It would be great if everyone could say that summertime is fun for children and parents alike. However, the reality can sometimes be quite different, especially for parents who haven’t prepared themselves for having their kids around all day during the summer vacation. After all, aside from entertaining and taking care of their children, parents also have their own adult responsibilities as well as personal needs. That said, even though the whole process may be challenging and definitely not 100% perfect, organizing and scheduling your summer activities in advance can help you make some wonderful memories as a family, with less stress and exhaustion.
You need a weekly plan
In order to make sure that you can actually organize and schedule various activities for both you and your kids, you need to create a proper plan. Essentially, it’s important to have visual presentation of what you have to do. Therefore, don’t hesitate to print out blank calendar pages as this type of calendar will be the most useful during the vacation. First enter all the activities, deadlines, business meetings, etc. that are already planned into the calendar. In order to keep track of everything, weekly calendars tend to work the best. Once you do that, you can easily see when the free time for organizing kid activities and fun time is, so that you can proceed to do just that.
(Re)discover your summer goals
There are plenty of different summer goals that you can set for both yourself and your kids. Moreover, you can look forward to accomplishing something together as a family. However, the point here is to take things easy and slowly, especially if you’re thinking about your own professional goals. With vacation season at work and school, things can get rather difficult when it comes to your productivity and efficiency. Therefore, have fun with goal setting. It doesn’t have to be something big in order to make you feel fulfilled. In the end, you may want to visit a certain place with your kids (there’s so much to see in the Land Down Under after all), work with them on a specific skill, eat more fruit at work, etc. After all, summer is the perfect time to get into the relaxed mood when it comes to accomplishing little yet meaningful goals in our lives.
Plan out daily activities
When you live in the city of beaches, it’s not that difficult to find the time to enjoy the setting to the fullest with your family. However, you obviously don’t want to do just that all summer. With your calendars and schedules in front of you, you can do your best to come up with daily activities for your kids, even when you’re not participating actively with them. For instance, there are plenty of interesting summer activities for both indoors and outdoors that will keep your kids busy. So, make sure to check them out for more ideas.
However, it is important to make sure that your kids aren’t cranky and moody, especially when they’re playing inside. Hot summer weather can be even more difficult to endure when inside, luckily there are many technicians for air conditioning in Sydney ready to make your home as comfortable as possible for both you and your kids. Sometimes, the way your kids behave is hugely affected by their level of comfort. When they play outside, feel free to let them get dirty. This is beneficial for the kids both physically and mentally.
Childcare during the summer
You don’t have to keep the kids at home during the whole summer vacation. Also, don’t be afraid to add your own fun plans to the calendar that don’t include your kids. With all that, you can find and organize child care such as some really unique and interesting summer camps that your kids will actually love. Don’t hesitate to talk to them about this either. On the other hand, this will give you enough time to notify their grandparents and see when the kids can spend some time with them, too. Finally, for dates when you have something planned with your own friends or partner, you’ll be able to find the babysitter in time. It’s all about organization and keeping track of those vacation months.
Remember that you’ll have to make the most of the decisions. This is especially true if you have more than one kid. In order to avoid sibling arguments when it comes to the fun places/attractions/games/etc. make sure to know exactly what to suggest. If you constantly leave it to your kids to decide where to go and what to do, the chances are they’ll spend too much time bickering and deciding. It’s perfectly fine to ask them what they want to do over the summer in order to learn what their own goals are to help achieve them, but you still need to leave little room for moodiness.