Follow Me On Twitter

Parents Help Your Kids Learn ABC's and Spelling
Premier learning tools help kids excel.

Parent To Parent Archive

Parenting Advice

Parenting Humor

More Parenting Articles

Parenting Blog

Used to be, August was still summer vacation. In fact, that was when we headed out on our family vacation, camping for two whole weeks.

We three kids whined during the long car trips. We moaned over some of the educational points of interest my mother chose for our rest stops (even though they were fun, too). We grumbled about the endless chores that come with family camping: fetching water, gathering kindling for the campfire, washing dishes, and long walks to the nearest bathroom. And those are some of my fondest childhood memories.

All grown up now, and we still like to schedule our family vacations in August. Only now, more and more schools are starting earlier in the month, limiting most families to the first week of the month, extending into the second only if you're lucky. It always seems like someone has to hurry back to get ready to start school early.

I've seen some schools extending their spring semester into the last week of June, only to start up again a mere six weeks later. And with the over-emphasis on high stakes testing and hours of homework every night, don't you think it takes more than six weeks to get all that stress out of their system? And what about summer school, band and sports camps? When do kids ever get to just relax and do nothing?

OK, so the ten week long wide open endless summer of nothing just isn't going to happen for most kids these days. Even though I have the luxury of time on my side, even I couldn't resist the lure of swimming lessons, baseball and just one little week-long specialized camp for my boys. But intertwined with our busy days is a LOT of free time to play with our friends. Unfortunately, those friends are busy with a lot of the same activities (at different times), in addition to weekends at parents and grandparents' houses. And yet the neighborhood posse endures.

And for when the posse is elsewhere, there still is some family fun left to catch up on. First I have to collect all the summer coupons that have accumulated: there's bowling, a local children's museum, miniature golf, go-karts, free movies in the park, ice cream at the local dairy hut, etc. There's also time enough for another baseball game, berry picking at a nearby farm, day trip to the beach or water park, the zoo, a long family bike ride or hike, the list is endless.

So, even though the stores might object, I say resist the urge to get a jump start on all your back-to-school sale shopping. Unless you are raising a bevy of little shoppers just dying to get to the mall, let your little ones bask in the sun a little longer. They'll still be wearing the same old shorts and T-shirts anyway, because technically it still is summer outside. Before you pack up the summer fun in anticipation of school starting, remember this: the school year is nearly ten months long, while summer barely extends to two in some places. Savor it before it's gone for another year.

Comments

Name

E-mail (Will not appear online)

Homepage

Title

Comment

To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.