Summer Stress Busters
For many parents, summertime means stress time! The kids are home, the weather gets hot, tempers get hot -- "We're so bored" seems to be the song of the day. All that together-ness can get to you after awhile. With just a little planning, summertime can be a special time for you and your kids.
Here are some things your children can do to help make summertime a FUN time:
- Put together a summer activity box for your child/children filled with items that are safe, simple and do not require supervision. This will allow you some time to yourself. Some suggestions are washable markers, safetly scissors, glue sticks, white paper plates, yarn, popsicle (craft) sticks, a deck of cards, drawing paper, construction paper, tracing paper, cookie cutters or stencils, and old magazines. For older kids add buttons, marbles, Mardi Gras beads and uncooked macaroni.
- Make a Dress Up box with your old grown-up clothes, hats, shoes, purses, belts and costume jewelry.
- Let your kids build a tent over pieces of furniture with old sheets, blankets and some books as weights to hold the edges in place.
- Rotate their favorite toys by putting some away for several weeks. When you bring them back out later, the kids will enjoy rediscovering those toys.
- Make a Job Jar of easy things that need to be done around the house. Make sure these chores are age appropriate for your child to build their confidence and a sense of responsibility.
- Help your child plan a Family Fun Calendar for the month. Challenge them by allowing only ideas that are free and include everyone in the family. Here are a few for starters: plant watermelon seeds, visit the library, play "I Spy" or another guessing game, take a walk together, read a story aloud, make up a poem about the family, go for a Sunday drive, play a card game or have an indoor picnic (cool and ant-free).
With a little imagination and patience, you can find that this is the best summer yet!
For parenting help by phone, call KIDLINE, 1-800-CHILDREN (244-5373).
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