Summer means schools out, hot suns, swimming, popsicles, and so much fun. While our kids may love this time of year, parents may have differing feelings on it. Jen and Hilary are here to discuss how different parents feel about summer and how to navigate some of the tough parts such as working, expectations, and activities.
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hilary and Jen.
Hilary: Welcome to the Parents Place Podcast today. We are officially in summer mode. And I know some of you guys are jumping up and down and cheering and I know some of you guys maybe are shedding a little tear because you're back in the home. And maybe there's a few of you that are doing a little bit of both. Whether we're ready for it or not, we are back in business, right? We've got kids in our home full time, and this is one of those topics that, as we discuss today, we completely recognize that everybody is in a different position in life. So some of you have young children that are still very dependent on you. Some of you have older children that are a little bit more independent. And so, when it comes to caring for them during the summer, they can take the reins to an extent. And we also recognize that there are some of you out there that are not working as moms and some of you that are maybe working part time and some of you that are obviously working full time. So, with the advice and the and the information that we share just kind of keep in mind that we're talking broadly, but we recognize that some of you will have to make some potential adjustments. To the to the feedback we offer because we all have a different household and different structure. So, but the topic we've got today is kind of getting the most out of our summer. If we are in that position where you're still working, which is a very tricky spot. Jen knows, we joke about this all the time that there's this, there’s this on going joke in the office that when summer rolls around, I just like slowly step away and disappear. And people are like, is Hilary still work here? I haven't seen her for a few weeks like I don't understand where she went. I love summer. That is like my time to shine. And honestly I know I'm a little. I'm the minority here. I'm the odd one out. I love my kids being at home it's crazy. I get it. It's crazy. It's frantic our house is a hit. But I love it. But I also have a schedule that allows me to step away to a degree, work wise, and so I can. I can do that and I know that some people can't. I don't know, Jen maybe I shouldn't be doing that, but I am anyway
Jen: I don't think I could get you to stay in the office.
Hilary: Ohh, that sun comes out and I'm like. I got to be outside. I need this.
Jen: But so is it the activities that you do? Is it the weather? Like, do you like to be hot or like? What is it?
Hilary: I love. I love it all. Ohh I love warm weather. Honestly, if I could pick the perfect temperature for me it'd be like mid 80s, which I know you're going to be appalled about. I know. See, but that would be my perfect temperature. But I love being outside. And I am the type of person. I shouldn't admit this to our audience, but I love going. I love living on a on a flexible schedule. For a time being, I don't necessarily want to live my entire life, just kind of flying by the seat of my pants. But I think it's good for me and I think it's good for my kids to sleep in and stay up late and to wake up without necessarily having our day planned out. And to be able to look at each other and say what should we do today? And then spontaneously decide on an activity like I know for some people they cringe at the thought of that being the case. But for me, like I really enjoy just having that open, available schedule with my kids. So yeah.
Jen: Yeah, no
Hilary: Call me crazy.
Jen: My most favorite temperature is about 65.
Hilary: See, I like it warm. I would live in a warm climate any day over a cold climate, so.
Jen: Well, Arizona is kind of flipped from Utah. So you know Utah, you have like 2 1/2, two and a half. Well, maybe three months of summer, warm weather before it starts to cooling off again. It's flipped in Arizona. And you sure do get so tired of that heat.
Hilary: And I'm sure. If I lived in an environment like that, I would probably realize, OK, this isn't as appealing as I thought it was going to be. But where we are in northern Utah and you only have so many short months of that, like heat, I always say to myself, like, bring it on. I have lived in a dreary winter season. For way too long, like bring on the heat. Let me sweat it out.
Jen: Yeah, this year was really bad, so.
Hilary: Exactly. And so I'm sure if I lived in an Arizona type climate, I would be. Like you know. What a little bit of snow sounds kind of dreamy, right? I’m going to be honest with you that. You always want what you don't have, right?
Jen: That is true. So, in the article that I liked, the first thing I really liked was figuring out your why. Yes, I'm like, I've never even figure thought about why my what my why is for summer. But I love that!
