc... Only did I realize TODAY- that I had nurtured such issues once summer-time arrives! This will be the first summer- our lives came to a screaching hault and all activities had to be canceled due to loss of a job- guess what? The kids Can't Comphrehend... and what have I created? A tremendous disservice to them- in previously not doing the above! I am blog-visiting not posting- be back around when I can! Happy Summer!

Creative Junkie said...

I used to enroll my kids in camps all the time and try to have most of their summer scheduled but ... it's exhausting! And expensive! So now, since we have a pool, their summer is free. I figure they're old enough to entertain themselves - I mean, I survived my summers when I was young and I never went to camp!

Arlice Nichole said...

This is good advice because I can stress out. I have this thing about making sure we have a good ole fashioned summer. And now that I think about it, quiet nights, listening to crickets on the porch or doing absolutely nothing-lazy summer days, is very classic.

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