With summer about half over, you may be feeling relieved that you are halfway there towards kids being back in school. Or, perhaps you are enjoying the summer with your kids and are sad that it’s half over. Maybe you have mixed feelings on it being about the halfway point. Regardless of how you feel, you still have half the summer left, so it’s a good time to do a check in with yourself and your family to think about a couple of important things.
Routines
- If you’ve gotten too laxed with certain routines (i.e., morning, evening), now is a good time to reign things in a bit to re-establish ones that have worked well for your child during the school year. If it is easier, perhaps start fresh with these next Monday for the start of the week.
- If electronics use has gotten out of hand, now is a good time to adjust things. Perhaps creating firmer limits on the amount of time, location devices can be used, etc. could be good.
Organization
- The summer can be a great time for projects like reorganizing a room, play room, common area, closet, etc. Identify these kinds of tasks that you want to undertake this summer and plot out times that work to do them.
What Haven’t You Done this Summer that You Wanted to
- Whether this is more family time together, going for morning walks, painting the house, or something else, now is a good time to identify these activities and take action to figure out how to fit them in with the remaining time for the summer.
- Summer assignments; If your child has summer assignments and they haven’t started them or are not even aware that they exist, sitting down with your child to plan out how these will get completed could be helpful.
- Doctor’s appointments; Now is a great time if your child has weeks without activities to try to fit in any doctor’s appointments you’ve put off scheduling. Perhaps the dentist or a specialty doctor for a recurring foot pain or other ailment that probably should be looked at, but gets put off when busy.
- Planning out childcare for any weeks later in the summer when you don’t have activities scheduled.
This article is not meant to be exhaustive of all things to keep in mind. It is intended to get you thinking for yourself about what you would like to accomplish and implement before the summer is finished.
I hope you are enjoying your summer!
