The Long Staycation
Dear Grandmas,
We are having the most stay at home staycation we have ever had this summer and so far the kids are going stir crazy. We have been trying to go to the pool but they aren’t old enough to go by themselves or with neighbor kids yet. Plus I work at home, so I can’t take them very much. You grandmas seem to have good ideas for when everyone is climbing the walls. They are in reading club at the library for summer and we do that, but that only works for a half hour a day – reading. At night when my wife comes home, it is chaos. Please help. Thank you. – Thomas R.
Dear Thomas R.,
I’m afraid we’ve let you down. By now the summer is 2/3 over and you’ve muddled through without any advice from the Grandmas. But we’re going to try to answer your question anyway, because there’s always NEXT summer, and also the last few weeks of this one. There’s a lot we don’t know about your situation, and we are wondering, do you live in a house or an apartment, how old are your kids, how many hours a day are you obliged to dedicate to your work, etc.?
But in spite of all that, we have come up with some generic, one-size-fits-all suggestions:
1. Day Camp, or a couple of neighborhood teens who will personalize one for your kids and maybe a few other children. This would provide supervision and playmates for your children and also a wonderful opportunity for the neighborhood teens to make a little money and learn some child care skills. One of the grandmother’s daughters ran such a day camp some years back and now is a child psychologist. No kidding. And as far as we know all the children who were in her care grew up to be well-adjusted.
2. A Family Meeting, at which you ask them what they most enjoy doing. Apparently reading is one of their favorites; the reading club at the library sounds great. Are they in addition of the age that they would enjoy playing in a “house” made of a card table and a blanket where they could play imaginative games with a family of dolls and a supply of dishes and pillows? Are they old enough to make up plays (maybe based on some of those library books) that they will perform for you when your schedule permits? Do they like art activities, so that you could provide them with the needed supplies and an area where they wouldn’t have to worry about making messes? How about helping them gather up the materials they would need to play school? Restaurant? Supermarket? On a hot day, wouldn’t they enjoy running in and out of the sprinkler in the back yard (assuming you have both a back yard and a sprinkler)? Plan out your weeks alternating the activities they say they most enjoy so that they don’t get unduly bored with any one of them.
3. Let them get bored occasionally. Don’t think it is your job to entertain them. It is in fact good for their growing brains to think up their own activities, to dream up imaginative play ideas and games and projects. We didn’t make this up. Recent research indicates that children develop “executive function,” a better indicator of school and career success, we are told, than an IQ score, by devising their own activities. (See a previous Grandmothers article on this subject titled “Go Play,” in the November 19, 2009 issue of the Collinwood Observer.)
4. Give them tasks. At that Family Meeting talk about how Mom is at work and Dad is busy at his computer and as members of the family team they have responsibilities too. What they are capable of depends on their ages, of course, but if possible make it something that they can do beyond picking up their toys and putting their dirty underwear in the clothes hamper – which, of course, they should be doing anyway. Children younger than you might think could be taught to do the family laundry, or empty the dishwasher (plastic dishes might be indicated here), or pull weeds. Make these real jobs that really need to be done and impress upon your children how much their contributions are truly helping the household run more smoothly.
5. Take Special Outings. With the kids entertaining themselves and doing some of the chores that Mom and Dad once had to do, there is now time for those trips to the swimming pool, or the zoo, or the park. Schedule them in advance (another item for the Family Meeting agenda) and mark them on the family calendar so that they can be fully anticipated and savored.
So, tell us, Thomas R., did you already do all of those things and more? We’re willing to bet that by now your kids have settled into relaxed summer routines and that you’ve decided that staycations are the best kind.
If you have a parenting question, please email it to us at thegrandmothers@collinwoodobserver.com. Or mail it to The Grandmothers, Collinwood Observer, 650 E. 185th St., Cleveland, OH 44119.
The Grandmothers are Kathy Baker, Maria Kaiser, Gann Roberts and Ginny Steininger. They meet at Hanna Perkins Center, 19901 Malvern Road, which houses the Hanna Perkins School and the Reinberger Parent/Child Resource Center. For information call Barbara Streeter (216) 991-4472.