Surviving Summer!

As soon as Spring Break is over and the air starts getting a little warmer, everyone starts itching for school to be done and Summer break to begin. As a mom of 4, I remember the feeling of excitement welling up in me, but if I’m honest, there was also a sense of dread wondering what in the world I was going to do all day long with 4 kiddos…all. day. every. day. all. Summer. long. So, knowing how I don’t necessarily always like routine, but need routine, I came up with some ways for us to not only survive the Summer, but to thrive through Summer. It has worked for us. This will be our third Summer doing it. It is helpful for me and it’s helpful for my kids. They love it! We are flexible, yet structured and we all know what to expect. It works for my 10 year old, as well as my 3 year old.

Here are some tips and some insights into what we do:

     1. DIVIDE YOUR DAY INTO CATEGORIES

Here’s what I mean by that. We have 6 different things we do every single day. We don’t spend the same amount of time on each thing, every day, nor are they equal during the day. You can customize to your own needs and make however many you want. We have 6. They are QUIET TIME, CHORES, LEARNING TIME, FREE PLAY, TV TIME, and OUTSIDE TIME. I’ll let the kids pick which one they want to start with. Maybe they’re eating breakfast and have turned on the tv. If they’ve gotten involved in a show or movie, I’ll ask them if they want this to be their tv time. If they say yes, we hang the TV TIME sign up. If they say no, we turn the tv off and they pick what they want to do. The non-negotiable is QUIET TIME because that ones is always after lunch so my little man can get his nap. The older kids use that time to read or play quietly, by themselves, in their rooms. They will usually migrate into each others rooms but I, honestly, don’t care what they do as long as they are quiet and leave me alone. QUIET TIME could also be called “Leave Momma alone so she can be nice the rest of the day, time”. FREE play is exactly what it says. They can choose to play dress up or cars or house or school or whatever in the world they want! CHORES is a time where we all do chores. I will tell more about that one, in a minute, but I will say, my kids love CHORES time. Crazy, I know! LEARNING TIME consists of Summer reading, maybe math buddies, if they have it (Our school does a program on the computer called Math Buddies to practice and enhance their math skills. There are required assignments over the Summer.) It may even consist of a bigger sibling reading to the youngest sibling, who can’t read, himself. Obviously, this one doesn’t last for 4 hours. TV TIME is exactly what it says. I try not to let this one last for too long at one period of time, but we usually have this one a couple times throughout the day. TV time usually comes first thing in the morning and then we may have TV time again, before dinner when I’m starting to cook or we need to just chill a little bit before Daddy gets home. OUTSIDE TIME means playing something outside. We have a pool so we spend a lot of hours outside. Sometimes we even cut QUIET TIME shorter, for the big kids who are awake, and sneak outside for some more OUTSIDE TIME. There is no specific order and there is no set timing, but we do go through all six categories every single day! When Daddy gets home, the papers go away! There’s no CHORES or LEARNING or QUIET time routine when Daddy is home. We play all together and spend time doing what he wants to do with us!

This is what it looks like in our house. I know, it’s super fancy! This is easy and totally doable, and up until about 5 minutes ago, these were hand written on a piece of paper. I will probably even draw a little picture on each one so my 3 year old will know what they say. (No, I’m not showing you the drawings because I am NOT an artist!)

2. CHORE STICKS

I love mason jars. I use them for decorations, flower vases, drinking glasses, chore sticks….everything! I wasn’t kidding when I said my kids love CHORES time. We sat down together and came up with some fun chores for them to help out with. I wrote them all on big popsicle sticks and we put them in a mason jar. During chores time, they get to pick a stick and complete that task. When they’re done with it, they can pick another…until CHORES time is over. I do have a few chores that have a rubber band around them. Those are ones they have to do first, every day…

They are: Make bed, put clothes away, and pick up and put away toys. Those are the things they are expected to do no matter what. The other chores are just extra!

You can come up with chores that fit your house, your family, ages of your kids and your lifestyle, but here are some of ours: sweep floors, water plants, sweep front porch, sweep back patio, clean out van (You know most of the junk in there is theirs anyway!), clean mirrors, wipe off sink and counters/hang towels, take out garbage, organize pool toys, wipe window sills, clean under beds and couches (Just whatever they can grab that has been stuffed under there!), clean up playroom, organize books….. If it involves spraying something on to a cloth, they’ll love it and it’s even more fun if you have a swiffer sweeper or mop or some machinery they can operate. Even if you have 2-3 year olds, you can give them a wipe and have them wipe baseboards or wipe cabinets that are low. It’s super important to teach them they can clean too! Their future wives and husbands will thank you!

 

3. REWARD THEIR BEHAVIOR

Let’s be honest. Even in your grown up job, if you have one, you work for praise. However, if there is a bonus involved, you are going above and beyond to do your best! Rewards drive us! Before Summer even starts, we come up with a list, at dinner, with Daddy involved, as well. Our list does not consist of things that are expensive–a trip to Schlitterbahn is not a reward for behavior. Our list usually consists of things like: camping out in the living room, getting a snow cone or going out for ice cream, movie night with popcorn, have a friend spend the night (for the older kids), ice cream sundaes, sleepovers in each other’s room, making a fort and leaving it up for a week….

The way we keep track of rewarding is with a mason jar and marbles. We do not reward expected behavior. My kids do not get marbles if they take their plate from the table to the sink or brush their teeth or say yes ma’am and no ma’am. That is expected behavior. We put marbles in the jar when they are being extra nice to each other or do all their chores without complaining about anything. They get marbles when they don’t fight with each other. They get marbles when they do things without being asked to. We usually give a big handful of marbles for things so it doesn’t take a month to fill the jar. (If you have a smaller jar, that is probably better. Kids work better with quick results. They’ll stop trying if it’s taking too long.) We usually try to fill the jar within the week and get to pick something fun for the weekend. We do NOT remove marbles for negative behavior. Let’s be real. If we did that, we’d never fill the jar. We are trying to keep things positive over here!

Here is what our marble jar looks like. You can use anything, really. These aren’t actual marbles but I think they were used in a plant at one time. Use whatever you have laying around your house. Once again, we may put in 10 marbles for something because it would take a long time to fill this jar if we used one at a time. Maybe I’ll try to find a smaller jar, this year.

4. HAVE KITCHEN HOURS

For your sanity, and your grocery bill, have kitchen hours. Somehow they make it through the school year, just fine, without eating all day, but as soon as it’s Summer, they could be in the kitchen literally ALL day eating all of the groceries you just bought! Last year, I decided to make kitchen hours. From the time they get up, they can take their time getting breakfast, but the kitchen will close at 10:00. They aren’t allowed to eat, again, until lunch time. Then, the kitchen will shut down after lunch and they have to wait until 3:00 for a snack. If they haven’t gotten a snack by 4, they don’t get one because they won’t eat supper if they’re snacking at 4:00. Call me crazy, and do what you want, but this works for us. They are fed, they actually eat my meals because they haven’t been snacking all day, and I’m happy because my groceries last a few days instead of one!

Let me, also say, I do not do any of these things (categories, chore sticks, marbles for behavior…) throughout the school year. That is why they are so effective over the Summer. It isn’t old hat. It feels new every time we begin again and it’s exciting every time!

I will wrap up with some fun ways to beat the heat this Summer! Family fun does NOT have to cost a fortune! It’s all about being creative and making memories with your children! Begin planning now and get yourself organized to have a fun-filled, somewhat structured Summer!!!