With summer break coming before we blink, it’s best to be proactive to make summer less stressful. With all of the kids home from school, things will change a bit. Your schedule will need to be adjusted and your time will be more focused on parenting.
Today we’re sharing some mom hacks to make summer less stressful so that you and your kids can enjoy summer break.
Make a Schedule
Sit down with your family before summer break starts to develop a plan for the summer season. There may be places you want to visit or activities you want to do. Now is the time to start planning. Draft up a schedule with ideas from your spouse and kids.
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This will be a rough draft schedule that’s open to alterations as you get closer to summer break. This rough draft schedule will help your kids get excited about summer break while providing the family with a structure for the school vacation season.
Use Meetups
If you work from home you’ll surely need to find ways to keep your kids occupied with independent playtime during summer break. Consider using meetup sites to find local moms that want to do playdates. You can meet at the park to let the kids play while you open the laptop to get work done.
Another option with meetups is to exchange where you host playdates. Perhaps one mom is “in charge” of supervising the playdate one week while other moms take turns every week after. This can help you get some ‘free’ babysitters while giving your kids a chance to socialize.
Be Involved and Present
When you are enjoying a summer break activity with your family make sure to shut off all distractions. Being involved and present during the family activities will help your kids thrive. Their emotional needs will be met, therefore they’ll be less apt to bug you while you’re trying to get other tasks completed.
Be careful not to overschedule the family so that you can be mindful during your family activities. Many parents suffer from squirrel brain, as we like to call it, where they’re so overwhelmed that they’re simply not mentally present while participating in family activities.
Get Chores Assigned
Using popsicle sticks and a cup with a chart you can easily assign chores for your kids’ summer break. Make sure every kid knows what’s expected of them and which chores are their responsibility. You can enlist the older kids to keep an eye on their younger siblings during chore time, too.
Using chores to keep your kids occupied during summer vacation will help save you some time and ensure your kids are learning an important life skill. Kids who grow up having responsibilities end up being more responsible, independent kids when they venture out into adulthood.
These are just of the many mom hacks to make summer less stressful. We wanted to feature a handful of easy ways to be more mindful as a parent this summer plus keeping the stress down so that you can enjoy this quality time with your kids every summer season.