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TRANSCRIPT
Mom’s Summer Survival Guide
10 Tips To Keep Your Sanity By Debbi Witt
10 SUMMER SURVIVAL TIPS FOR MOMS
Ah, Summer!
The kids are excited about being out of
school. . . for the first week. Sounds
increase in the house during the second
week of summer. Fighting and arguing
among your precious ones commences
and you are ready to tear your hair out.
Over and over, you hear, “I’m bored.”
Over and over, you hear,
“I’m bored.”
Here are ten tips on making this the best
summer you have ever experienced. It
might take a little planning and executing
these ideas but it will be well worth it. You
can keep sanity in your home and enrich
your children’s lives while strengthening
your family.
Involve the kids in making a calendar of
what you will do during this summer.
Don’t worry about the details and if things
don’t go as planned, sit back and laugh as
a family.
Laugh as a family.
This is the time when your
family has more flexibility due
to the longer days of sunshine
and your children’s freed up
schedules. There is no
homework to complete, no
schedules to meet and some
flexibility to how your days will
pass. You can plan lots of fun
and learning experiences.
Take time to be outdoors.
There are many things you can
do without leaving home.
Take time to be
outdoors.
One thing to remember! You are not a
cruise director. You need to enlist the help
of everyone in the family in the planning
process. I understand you can’t keep up
with all your duties and expect to play all
day.
Assign the children age appropriate tasks
around the home so you all can play
together, building memories. You’ll be
amazed at ideas the kids come up with and
how they will be enthusiastic about putting
the “plan” together.
Have fun! Now, go build some memories!!
Go build some
memories!!
A note about those pesky teens ~ They
will enjoy this summer too. Give them
responsibility for planning a day for the
family. Have them develop a plan,
budget, and schedule for a family event.
This will not only teach responsibility, but
develop their leadership skills. Who
knows, maybe they will become class
president and take these skills learned at
home and apply to school leadership.
Develop leadership
skills.
Keep It Family Oriented!
Let the kids plan and execute a picnic in the
backyard. Set up a tent and have a sleep out. (It’s
really special if you join them in the tent.) Plant a
vegetable garden; there is nothing better than
fresh vegetables on the table. Meet Dad in a
designated park after work and have a picnic
complete with bat and ball to play a family game of
baseball. Let the kids make a menu, cook, and
serve a meal, in a “restaurant” they name. Lie
down together in the yard and watch clouds drift
by, naming shapes you each see. Tell stories after
dark in the backyard. Have them write a script and
film a family movie to send to grandma. Host a
“Favorite Quiz” – “What is ....’s favorite color (TV
show, food, etc)?” Kids ask parents; parents ask
kids. How well do you know each other?
SURVIVAL TIP # 1
SURVIVAL TIP # 2
Keep ‘em Learning!
Trips to the library are in order. Scan the books
on your shelves at home; have they been read?
Create a challenge and make a chart for everyone
in the family to take part in a reading program.
Think of awards. After a designated number of
books assigned to their appropriate age are
completed, they receive a reward. Set a family
goal and when that goal is met, everyone goes out
to a special pizza place or your family’s special
restaurant. Make it fun! Choose books together
that open up a new world of animals, bugs, places,
humor, or whatever is especially interesting to your
family.
Here’s a wild idea - Turn off the TV in the evening
and read TOGETHER!
Science Centers are full of hands-on fun. Take
advantage of the one in your city. Forts and zoos
are fun. Kids love to visit the dinosaurs in the
museum. Learn a foreign language together.
Begin with words like please, thank you, good-by,
etc. and use them all week.
SURVIVAL TIP # 3
Develop A Giving Attitude.
Show your kids how to think of others year round,
not just at holiday times. Do some crafting
together to prepare for visits to nursing homes,
grandparents, or members of your church and
community. Visit elderly people together. Serve in
a soup kitchen. Make homemade Christmas gifts
now to give later.
Show your kids how to rake a yard, walk
someone’s dog, clean flowerbeds, paint, or other
skills that would be a help to those who aren’t able
to accomplish those things anymore. Challenge
them to do something for someone in need each
week during the summer. Our family used to
clean a portion of highway near our home when I
was a kid, picking up bags of trash.
If you have the opportunity, engage the family in
missions whether it’s in your neighborhood,
through your church or through a foreign mission.
SURVIVAL TIP # 4
Take Mini Trips.
Maybe jobs or finances keep your family from
taking a vacation this summer. Don’t despair.
Take day trips to places around you. Check out
your city online and find many things you didn’t
know existed. There are places like the zoo,
various museums, historical monuments that you
have driven by a thousand times and never really
read. Find a boat rental place nearby and go
boating. Visit the courthouse. Go to your local
theme park and have a blast, riding the roller
coaster with your kids. Begin a search for the
best ice cream in town by visiting a different ice
cream store each week as a family and keeping
track of votes to determine which store wins by the
end of summer.
