Home-Centered Summer Activities

Ahhh, summer time! Warm sunny days…drinking iced tea…family vacations…what’s not to like? But perhaps that’s not your vision of summer at all. Maybe your family summer means bored, grumpy children. Maybe it means thousands of extra activities. Maybe it means an exhausting family vacation from which you have to take another vacation to recover! If any of these visions match your family, read on!

Summer is the perfect time to focus on family-centered activities that you might not have time for during the regular school year. Without the distraction of academics, you can work on craft projects, home businesses, and fun activities. It’s a great time to teach some special skills to your children as well as build some memories for a lifetime. Here are some ideas and tips to consider.

Take control of your schedule now. It’s too easy in the summer to think, “Oh, school’s out so of course we have time for that activity!” Next thing you know, your family is over-committed and exhausted. Don’t let that happen this summer. Make a calendar, decide how many outside activities you will do and stick to it. Schedule in days that are free of outside activities. Plan not only your vacation(s), but also plan in days before and after to pack up and recover. This will allow you more freedom to consider some of the family-building activities below.

Try a home business. What better way to teach your children skills like balancing a bank account, maintaining a schedule, working on a budget, and customer service skills? The possibilities are endless, as you consider what would work best for your family. There are businesses that even small children can help with and businesses that require a high school student’s abilities. Dog sitting, yard work, baking, and music teaching are easy businesses to start. If you prefer something more in-depth, you can try a multi-level marketing company such as Pampered Chef or Mary Kay products. Look at what your child’s interests and abilities are and help him or her come up with a way to market those skills.

Read aloud together. Some of my best childhood memories are centered around our family’s read-aloud times. Studies show that parents who read aloud to their children help develop their children’s reading skills. And when your children get to read aloud to you, they can be motivated to become better readers. Let each person pick a book to read aloud and take turns. This isn’t a time for criticism (other than maybe occasional help in pronouncing a word), but rather just for fun. Help your children associate reading with fun family time. It may be too hard for the people not reading to sit still, so come up with some quiet handwork to be done during the read-aloud time – puzzles, sewing, crocheting, drawing, wood carving, legos, tinker toys, etc.

Check out some nearby educational sites. Rather than waiting for someone to organize a field trip during the school year, take your kids this summer! Museums, battlefields, zoos, nature trails, you name it. Pack a picnic lunch if you want to save some money and eat at a nearby park. When you visit these places as a family rather than in a big group, you have the opportunity to go more slowly and focus on what your children are interested in.

Learn a new skill as a family. Take lessons together and encourage each other as you learn. This could be anything from sewing to singing to rocket-building! Get books on the subject, read about it online, go to some classes. Let your children see that you’re interested in learning too, and they will be encouraged to learn more themselves. And who knows, this could be the start of a new favorite activity. (This is how my sister and I wound up becoming professional harpists, by the way!)

Complete a big home project. Clean out the garage. Paint the living room. Plant a garden. Remodel a bathroom. Get your kids involved in these activities. Someday they will own their own homes and these skills will come in handy. Teach them how to clean properly, how to remodel, how to build, how to garden – basically, teach them good stewardship of property. They may or may not enjoy these “chores” now, but will thank you some day when they have their own homes to maintain.

Let this be a summer of fun and productive family time. I hope you enjoy your summer! 

Boredom Is Good For You

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." This quote by Dorothy Parker says a mouthful. And it explains why our society is becoming increasingly uncurious and apathetic. We are never bored. But boredom is good for you. It’s good for your children. Your schedule should allow time, every day, for Strategic Boredom. Why? Read on!

But first, my definition of Strategic Boredom. Strategic Boredom consists in wise parents giving their children times when there is nothing pre-arranged to entertain them, including mindless, pre-fab, technological distractions.

And now for the reasons for Strategic Boredom!

Being bored forces us to think. When we are truly bored, whatever is going on around us doesn’t hold our interest. Our thoughts fly off to other things. This leads to daydreaming, planning, musing, in short – to actually using our brains. When we are fully entertained or distracted and have every minute filled with planned activities, there is little time for in-depth thinking.

Being bored gives us time to hear God. The Bible tells us that we must “be still” to hear God, that His is a “still, small voice.” When we are busy all the time, racing from one activity to another, it is tough to hear God above the cacophony. There’s a reason that Bible study time is also called “quiet time.” We must have time with no distractions to truly hear His voice.

Being bored engenders creativity. Most people hate boredom. Even lazy people still want to be entertained. So boredom causes people to find some entertainment – and this often leads to creativity! If a child has no TV, internet, video games or smartphones to play with, he has to come up with his own entertainment. Thus (after the obligatory whining which you should pleasantly and firmly cut off) he must turn to books, projects, games, something of his own invention to occupy him. Children today (even homeschooled children) very rarely have time for developing creativity because their parents never let them get bored.

Being bored creates initiative. If you allow your child to be bored occasionally instead of constantly entertaining him, he will have to come up with ideas for entertainment all by himself. Of course, a wise parent will have provided items in the house that he can latch onto for entertainment (such a books, raw materials for crafts, sports equipment, etc.). But it is up to the child to decide himself what to do about his boredom. I am often saddened by watching today’s children (even homeschooled children) when confronted with a chance to take initiative. They often simply sit back and wait for someone to tell them what to do – because that’s all they know. They have never had to exert their ingenuity to occupy their time.

Boredom can lead to fun and fascinating hobbies. During the Strategic Boredom times planned in our childhood by our wise parents, my sister and I started digging into the how-to books on the shelf. One time, we pulled out a book on crocheting. Mom had already given us yarn and taught us some basic stitches. But it was during periods of Strategic Boredom that we actually got enthused about crocheting real projects. This led to us attempting more and more complex crocheting projects as we grew older. And finally, it led to us winning “Best of Show” ribbons at one of the largest American county fairs for our crocheting! We can tell similar stories about our other many hobbies and skills (including skills we now use to support ourselves). Most of them were developed during Strategic Boredom times in our childhood.

Boredom prepares you for real life. Is there an adult in the world today who never experiences boredom? I doubt it. Perhaps it’s a routine chore every day that gets boring, or a task at work that becomes tedious. Maybe it’s a dull evening at home, or a long commute to work. Whatever the case, boredom is unavoidable and happens to everyone.

A person who has been prepared in childhood to deal properly with boredom is much safer from temptations that the person who has been constantly entertained faces. He will be less likely to give in to time-wasters like TV and endless video games or damaging activities like online porn or shopping addictions. The children trained by Strategic Boredom will have well-developed character muscles that help them take initiative, think, be creative, try new things… or simply sit still and listen to God’s voice.

But it all starts with Strategic Boredom!

Written by Heather Sheen