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How To Make The Most of Summer With Your Kids By Rachel Funnell, LMFT

6/23/2021

The last school year has been challenging for everyone, especially to your kids. They have had to learn how to adjust and readjust to how they are taught and how they learn. They have gone from virtual to in-person, maybe a few times. While kids are very resilient, they, like adults, need breaks and time to re-energize. For kids, the best way that they re-energize and release stress is through play. Below are ideas to help you and your children have fun and release stress throughout the summer.

Set aside time daily to do something fun with your kids.

While many parents are still working throughout the summer, you can still take 10-30 mins to have some fun with your kids. Your children, especially the younger ones, will love any amount of time that you spend playing with them. Take advantage of the longer daylight hours and go play outside with your kids.

Balance the time with structure and play.

Children need structure to feel safe and secure. However, too much structure and rigidity can lead to anxiety and depression. So it’s important to find a balance. The structure part of the summer is having a fairly predictable schedule as to what’s going to be happening within the day or week. For example, having planned times for playing, down time, chores and summer reading. The balance part comes in with how much time you spend on each. During the summer, you don’t want to have your kids doing too many educational activities where they feel like they aren’t getting a chance to release their stress from the school year. However, you can find opportunities to help your kids learn through play. For example, take a long nature hike and try to identify as many animals, plants and trees as you can. Or do fun science experiments. Or go to aquariums, museums and zoos.

Continue to restrict the use of technology.

During the school year, you were probably pretty strict with the use of technology. Now that it’s summer, you still want to restrict time spent on screens. While it’s okay to allow a little extra time for screens, you don’t want them to spend all day on it. Set up very clear expectations around how long your children can be on their devices. You may even need to add some parental controls to limit their time.

Make a list of things you and your children want to do for the summer

Get the family together and come up with a list of activities or places or goals that they’d like to do or accomplish throughout the summer. Identify the most important to them and start to do as many as possible. At the end of the summer, you can look back at all the things you’ve done.

Try to do something new with your kids this summer.

Find something that you can do with your kids that you haven’t done before. Whether it’s going somewhere new, getting a pass to an amusement park or something as simple as going on bike rides as a family. No matter what it is, your kids will enjoy the experience and the memories that they are making.

No matter how you spend your summer, the best thing to do for your children is to have fun and play with them. Enjoy each other’s company and make memories. Below is a list of different ideas to help get you started on it.

Run a lemonade stand
Make smores over a fire
Go fishing
Go to the drive in movies
Stargaze
Have a water fight
Play tourist in a town you’ve never been to before
Go on family bike rides
Run through the sprinklers
Build an obstacle course inside or outside
Play board games
Garden
Go to the aquarium, museum or zoo
Go to the beach on the Atlantic side
Try to go to a new Splash Pad each week
Go camping even if it’s in your own backyard

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Reflecting on the past school year: Recognizing the good and good enough By Kirsten Ellingsen, PhD

6/10/2021

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Welcome Summer. Goodbye to the 2020-2021 school year. An academic year that started at home and online for many students and ended with some never returning to brick and mortar schools. There were new demands, challenges, and expectations for learning. Video instruction, technology glitches, masks, quarantine. Distance from friends, cancelled activities, postponed celebrations, as well as limitations on travel, social interactions, and time with extended family. New sources of stress. Navigating a “new normal”.

I have been inspired and impressed by the perseverance and effort of so many children, teens, and their parents during the Covid pandemic to complete this school year. I witnessed resiliency and sacrifice, loss, and connection. A focus on what is essential and letting go of what is not.

Take time to acknowledge all that you as a parent did to get here. Recognize all your child or teen did to finish the school year.

Take time to reflect on these accomplishments in the light of a global pandemic with all the challenges, uncertainty, disappointment, fears, and frustrations. While the circumstances, resources and impact were unique for each family, there were new demands and difficult decisions for everyone. Even when there was gratitude and appreciation for more time together as a family, the change in caregiving, learning, and work demands truly required adjustment and flexibility at a whole new level.

As summer approaches, try to look back at the past year with compassion. Have compassion for yourself, your child or teen, their teachers, your family and friends.

Celebrate successes with a big picture perspective that also sees what it took each day to finish.
The standards might be different than in the past. Maybe it was a major academic accomplishment, courage demonstrated, relationships cherished, or moments that were enjoyed. Maybe it was getting “just enough” done each day to keep moving forward.

Allow space and time to adjust and return to previous life activities. Let yourself feel the positive and the negative from the past year. Acknowledge and accept disappointments. Be grateful for what was enjoyed and gained. Do a regular “self-check” to bring awareness to your own feelings and needs and model this self-care. Pay attention to the effects of chronic stress that might be felt more now as the school year ends and academic demands decrease.

Finally, recognize the good, the positive moments and good enough accomplishments without minimizing the impact of true grief or loss, trauma, or hardship. If there was loss, be aware of what is needed to grieve and be particularly mindful during anniversaries. Please seek support if you or your child are struggling with loss, having difficulty managing anxiety or depression, or if you could benefit from using more effective or healthier coping strategies.

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How To Make The Most of Summer With Your Kids By Rachel Funnell, LMFT

Reflecting on the past school year: Recognizing the good and good enough By Kirsten Ellingsen, PhD

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