With school being almost out around here, I’m getting told by my kids’ teachers about the work they need to get done over the summer. It’s understandable… I mean, I know that kids forget a lot over summer vacation. But how much do I really want to push them?

I like thinking back to my own summer vacations as a kid, which were pretty leisurely. My school didn’t even give summer reading lists.

My daughter has about 3 pages of recommendations for what she should be doing over the summer to get ready for second grade. My son has a big packet from his speech therapist, which really isn’t quite the same in my view, as most of it is games to play to help him speak better, which is a real issue for him and something that needs to get better, ideally before he hits kindergarten.

And so I’m thinking on how much of this stuff I really feel like doing.

My own preference is to primarily make the tools available and encourage their use. I did tell my daughter that yes, she will be reading during the summer. She had been trying to say that she’d just do that every other summer. Kids!

I don’t really think she’ll try to not read all summer. She enjoys it too much.

Honestly, at this age I’d rather let them lead the way during the summer. We have plenty of workbooks and I’ll encourage their use, but that’s really all it takes most of the time around here.

So what’s your plan? Does your child’s school recommend or require summer homework?

School is out or going to be out soon for much of the country. Summer’s almost here.

Have you signed up your kids for swimming lessons yet?

I consider swimming lessons one of the most important activities you can sign your kids up for. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a pool and don’t live near an ocean, lake or river. I just think it’s important that kids know how to swim.

For one, they may have friends who have a pool. If not now, then later in life.

You could also at some point move into a home with a pool or near the ocean, a lake or river where your family might want to go swimming.

Or your kids could just finally convince you that it’s time to go to the city pool.

I’ll be the first to admit that swimming lessons in the early days do not give me peace of mind. Far from it. They make me worry more!

When kids first learn to swim just a little bit, they’re overconfident. I feel that this makes them more at risk. They swim into deeper water and may be more inclined to try a pool out without supervision. But it’s necessary so that they can learn to be stronger swimmers and cut the risk down.

We have rules about swimming in my family. While we do not have a pool, my inlaws do.

Rule #1: Children are not allowed in the pool without an adult. Not even a toe or fingertip.

Rule #2: Children will obey the adults supervising them in the pool.

Rule #3: There will always be at least one adult whose sole job is to watch the kids in the pool. One adult per child is better, with each adult assigned to a particular child.

Rule #4: Children will obey their swimming instructors during swimming class.

Rule #5: No running near the pool.

My kids know that if they break a pool rule, they will not be allowed to go swimming the rest of that day and likely not the next time everyone else goes swimming.

You may also want to check out PoolSafety.gov, even if you don’t own a swimming pool.

If your kids aren’t in swimming lessons yet and are not strong swimmers, get them signed up. Lessons at community and city pools are generally more affordable than private lessons, of course, but they also fill up quickly in the lower levels. Check your city’s website to see what’s available in your area.

We’ve been having a couple of really hot days around here lately. It broke 100 degrees F here yesterday. My daughter was quick to ask after school if she could stay inside rather than be sent out to play. That got me thinking about how I’m going to be coping with the kids this summer.

It helps to plan in advance.

Much as this kind of heat is miserable to deal with, it was a great reminder that I need to get ready to deal with summer. Bored kids, high heat, and probable water regulations to cope with the drought in our area. There are two areas to consider. What are you doing, and what are the kids doing?

What Are You Doing?

When will you work when the kids are off school? Your current schedule may or may not be right for the summer.

Many work at home parents end up needing to cut back when summer hits because they need the family time more. It’s a part of why you’re at home, after all.

However, it’s always good to remember that you are not and should not be your children’s sole source of entertainment. If you need more time to work, encourage them to play on their own.

If you need more work time than comes easily, consider hiring a mother’s helper or trading times with a fellow at home parent. I’ve had a great deal of luck with sending my kids to play with friends, and taking their friends in to play at our house in return.

Make sure you also plan for family outings. They don’t have to be anything fancy, but heading out to a beach, lake or park gives you a nice break from working and is likely to be fun for all concerned.

What Are the Kids Doing?

Summer is a great time for enrolling the kids in classes, but don’t overdo it. Mine will absolutely have swimming lessons, for example, just for their safety at the various pools they sometimes have access to.

I’m no fan of overscheduling kids, no matter the time of year, so I am certainly not recommending you fill their days too full. Kids of all ages need time to be kids and to do their own thing.

Take them to the library too. If there’s assigned reading from school, make sure that gets done, but otherwise let your kids go by their own interests. I truly believe that it doesn’t matter so much what a child reads, so long as he or she reads. Some exceptions for inappropriate material, of course.

If your children are old enough, encourage them to help you with your business or try endeavors of their own. It can be as simple as the traditional lemonade stand or a more challenging project you work on together. Entrepreneurship is a great skill to encourage!

