Immediately I am anxious, faced with the idea that I have failed my kids. I have failed at giving them the most fantastic summer ever. I have failed at teaching them countless lessons about life and history and whatever their spongy little heads will absorb. I have failed at making them more productive citizens.
But then I quickly realize that the exact opposite is true. I have succeeded in the most important thing of all - having fun with my kids, getting to know them even better than I already did, and hanging out experiencing life together.
When I self doubt myself and I think we are being lazy for sleeping so late and I think about how I have definitely let me kids have too much screen time, I need something to reassure myself that this is not true. So, I look back at my tweets about #summertimewiththekids and see what we actually HAVE DONE, what my kids HAVE LEARNED, and that we have actually accomplished A LOT!
Everything we have done has been organic, unplanned, and relaxed. For one thing, we visited the library a ton - resulting in the idea to study specific authors like Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss. We have completed countless DIY art projects (here is pinterest page to prove it). As a family we went camping for 5 days, and lived almost completely unplugged (except for the one phone call/text to my mom to check in of course :). Living on a budget, we took advantage of groupon to go to the Fernbank Planetarium, cashed in our kids bowl free from Stars and Strikes, and saw $1 movies from Regal's Summer movie express. We also used technology purposefully using apps like Pic Collage to synthesize information and pictures from an activity such as a digital scavenger hunt. We took a 10 day trip to Florida where my kids had quality time with multiple grandparents, along with fun day trips to places like the South Florida Science Museum's grossology exhibit (I skipped this one), the Sandoway House Nature Center and Butterfly World .
Probably my biggest triumph this summer was discovering and then installing the Chore Monster app on each of my children's devices. Using this app, they complete a given chore and are given points upon completion. I have it set up that I have to approve each time (so they don't just rack em up). So far, they have earned hundreds of points by doing chores (that I probably would have made them do anyway, but now they are earning points for it!). And we visited 5 Below two different times to cash in their "reward" for 200 points earned. In all they have collectively done more than 100 chores this summer. Chore Monster FTW!
Not every minute of every day has been the most fun or productive of course (like the time we came home from a camping trip to find a tree fell down in our front yard), or when my kids fought over everything, or the many trips to the grocery store where I had to bribe them with tic-tacs to behave, or when we went to the dentist. We have to admit that there was at least once when we spent the whole day binge watching our own shows on Netflix. But, pretty soon we will waking up to the dreaded alarm clock each day, regulate screen time more, and we will all have (UGH) homework, I realize that no matter what we did this summer, we spent it all together making memories - and that is the what #summertimewiththekids is all about!
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23summertimewiththekids&src=typd
Probably my biggest triumph this summer was discovering and then installing the Chore Monster app on each of my children's devices. Using this app, they complete a given chore and are given points upon completion. I have it set up that I have to approve each time (so they don't just rack em up). So far, they have earned hundreds of points by doing chores (that I probably would have made them do anyway, but now they are earning points for it!). And we visited 5 Below two different times to cash in their "reward" for 200 points earned. In all they have collectively done more than 100 chores this summer. Chore Monster FTW!
Not every minute of every day has been the most fun or productive of course (like the time we came home from a camping trip to find a tree fell down in our front yard), or when my kids fought over everything, or the many trips to the grocery store where I had to bribe them with tic-tacs to behave, or when we went to the dentist. We have to admit that there was at least once when we spent the whole day binge watching our own shows on Netflix. But, pretty soon we will waking up to the dreaded alarm clock each day, regulate screen time more, and we will all have (UGH) homework, I realize that no matter what we did this summer, we spent it all together making memories - and that is the what #summertimewiththekids is all about!
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23summertimewiththekids&src=typd
