Endless Summer Days

I see the long lazy days of summer as a great life lesson. A lesson on how to deal with boredom. Since moments, hours, days of boredom are part of all our lives I feel part of parenting is stepping back and letting a child work through some of those times themselves. A big step in helping them gain independence. The seemingly endless days of summer are fertile ground for these life lessons. The first month is usually the hardest. The kids are coming off school days where most of their waking hours are orchestrated by others so I try to have days with nothing really planned. It doesn't take long for "I'm bored" to become their mantras or have someone pleading for something 'fun' to do. My stock answers are "read a book" or "you can clean such and such". If I stay strong through the first month I start to see the fruits of letting them work through their boredom: creativity,  enjoying time to themselves, kids working together and the ability to accomplish their own ideas.

Today I had a child helping a friend at a garage sale, children making domino mazes and kids reading. Then children took sidewalk chalk and drew a town on the cement complete with roads and used toddler trikes as cars. My favorite activity was the little rolly polly bug house, made by Jazlynn and Nathan, complete with little rolly polly bug slide. All these boredom busters thought of and accomplished without any input from me. All part of the pieces that made another beautiful, lazy, endless summer day.

Blessings, Carolyn