Keeping Teens and Tweens Busy This Summer
My kids get out of school in two weeks and I know its just matter of time before I hear, “Mom – I’m Bored!!”
Let’s have a group brainstorming session! I’ll start off with a list of ideas to ward off the boredom and then you add your ideas in the comments. If I get enough good ideas (you all can do it!) then I will post a follow-up and credit each contributor.
My list of summer boredom tamers:
- Check out your local library and join the summer reading program. Its FREE, eco-friendly, and good for keeping up those important reading skills. Let them check out magazines, how to books, cookbooks, pool side paperbacks, or whatever interests them because in my book, any form of reading is a good thing!
- Renovate your child’s bedroom. Even if your budget is tight, you can give their room a new look for next to nothing – even if it just means rearranging the furniture. If you are willing to paint or really redecorate, let them have a say in the colors, accessories and what not. Its a perfect opportunity to clean out the junk, evict the cobwebs, and reorganize.
Plant a garden. With the rising cost of food and increasing awareness of the environment, gardening is a great activity for kids. My kids love container gardening – they each have a barrel planter and love growing their own tomatoes. Check out Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children and Green Thumbs: A Kid’s Activity Guide to Indoor and Outdoor Gardening (A Kid’s Guide series) for more ideas.- Be a tourist in your own town. Check out local museums and attractions in your town and near by cities. You’d be surprised what you will learn and the kids will get a better sense of their own history too.
- Try a new sport. Summer is the perfect time to try something new! Join the summer swim team, check with the local parks and rec department for camps and clinics for different sports, or try out some new activities on your own (putt-putt golf, hitting tennis balls against a wall, going for a run, etc.)
- Volunteer. What are your child’s interests? Love animals? Try to arrange an opportunity to volunteer at the animal shelter once a week. Volunteering helps foster a greater sense of community and can be a lot of fun.
Get a part-time job. Christine published a great list of summer jobs for teens, but even tweens can get involved. Perfect jobs for tweens include Mother’s Helper, helping an elderly neighbor, pet sitting, or doing basic office work (which my kids love doing for me – as long as it involves using the label maker)- Try out a new hobby. Summer is perfect for researching and trying new things like scrapbooking, videography, learning to craft, taking an art class or what ever interest your child wants to pursue.
- Lots of friend time. After all, that’s what summer is for! Its perfect for spending time with friends, hanging out, and just being kids.
Now it is your turn! What are your ideas for keeping the kids busy this summer?
Teach them Calculus! I recently reviewed Calculus Without Tears and will be using it to teach my kids about the subject – it’s done really well. Site is http://www.berkeleyscience.com .
This will be the 4th year I’m running Camp Ling (my summer camp for me kids) – we’ll also be doing science fun, making youTube humor videos, strategizing on World of Warcraft, etc.
Enjoy,
Barbara
As a 14 year old girl who likes school and loves summer, I’m going to let you in on a secret. I don’t want to sound rude, but if you try to teach your kid calculus over the summer, he/she will be miserable. The last time a bunch of moms came together and decided to do this for their teens, there was fighting, crying, and running away and living in closets for a day or two. Summer break is meant for kids to have a BREAK from school, not to get extra learning time. While you may feel you’ve accomplished something from this, your kid will go back to school sad and feeling that they just wasted three moths of their lives. Please don’t do this to your kids, for it is NOT worth the pain and stress it will bring them.
This would probably be rather unpopular with that age set, but I’m all for giving them added responsibility during the summer, beyond just things that entertain them. For example, make them responsible for dinner several nights a week and give them a budget to spend on the meals.
Wow, Barbara, you really are organised!
Great list, Char … we’ve got six weeks until summer holidays, though the children are on holiday at the moment (10 days!). I’m going to have to think hard about this, because I’m expecting to be really busy over summer, and I need to find something for them to do.
Barbara – great ideas!! I’m all for learning year round.
Randa – your idea is perfect. My kids love cooking and do help with menu planning and preparing meals.
Lucy – do you have summer camps they can do?
Great list and thanks for the link love!
Maybe I am prejudiced, but I think anything that you can do outdoors with a child is important. Whether it is a picnic, exploring together, planting fun edibles, Stretching out on a blanket at night to watch stars, going on night walks, planting a natural hide-out (see my Roots Shoots Buckets & Boots for hide-out instructions), doing lots of art, playing old-fashioned games, and making music. Oh, and I love cooking with children, so many don’t get a chance to cook these days because family schedules are hectic beyond belief.
