Best Summer Ever: Day 30
July 30
Do Some Big-Picture Thinking
Start thinking about the kind of fall you'd like to have with your family.
Summer won't last forever, after all. (Sob.)
It's a great time of year to start musing about changes you might want to make to your family's usual school-year routine - changes that might help to make the work-school-family juggle a little less crazy.
You might want to consider...
....decluttering now to reduce the amount of stuff in your life. The more stuff you have, the more stress you have.
....setting a budget for back-to-school shopping so your kids will know how much they have to spend on necessities and anything-but-necessities before they step foot in a store. It's easier to have this conversation at home than in the middle of a mall.
...limiting the number of extracurricular activities each kid can sign up for so that time for outdoor play doesn't get squeezed out of the schedule altogether. Unstructured play is what childhood is all about.
...acknowledging the effect that over-scheduling has on you as a parent; and how that, in turn, affects the rest of the family. (If you're stressed out because there's no breathing space in your schedule, what are you going to have left for yourself and everyone else?)
...spending at least 30 minutes together as a family every day is important. It doesn't matter when or where you reconnect -- over dinner or a book. What matters is that it happens.
Related:
Bankrate.com: How to survive piano lessons and hockey practices
Hi Ann -- I'm loving your blog! I just did a post, over at Parent Talk Today, about your wonderful "Best Summer Ever" series and wanted to make sure I shared it with you. It's at http://is.gd/1VEt7
Thanks for the inspiration!
Posted by: Kathy Sena | July 31, 2009 at 03:12 AM
Thanks so much for your post on your blog, Kathy. You totally made my day. (I commented over there as soon as I saw your post, but I forgot to comment over here. Didn't want the rest of my readers to think I was being rude and ignoring your lovely note.) :-)
Posted by: Ann Douglas | August 06, 2009 at 09:08 PM