You’d be hard-pressed to find a child who doesn’t actively look forward to summertime. Since summer represents three full months of freedom from the classroom, most kids regard it as their favorite time of year. However, as any seasoned parent can attest, children don’t always make the most of summer break. Instead of staying active and engaged, many kids prefer staring at screens while letting their highly anticipated vacation slip through their fingers. Fortunately, helping your children maintain active minds and make wise use of their time during the summer months isn’t quite as daunting as you may think.
Encourage Constructive Hobbies
Creative outlets can be tremendously beneficial for children. In addition to helping them develop their own unique voices, such hobbies can give kids a genuine sense of accomplishment. So, even if your children have yet to show an interest in any creative endeavors, you should strongly encourage them to take up at least one constructive hobby this summer. Hobbies that fit the bill include drawing, writing, musical instruments and anything else that helps them flex their creative muscles. If any of your kids have a passion for video games, for example, you may want to point them in the direction of a coding class for beginners. Even though you don’t want to make these hobbies seem like a chore, you should encourage your children to devote a little bit of time to them every day. If any of your kids have trouble creating their own sense of structure, consider enrolling them in online courses that pertain to their preferred creative outlets.
Encourage Active Play
Just as it’s important for kids to give their brains a workout, it’s equally beneficial for them to engage in physical activity. Fortunately, summertime’s abundance of gorgeous weather provides children with ample opportunities to spend time outdoors and run around to their hearts’ content. Even if your kids want to spend their vacation taking it easy, they should get a healthy amount of exercise each day. (Granted, if temperatures are excessively hot, they shouldn’t be forced to spend time outdoors.) If you have small children, investing in backyard playground equipment can be a great way to encourage active play. By turning your backyard into a designated play area, you’ll provide your little ones with the perfect place to burn off their excess energy. You can also help them cool off by investing in high-quality kids pools.
In the quest to make your kids more active, family outings can prove quite effective – particularly if they involve walking, jogging or other types of physical activity. For instance, nature hikes and camping trips can help your whole crew reconnect with the great outdoors, spend time together and enjoy an invigorating workout.
Have Them Maintain a Healthy Sleep Schedule
Improper sleep habits are among the foremost reasons for exhaustion in children during the summer months. Since they don’t have to worry about getting up for school for a while, kids tend to keep strange hours throughout the summer. Going to bed in the wee hours of the morning and sleeping until early afternoon are hardly uncommon for children on summer vacation. In addition to zapping their energy, this can leave them ill-equipped for keeping regular hours once the school year starts.
Parents can nip this problem in the bud by requiring children to maintain a regular sleep schedule over the summer. Seeing as they are on vacation, allowing them to stay up a little later than usual should be on the table. Furthermore, occasional exceptions can be made for slumber parties and other special events. Still, there should be general windows for when your kids are expected to go to sleep and wake up.
It’s easy to see why so many kids eagerly anticipate the arrival of summer. In addition to the abundance of gorgeous weather summertime brings, it also represents a time of great freedom for children of all ages. Unfortunately, if your kids spend the entire summer staring at screens, they’re liable to feel as if they missed out once fall rolls around. To ensure that your children are able to enjoy summer vacation to their fullest, you may need to play an active role in keeping them engaged. Luckily, with the help of the tips discussed above, this shouldn’t prove terribly difficult.
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