Summer Survival Tips

By Elisa Medhus, M.D.

If you’re anything like me, you look forward to the summer months with a mix of excitement and dread. On the one hand, you can’t wait to have your babies nearby so you can scoop them up and smother them with hugs and kisses whenever your maternal instincts fire up. On the other hand, you’re biting your nails wondering how many weeks (or days) will go by before they start running you ragged, counting the days (or minutes) until the school year peels them off your fraying nerves.

Summer doesn’t have to be the schizophrenic experience it often is. In fact, it can be a time to strengthen bonds, impart values and skills, and get to know each other in ways that have nothing to do with homework, getting ready in the morning, and sniffing exhaust fumes in the carpool line. Here are some tips that will help both you and your children grow, not crumble, from the three-month experience that we’ve come to regard with such mixed emotions:

Spend valuable time with your children
Without homework hassles, after school activities, and a 7-hour school day taking a chunk out of the day, what better opportunity to deepen the bond between you and your children. You can take walks, go on camp outs, or engage in any activity that allows quality one-on-one time together. Set aside one day a week as your “Buddy Day” for each child. A 30-minute trip to the ice cream parlor can do wonders for your relationship, giving you an opportunity to exchange thoughts, impart values, and share stories in a judgment-free setting. Think up a secret saying and handshake to make your time together more unique, although keep this little extra to the 12 and below age group, lest you be accosted by rolling eyeballs.

Put a little anarchy in your children’s life
After an entire school year enduring a highly structured existence, it’s time to unleash your children into an unstructured one. I’m not talking about responsibility-free chaos where they’re allowed to commit mutiny and turn the entire household upside down. I’m talking about free time to cavort with neighborhood friends, play with siblings, and meet new friends in the park. During free-play, life isn’t spoon-fed to children. It gives them the opportunity to acquire valuable social skills like compromise, conflict resolution, negotiation, and sharing.

Put a little reflection in your children’s life
Resist the urge to rescue your children from boredom. Encourage them to take time to daydream about their goals, values, past experiences, or even trivial things like picking the lint out of their belly buttons. Such reflection helps their brains expand in ways they haven’t in other settings.

Prevent your children’s minds from slipping into a coma
When we suddenly have children underfoot, it’s easy to succumb to the hypnotic lure of electronic babysitters, because these affix their attention on video games, televisions, and computer monitors, not on making a mess from one end of the house to the other. There’s nothing like a child with that glazed look in his eyes and drool coursing down one side of his mouth as an indication that your life, for the moment, is going to be a breeze. But children need to expand their minds and test the boundaries of their imaginations, not put these into hibernation mode. That said, limit passive entertainment to no more than one hour a day.

Keep the momentum
It’s easy for kids to lose the ground they’ve gained during the school year, so try to preserve those academic gains throughout the summer. Visit your local library so your children can select books to read. Some libraries even have summer reading contests. Establish a “family reading hour” when non-readers have stories read to them and readers sits quietly with a favorite book. Math facts can be reviewed in entertaining ways too. For instance, bounce a basketball while calling out a multiplication fact. Your child can get a point every time he catches the ball and answers correctly. Spelling bees can have a “Mother May I” format. Old school assignments can be reviewed while snuggling together on a sofa.

Build skills
Summer is an ideal time for your children to learn a new skill: woodworking, karate, guitar, sign language — whatever suits their fancy. If you share the same interests, you can even learn a skill together!

Establish healthier habits
Instill healthy eating habits in your children: stock the kitchen with healthy snacks like fruits, yogurt, whole grain crackers, low fat cheeses, etc. Keep trips to fast food restaurants to a minimum. If they’re old enough, involve them in the planning and preparation of healthy family meals.

Establish goals and priorities
Summer is an ideal time to reflect on family and individual values and priorities. Open-ended questions can guide children to ponder their own, but you can also share yours as well, as long as you don’t come off as didactic or preachy. From 8 years old on up, children can, with your guidance, develop a written life plan that outlines short, medium and long-term goals for areas in their lives that are relevant to their age: career and finance, health and wellness, mental health and education, family and home, society and culture, and spirituality and ethics.

Ease the transition
A few weeks prior to the start of school, try to find who your younger children’s classmates will be so you can arrange play dates with them. It helps ease the pain to know they won’t be met by a room full of strangers on the first day. Inspire eagerness in your summer-weary troops by shopping for backpacks, school supplies, and school clothes. As long as the teachers aren’t disturbed in their frantic rush to ready their classrooms, visit the school a few days in advance so your children can peek inside. Some teachers will even welcome help preparing the room for the year ahead.

By following these guidelines, parenting will become a joy, not an overwhelming burden. And summer will no longer be that time of the year when your feet swell, your hair frizzes, your body melts, and your kids seem determined to send you down the short path to the nut house. Instead, it becomes that time of year when your feet swell, your hair frizzes, your body melts, and your kids renew your faith in motherhood.