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Planning Summer Activities

by Carleton Kendrick

Who stole summer from the kids? What happened to a child's endless days? A kid's summertime used to mean freedom from teachers, parents, and all the adults naturally bent on organizing and directing her every school-year move. Kids in charge of their own time. Parent-free fun where kids played with other kids. Forgetting to eat and barely beating darkness to your back door at the end of another summer day's adventures.

Summertime and the Livin' is . . . ORGANIZED

Our kids march single file (no talking in line) from a highly programmed school year into a thoroughly scripted summer. I've known school-age kids who finish school and immediately begin their summer-long, sleep-over soccer camp. We are relieved when camps guarantee us that every minute of our child's day is filled with adult-planned activities. Sadly, many kids live such structured lives that they could not handle the shock of a carefree summer, left mostly to their own imaginations and initiative. They would seek prolonged refuge in front of a TV or computer.

Fold Up Your Director's Chair

Do your school-age kids a big favor this summer. Surrender the responsibility of organizing their summer days. Let your kids plan their own play, projects and activities. Roll with the occasional, "I'm bored."From time to time provide them helpful suggestions and resources for their play. Just don't orchestrate and direct it.

What a Day for a Daydream

Summertime has always given children the promise of "doing nothing" goofing off, getting lost in a series of daydreams. These days we respond to that seductive promise by scheduling them right out of all that nasty, idle summertime! Why are we so afraid of encouraging our kids to be free from an adult's structure? Has our fearful overscheduling of their young lives given birth to a generation of kids who don't know what to do on their own with a lazy summer's day?

Returning Summer to the Kids

Summertime should be a special gift for children. A time that offers them an outdoor freedom to inhabit worlds of their own design. Worlds of natural resources and imagination where they learn to plan and work things out with friends. Worlds thankfully free of us. How about giving summer back to its rightful owners? Join hands with mother nature and give your kids back their own endless summer.

Read Carleton Kendrick's bio.