Adventures in Parenting

It’s summer! Free to do whatever we want – go to the beach, sleep in late, hang out with friends.

But inevitably at the end of summer, we look back over the last months and say, “Oh, I wanted to __________(fill in the blank) but I didn’t have enough time!”

Not enough time?? You’ve had almost 3 months of freedom to do whatever you want!

The trouble is, when there is too much freedom, we have no discipline. We fail to use our time well.

While summer is great for kids to have time off, we do need to organize the use of our time. I don’t believe in packing your summer full with classes and camps. However, we need to set mini goals for each week so that we don’t neglect to do the things we want to do while time slips away from us with undisciplined sleep, video game playing, and TV watching.

Goal setting each week not only helps your children get important things done, but it also gives them a feeling of accomplishment. At the end of the summer, they can be proud of using their time wisely and all they were able to get done.

I’ve found that there more chance of being to meet our goals if the mix in some fun stuff to do. We put in the tough ones such as read 30 minutes a day, clean your room, etc. Then we also have items such as try a new recipe this week, have a vegetarian day, look through the yearbook from 2 years ago, etc.

Summer is the time to do all those things you’ve been putting off. Don’t merely let it slip by.