Keep up your great blog and thanks for mentioning my book Roots Shoots Buckets & Boots!
Green blessings, Sharon@sharonlovejoy.com
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/5/prweb983364.htm
Max Elliot Anderson, author of action-adventures and mysteries for kids, has begun a real life adventure to encourage summer reading. On Saturday, May 31, he released a special bottle into the Rock River, near his home of Rockford, Illinois.
I think no child can resist water: recently we got a kiddie pool and our daughter can play there for hours if I don’t drag her inside.
Getting kids help with house chores is a really good idea too. Whenever I start cleaning, dusting a house, my daughter begs to help me, so I’m giving her paper towels and sending her off to clean her room and toys.
Also, getting kids to pick up new skills and hobbies is another way to keep them entertained and occupied: girls can pick up beading, knitting, even sawing, boys can do some woodworking. I find stores like Michaels incredible for that. They also run free workshops once in awhile, and teach children how to create lots of cool things and use their imagination.
And of course, those who can read, should dive into a marvelous world of books and they’ll never feel bored again.
Great list, Char. I’m going to refer our One Book Two Book readers to this post.
Well, I’m a big fan of ‘co-op’ thinking, drawing from other parents’ strengths, and rotating houses with skill sets to form makeshift freebie camps like a ’round-robin’ of sorts…
e.g. We’re the ‘water safety’ crew, so we share our waterskiing, wakeboarding, lifeguarding experience w/other pals, whereas our neighbors are musicians, another’s a sushi chef, etc. so we pool makeshift camp ideas together…
That way we can swap out, since we all work knowing the kids are fully engaged on any given ‘day.’
(I know one dad who’s sending his 16 yr. old to a ‘race car safety driving camp’ where they learn how to drive without skidding/black ice/limo escapes, and another who’s teaching ‘weekend woodshop’ in exchange for having his boys handled swapped for pool time 2 days, that kind of thing)
Springing off your book ideas, we’re talking about taking our Teen Book Club on a ‘beat poet walking tour in S.F.’ complete w/poetry slam in cafe/retro 60s style…
I’m also considering using my screenplays to teach ‘dialogue’ by having the kids ‘act out’ the scripts so they understand where all this media is coming from, artistically. (yeah, a tad of Shaping Youth’s media literacy filtering in there!)
My over-arching goal is to slowly instill some ‘think outside yourselves’ philanthropy tho…to get more kids to ‘think as one world.’ (e.g. to
‘Pause for a Cause’ (SPCA/paws or any venture that puts kids “In Her Shoes”)—Other ideas are listed here on marketing mindfulness to kids:
http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=835
I also ‘borrow ideas from traditional camps & scale them for older ages, since middle-schoolers tend to not be as wild about ‘camps’ per se; although GirlsRock! looks pretty cool on a nat’l tween scene…
Since I serve on the advisory board for Camp Galileo (’art, science and the great outdoors’ affil. w/the Tech Museum, Arts in Action and Klutz Toys) I’d say check their listings for ideas/themes to draw from/replicate elsewhere in other regions outside of CG environs—
Most camps like these have put considerable thought and testing into age appeal/core content areas, so why reinvent the wheel? Scope and scale/customize accordingly to diff. ages…
Hey Char, I posted a few more short quips about summer planning here for parents and kids making their way through middle school: http://thinking-forward.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/summer-is-here-what-are-your-kids-doing.html
Regards,
Joe Bruzzese
Thanks for the link. And the great list. No tweens around here yet, but Cedar likes many of the items on this list.
My 12 year old loved going to horseback camp last year. Most of the kids were younger girls, but he did enjoy learning about the different breeds, caring for, bathing and feeding horses, plus riding instruction. The last day of school they had a “costume” contest in which campers teamed up and made a costume for a horse! After the camp was over, we decided to share-board a horse, and it keeps him outside and away from the T.V. It’s not nearly as expensive as one might think, and it has taught him a greater respect for animals.
Love the horseback ideas…my tween is ‘too old’ for her favorite pony camp now, but has volunteered as a ‘barn goddess’ to help with the younger kids in exchange for some ride time…so we’ll see if the ranch ‘bites’ on her offer. Meanwhile, wanted to share this excellent tween-centric horse site/blog where girls add their stories into the mix, called Girls Horse Club (.com) it gives kids a chance to practice writing skills, submit stories and get work published while chatting w/other like-minded horse enthusiasts…