SURVIVAL TIP # 5
Go Back In History.
Visit grandma with a video camera and ask her
questions about her life.
Teach your kids games from the past; even if you
haven’t played them, look them up and learn
together. Marbles, jacks, Chinese jump rope, and
Statue and a host of other games you or your
parents played will fascinate them.
Find an old fashioned drive-in (where they used to
roller skate your meal to you) and order root beer
floats for everyone on a hot summer day.
Search for a full service gas station and let the kids
watch the attendant check the oil, fill the tank, and
wash your car windows. (Yes, you have to look
hard but there are some in the country that still
exist.)
SURVIVAL TIP # 6
Do The Unexpected!
Do the unexpected! Let the kids plan some way
out activities with you. Declare a Backwards Day
with dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner.
If you have certain tasks assigned each day in an
order, change it up.
Find a place to swim at night. Go on a night hike
as a family. If you are able, build a campfire on
your property and roast marshmallows. Sleep out
together, even in the treehouse if possible.
Cook dinner differently. Have your kids ever drunk
blue milk or eaten red pancakes? Maybe they can
help you construct some really scary spiders out of
salad items.
After everyone is in bed, perhaps wake them up
and take them outside to star gaze.
Unusual happenings are what memories are made
of. And next fall, when the teacher asks your child
what she did during summer vacation, she will tell
about midnight hikes and red pancakes. That will
get everyone’s attention!
SURVIVAL TIP # 7
Develop Spiritually.
Use the summer months to assign a
portion of scripture to everyone in the
family including mom and dad. Even the
little ones will enjoy this and they can do it.
Read the Bible together daily and challenge
each member of the family to come to the
dinner table with one question or comment
about what they’ve read that day. You can
read to the little ones or have any older
sibling assigned to read to them and
explain it.
Present the “Bible Memory Trophy” each
Friday to the one who memorized the
assignment first. The next week, the
trophy would be presented to someone
else.
Don’t forget to attend church as a family.
Summer is not a time to take off from
learning God’s Word.
SURVIVAL TIP # 8
Keep ‘em Active.
Take family bike rides. I recently saw a
family riding together in their cul-de-sac
and the littlest was using her walker. How
creative!
Go swimming. Better yet, sign them up for
swimming lessons. Host a neighborhood
Olympics or a backyard Bible club.
Electronics can be shelved for the summer
or at least given only certain hours of
operation.
Keep fit together! Develop a chart with
challenges for each member of the family
to complete. Simple challenges like how
many push-ups, jumping jacks, or sit-ups
can be accomplished by the end of the
summer.
SURVIVAL TIP # 9
Get Dad Involved
Don’t forget about Dad. Plan family
picnics, boating trips, fishing, or hikes on
Dad’s day off.
Chores that need to be done around the
property? Work as a family. I’m sure Dad
would appreciate the help and the company
while he works. Teens can mow. Little
ones can pull weeds. Everyone can rake or
stack firewood for the winter.
Dad can spend one-on- one time with each
child, taking them out for ice cream or
flying a kite.
Dad’s time off to build memories as a
family. .
SURVIVAL TIP # 10
Send ‘em To Camp
Camp is a great time for your kids to learn many
things and develop new friendships, many of
which will be life-long. They will meet other
students from other school districts,
neighborhoods, or other locations around the
U.S. It expands their world.
They learn independence in a safe and controlled
environment while trying new things that are not
available at home and they are introduced to new
challenges.
Camp breaks the monotony of summer. And
camp is just plain fun!!! Campers can totally let
down and act silly for a week without any
judgment from friends. Last, but not least. . .
You get a break for a week!
Teen Quest offers weeks and weekends
throughout the year for students to experience
fun while being challenged from the Word.
Check out the section about camping Teen Quest
offers at www.TeenQuest.org/Camps.
Use these ten tips for your summer survival and enjoy. The idea is not to make you worry
and fret that you are not doing enough. These are to help you.
Think up your own ideas of how to make your summer the best ever. You know your family
better than anyone else. Be creative! Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Definitely let the kids help you plan. As they plan and help you execute each activity, they
will take pride and develop leadership skills. It will mean more to them as they have a part
in the activity.
Make sure they are involved in household chores so you are free to enjoy these activities
with them.
If you’d like to share your own summer tips or stories of excitement or peril - feel free to
email me at [email protected].
Have a great summer and build some memories !!
Debbi Witt is a mother, grandmother and
the Camp Director for Teen Quest Camps.
She has been in youth ministry for over
40 years and has been involved in
organized camping for over 48 years.
Debbi and her husband, Mark founded
Teen Quest in 1976 to reach a world of
children and teens. Teen Quest now
ministers to thousands of students each
year. Mark & Debbi have two grown boys
and six grandchildren. You can eMail Debbi at [email protected]
To find out more about camps for your children or grandchildren contact us here: www.TeenQuest.org | 814.444.9500
ABOUT THE AUTHOR