Thursday, July 14, 2011

Kids Take over the Summer!

My children are 12, 10 and 7. This is the first Summer that I have been really challenged. At this age, they are HIGH maintenance! It takes a whole lot more to keep them entertained. The very first day that they had break, they were "bored". What I realized quickly was that I cannot fault them for this. They are used to having a full schedule so naturally, idleness would be incredibly BORING! Here's what I have found so far. Their capacity for entertainment is endless. Meaning, there is NO such thing as too much fun. So, first I tried jam packing a day with tons of activities. They could have kept going, I was completely exhausted. I pondered a way to make this work better for all of us. We can have one main event per day, not necessarily every day of the week. Also, in order to do said fun activities, they will need to pay the piper (that would be me) by reading a certain amount of time per day. They still have their bored moments, but my go-to is "if you are bored, read a book!" Either way, most of what I personally am interested in doing is on the back burner for my children, at least for the Summer. These are the sacrifices we make, and I wouldn't have it any other way! :-)