Of course, you have to be prepared for the arguments, especially if you have more than one child. They’ll argue because they’re bored. Because they don’t want to share. Because one doesn’t want to play with another. Because they’re siblings. Because they don’t need any reason at all to argue sometimes.

I like to keep a balance between letting my kids hash it out themselves and helping them get along better. Sometimes parents need to put a stop to things for their own sanity or the ability to get some work done without a pounding headache.

Make sure you get the kids involved with chores around the house. They’re home more, they can help more. If you have a regular schedule, work their assistance into it, even when having the kids help means it takes longer to get things done. Add in the occasional fun chore such as baking or making popsicles or ice cream.

If you’re used to your kids being at school during the day, yes it is much harder to get work done during the summer. The more you plan ahead, however, the better off you will probably be.

It’s summer. Time to sign the kids up for a bunch of activities so that they won’t get bored, right?

Maybe. To an extent, perhaps.

Or maybe it’s better to give them some time to be kids. For having fun on their own terms. And yes, to be bored.

I’m not entirely against signing kids up for activities. I’m for limiting them. That’s because I don’t think children need to grow up having someone else always directing them in what they should be doing.

I certainly don’t blame kids for getting bored when they’re told to get out and play. Too many have too few chances to do just that. Most parents today are far more protective than our own parents were of us. My mother considers me to be much too protective at times. Yet I give my kids more freedom than many other parents I know.

One of my favorite things to do is to tell my kids to just go out to the back yard and play. They may grumble, but they’ll do it. And they’ll generally be having a blast in a fairly short amount of time. All I have to do is sit back and keep an ear open for the occasional screams. Meanwhile they’re finding bugs, nibbling as allowed in the garden, digging, getting utterly filthy and having fun.

If you don’t have a fenced in back yard and your kids are too young to play in unfenced areas unsupervised you do still have options. You can go with them and just lightly supervise. No hovering. Encourage the kids to settle their own arguments. Tell them to decide for themselves what is fun.

You’ll have to keep a closer eye if there’s a body of water nearby, of course, or other hazards, but children can play more or less independently even if you’re watching them. You just have to not join in each and every time. Play with them some of the time, of course, but encourage your kids to take the lead and to not always need you to play in order to have fun.

Just think about the things you remember most about growing up. Was it the classes you took, the activities you signed up for? Or was it the stuff you did on your own?

Chances are, it’s a combination. There may have been some classes or activities that really were that special to you, but doing things all on your own is probably a big part of your favorite childhood memories. No pressure, just time to be you.

And that is why I say some activities are fine. They can give kids the memories we want them to have. But the most memorable times are still likely to be just general fun things they did on their own or with friends.

Stop listening to all the people talking about all the activities their kids are in. Plan any activities based on what will work for your family, not on competition with other parents. Let your child learn what it is to win, to lose, to be creative, to get hurt at least a little, to be independent, to get so dirty you immediately throw him or her in the bath, to explore and to just be a kid.

Trust me, they’ll enjoy it. You probably will too.

Summer, so far as I’m concerned, is here already. We’ve been breaking 100 degrees F every day since Friday. Go ahead, tell me it’s not summer. I won’t believe you!

Now the biggest trouble to me with this kind of weather is that it’s hard to keep the kids busy. My usual routine of booting them out of the house doesn’t work so well when the back yard doesn’t have a single tree to help keep them cool. If we had known we’d be renting here this long we would have changed that, but as things stand, we’re stuck with no trees and one hot back yard.

And there’s only so much we can do with sprinklers or other water fun. We’re really short on water, and the city has been campaigning hard to get people to cut their daily water usage by at least 20%. While we can combine watering the lawn with letting the kids play sometimes, we can’t do that daily.

So the challenge becomes how to keep the kids busy indoors without just leaving the TV on all day.

We started things out with some rules on TV watching, though. Each of the kids is allowed to pick a certain number of shows per day. They can watch each others’ shows, but when my daughter goes to school she misses my son’s picks, and he generally misses her after school picks due to his nap. Keeps their individual total screen times down.

I encourage a lot of creative play. The kids have rediscovered their wooden train set. Start a competition to clean up after, and it even gets off the floor quickly in the end too.

The kids have a little table set up for homework and crafts. It gets some fair use right now.

But what gets the most regular use? The shave ice maker.

This thing was the biggest hit at my daughter’s birthday party. The kids barely cared about the cake – shaved ice was available. And my kids are asking for it pretty much daily too.

Ours is just a hand crank model. We’ve had it since my first pregnancy, a way to be sure that if they weren’t going to let me eat when I was in the hospital I could have some flavored ice, which they had said was fine. We didn’t actually use it there, or even remember to bring it, but that was the idea.

One thing I’ve been trying to figure out is healthier flavorings for the ice. The usual stuff is just full of corn syrup. You can’t avoid having a lot of sugar in the syrups, though. But at least the amount of syrup is much smaller than the amount of ice!