This was going to be yet another griping entry. The summer schedule I planned so carefully is simply not working. The kids are bored, I’m exhausted, and we’re all too housebound. I was all set to complain about it in detail when I was forced to go out in the back yard by the screaming of children. This turned out to be a good thing. The screams were happy screams because my kids were playing with the kids of my backyard neighbor. My neighbor was out there too. I realized that her summer seemed to be going much more smoothly than mine was and so I started asking questions trying to figure out what she was doing differently.
I’ve had the days structured wrong. I’ve been trying to have the mornings be times to be at home and get work done and then afternoons available for activities. This meant that at my most fatigued time of day I was trying to entertain kids who’d already played with all their toys and games all morning. Not only that, but it was taking forever to get the work actually done because the kids had no motivation to get it done quickly. So tomorrow I’m trying out a new plan. We get up and breakfast at 8 am. Then we do housework until 9:30. At 9:30 I leave the house for an outing with whichever kids are done with their work. These will be small outings to parks, libraries, museums with no admission fees, going for a walk, etc. Any small trip that gets us out of the house in a place that lets the kids see new things and run around. Kids who don’t finish their work have to stay home with daddy (who has to do his cartooning work in the mornings.) I think that will be sufficiently motivational. It will also mean that we come home ready for some down time and happy to play with the toys and games we have here.
I don’t know if this new plan will work. But I do know that something needs to change or I’ll go crazy with two months of summer left and zero trips planned.
Budgeting time is a lot like budgeting money – in both cases you want to spend it wisely and get as much “bang for your buck” as you can.
Here’s something you may want to try – let the kids take turns planning an outing or two – and maybe budgeting some of your other time, too.
Or, maybe you’ve already tried that.
I was pretty lucky. When my kids were small one of their favorite “outings” was taking a bus ride – almost anywhere – the longer, the better. We’d do this once every couple of weeks. We didn’t do daily outings, just maybe once or twice a week – usually to the park or the library. Oh, and the grocery store every couple of days. Everything was within a mile and a half so the walk tired us all out and dissipated some excess energy.
Best of luck – however you work it out.
Talk again soon – meantime, be good.
Sounds like a good plan. I’ve noticed my outings with Alex go better when we take them in the morning, too.
Your summer problems and mine are two totally different things but I do understand the problems with kids and summer! I hope you get things worked out.