Our New Summer Rules

Spread the love

Last summer I found myself going a bit too insane with the kids. The baby wasn’t yet a year old, there was bickering, there was boredom. I wasn’t having it and neither were they!

This time around I was going to try and stop that before it happened, I was going to create special Summer Rules.

Now, the kids weren’t so happy with that at first. Rules, for summer?! I mean come on mom, summer break is supposed to be about freedom and doing whatever you want to. Within limitations… right?

Well with a teenager, pre-teen, two elementary school kids and a toddler. Something had to happen so I didn’t quickly lose my sanity.

So I’ve decided to enforce the following…

A minimum of one hour outside time, EVERY day! This was the first of my new summer rules and is important because the kiddos really need to get out and enjoy the sunshine. They spend far too much of the school year stuck inside the school or the house because it’s just too darn cold. When it gets -10 outside. Playing outside doesn’t happen. I hold myself to this rule too. I have to get outside, and enjoy the sunshine. Vitamin D is good, and play away from computers, tablets, tv’s, video game systems, etc is important for your brain and body!
One math assignment every week day. Kids can lose far too much information over our countries massively long summer breaks. Really, I wish our country would wisen up to how it’s done elsewhere in the world and make breaks into chunks throughout the year, instead of this massive summer break that is almost 3 months long for us! Still, to combat summer ‘brain drain’ I decided the kids needed to all do (aside from the baby, she’s too young) one math assignment every week day. We use Ten Marks, which is currently free to use for the summer. I have all four school aged kids on there having to do math for me. I get weekly reports on how they’re doing, and I can log in at any time and check on their progress towards goals. I love it!
Sleep overs require cleaning something aside from your chore. Why? Why would I do this? Simple, with the kids home more often, the house is even MORE of a mess. So In order for a sleep over to happen here, something outside of your typical chore needs done. Usually that ends up being the living room floor, sometimes I’ll vacuum it for them. Other times, I make them do it themselves.
Declutter! This is the best time of year to go through all your clothes and weed out what you don’t need, don’t wear, don’t fit! Then we can decide what to do with them. It’s also a good time to go through all toys and things to see what isn’t played with or loved anymore. After Christmas and all that, why not take a chance to just go through and make things better? Plus with all the extra time, there is no “but I was at school ALL DAY” excuse here. Sorry kids, you’re in for it.
11:30PM Bedtime. Last year I just let the kids go to sleep… whenever. Aside from the baby of course. But oh man, that meant that I didn’t get much sleep because the living room is not far from my bedroom and it was horrible. The kids would sometimes not crash until 5AM during a sleep over, and then the baby would wake at 7:30. Making me a miserable wreck! Nope, new summer rules, and bedtime is 11:30!
Learn to Cook! Aside from Risiel the kids are 9, 10, almost 12 and almost 15. It is time for them to learn far more kitchen skills and I’ll be doing that by making each one cook a meal one day a week. This leaves me with four less meals to take care of, and them with important skills!