Five Tips to Help Families to Have an Amazing Summer

1. Create a structure–Structure can be a critical component to ensure a fantastic summer.  Many people don’t think much about a structure for summer since they are just so happy to have survived the school year, but having a structure provides many benefits to both kids and adults.  First off, when children have mood disruptions, sleep difficulties, or often are taking a medication having a solid overall structure with set times for bedtime, waking up, times to complete “must do’s” such as chores or errands, times to take medication, etc. help kids tremendously since this type of structure can help with sleep, mood and medication compliance.  For children on medication, a child’s physician can give great information regarding if medication times can or should be adjusted during summer since this is individualized for each child.  Often providing slight changes such as adjusting bedtime a half hour later is not a huge change but a parent can monitor their child to look for positive and negative changes, but some children will start staying up throughout much of the night, which can disrupt their mood and behavior in summer and also make it a lot more difficult to transition into a new school year after summer.  In addition, every year I meet with so many families who talk about how the summer “got away” from them and they didn’t get to do near as many fun things as they had planned.  I believe this is often due to not putting some structure in place. 

 

2. Review expectations–Reviewing expectations can be a very important part of summer.  Not only does having a family meeting at the beginning of summer create an opportunity to reset and check-in, it also creates the chance to reestablish some things that may have fallen to the wayside.  I know many children who expect that their summer is a time for them to not have a bedtime and play video games all day.  I find that parents view summer activities and responsibilities differently, but without having a conversation (with possibly some visuals) kids and parents are not communicating which can lead to a lot of disagreement during the summer.  The more clear parents can be regarding a summer structure, expectations for behaviors and chores, and limits on privileges and how they are earned the more children and parents can have a great summer.

 

3. Create time for fun and family engagement–Summer is for fun!  Having activities planned and on the calendar such as family vacations, day trips, beach days, play dates, etc. can really increase the excitement for summer.  Having discussions about activities and putting them on the calendar can be great since often a part of the enjoyment for summer activities is the anticipation of what is to come.  It also can be really important to ask children what they would like to do for fun over the summer.  Sometimes children have ideas that are not feasible, but many times children come up with great ideas for fun activities and events.

 

4. Get outdoors–The research is clear that spending time outdoors and in nature is therapeutic in and of itself.  Find ways to create “green time” versus screen time.  People who spend time in nature such as in parks and by bodies of water have been found to have many health benefits including boosted immunity, better sleep and better mood.  Creating nature experiences for children when they are young that involve time in nature and away from electronics is also a good model that can be helpful for children’s development.

 

5. Have time to relax and recharge–As much as I have talked here about structure and expectations it is also very important to create times to relax and recharge.  This can be down times and times to engage in old hobbies or enjoyable activities that were not possible during the school year and also time to try new things such as new hobbies, games and activities.  

 

I am proud to say that Quest has a focus in all 5 of these areas, which to me is a part of why so many of the hundreds of kids that have attended our program have had such great summers. It can be important to have a delicate balance of these five areas and that balance may look a little different for each family, but I find that with thoughtfulness and intention it is possible to make summers truly remarkable.  Wishing you and your family a truly memorable and fun summer!