Summer and Kids: How to Stay Organized by Coach Juli

If you are a parent of a student-aged child you may not be as excited for school to end and summer to begin as your child. For kids it is a time for long lazy mornings, random meal times, playing outside in the middle of the day, and mid-week sleepovers, but for parents it’s another story all together!

For the adults in the equation, it’s days of interrupted routines, minimal structure, bored children, and often the need to work with children being left to their own devices during the weekdays.

Staying organized for the summer months takes a bit more planning because of the lack of structure when school isn’t in session. Start by finding out what activities your kids wish to do during the summer days. If they want to sit around and color pictures all day, that’s great, but if they want to do things that require you to drive them around everywhere you might need to work on that with them and come up with a reasonable schedule that works for everyone.

Don’t panic! Here are three tips for staying organized for the summer:
1.    Keep easy to grab snacks and small meals for children so they can feed themselves when they are hungry. Family mealtimes may be a just a few weekly dinners, so for breakfasts and lunches they can learn to fend for themselves – with your providing good food in the cupboards & fridge.
2.    Make a list and post it on the fridge entitled: “Things I can do” that you compile with the children so you don’t have that constant “Mom, I’m bored!” whine coming from down the hall every few hours.
3.    If you have really young kids, you might want to secure a ‘mother’s helper’ over the summer to keep the kids safe and entertained while you are home or running errands. Jr. and Sr. high school students who can’t work out in the community yet often love these opportunities.

Attempt to keep some structure to the days as best as you can as children tend to do better with some routines.

Coach Juli is a Professional Certified Coach with a specialty in Productivity specifically those with ADHD. She works with individuals at any stage of life who find themselves stuck and wish assistance and skills to better organize their lives both in the workplace and at home. For more information, go to www.coachjuli.com.