Hilary: Yeah, that was the very first suggestion offered on one of these articles and. I said the same thing to myself. I was, like, huh? Like that is a really intriguing idea. Because they talked about like figuring out what you want for the summer. Whether you want you know, what your focus is and it gave some examples you know. You want it to be primarily spent with family. Are you going to be spending the majority of your summer traveling? Do you want it to be full of education and educational camps and opportunities. Or are you just surviving? Because I know sometimes we have summers. That it's purely just a we need to survive the next 2 1/2 months. But I like the idea of sitting down and saying. Here's what we want our summer to look like and based on that goal, here's what we need to strategically schedule in. And so, I thought that was cool. I thought that was really cool because I think oftentimes midway through the summer. I think to myself crap. We haven't done a lot of things in regards to reading or we haven't gone anywhere yet because we've been so busy with other things. And so yeah, I mean, we know how important it is to be intentional with what we do. But I think that was a good reminder when it came to summer too. Do you know what other one I really like too? So one thing that we do at our house. Which I think a lot of people do at their house. Is just kind of creating the bucket list going along with being intentional. But the thing that I have learned with, at least with our house in creating the bucket list is that when we sit down with our kids to decide. What we want to do and make it very clear to them that just because it's on the list doesn't mean that everything is going to be done. Because there have been times in the past where my kids have created a grand. List and we're about a week before school is supposed to be starting, and my kids are like we haven't done everything mom like this summer has been in vain. Throw it in the garbage or we're frantically trying to do like 7 things in a matter of days and so I did kind of reframed my mindset a few years ago. And I just said to my kids, these are ideas. Like these are some fun potential ideas of what we're going to do in the summer, clearly we're not going to get to everything and it's going to depend on time. It's going to depend on money, you know. It depends on a lot of factors. But when we do have that unstructured time. We can look at this list and. We can say hey. What should we plan on doing and for us, a bucket list includes? Some vacation destinations, but it also includes more like boredom type activities, so you know, running in the sprinkler and playing in the sandbox and playing night games with our friends. So also little things that are easily checked off and that aren't going to, you know, hurt our budget too. I think it's important that we incorporate those into our bucket list as well. And so I know that we do at our House, and we post it, they color it, we see it cross it off. My girls, I've got an organizer at my house. So she's very much like cross it off the list so I can visually see when it's done. So we like doing that.
Jen: Well, I think even those little day trips, if it's a little day hike, I know for like up here. One of the things I love to do is just drive up to Tony's Grove and over by the their little they call it a lake, I guess. It's not that big, but going up there and just hanging out, I mean that take a lunch.
Hilary: Yeah, yeah. You know, another thing it talked about kind of in regards to that same topic, which I don't do. I need to do better at as they talked about along with the bucket list. Coming up with the summer goal for each of your kids so they have something that they're working towards and so maybe the summer goal is to learn to ride the bike without training wheels. Or maybe the summer goal is that we're all going to read the first Harry Potter book together and then watch the movie at the end of the summer. But I like the idea of having kids work towards something. So that they feel like by. That I mean. We do that so well in school, with different goals that the teacher set upon our kids, and I think it's important that we do that in our home. Do to work towards this goal that they can achieve. So even, I mean think about your kids and even things in preparation for school. And so maybe the goal for the summer is to learn how to tie their shoes, pretty little ones that are entering school, that's a great goal to have and to be able to check off the list before the start of the year comes.
Jen And if you don't want to deal with tying your shoes, buy a Kiziks. I have a pair and I absolutely love them. I haven't tied my shoes since December. They just slide right in.
Hilary: You know, bless those cute little kindergarten teachers hearts. I can't even begin to like imagine how many shoes are tied in those first few months of school, even in the end, because I think there's probably a lot of kindergarten. 1st and 2nd graders that may not know how to tie their shoes. I can't imagine how many times they are asked to she's tired of tying those things.
Jen: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good goal to do over the summer, let's tie up and.
Hilary: Right, yeah. I liked that idea of being able to set up something and I think you can do individual goals with your kids. But I also think you could maybe do some type of a family goal too. That might be really fun to say. We are going to accomplish this by, you know, August 15th or whatever time it is that. You decide. So I mean, for these parents that do have to work. It did offer some suggestions about what that could potentially look like, and a lot of it. It's gonna, yeah, being a little bit flexible with how things look, I mean, I know for some that again depending on your kids' age summer might make for more opportunities to incorporate different childcare scenarios. So, there's lots of summer camps that are out there. I feel like way more than when you and I were growing up. Like our options as youth were you go to swimming lessons and that's about it. And I feel like.
Jen: You played outside your mom said go outside, come back for lunch and then go out again. Yeah.
Hilary: Exactly. And I feel like most nonprofits out there, most of your local rec centers, even some of your schools have some types of camps, whether they are day camps, week camps, some of them are more than one week. And we recognize that those probably do cost money, but. You know you're calculating the cost of how much would I have been spending on childcare versus a camp? Usually I feel like these organizations that run these camps kind of take that into account. So, they're not an outrageous price, which is obviously nice.
Jen: I mean, they can learn lots of skills in those camps that they may have been struggling with the year before of just, you know, sharing things or having to work with other kids. So that's a great way to have them work on those skills.
Hilary: Yeah, and I don't know, you know obviously. With my situation but I think a lot of times with summer, kids are out of school, so you're talking high school kids and maybe even middle school kids. And so you might be able to find a high schooler or even, you know, an older middle school student that's looking to make a little bit of extra money and might be interested in watching kids during that time. Or it's a perfect opportunity to maybe swap with another parent in your neighborhood where you say. I'll take the kids on Monday if you'll take the kids on Tuesday and then you can shift your work schedule around that where you have that open and available time and that might be an option too. So, if that might be helpful.
Jen: I liked that idea. Because, you know, they always say it takes a village to raise kids. You need that help and support. So reaching out to friends who you can swap with is a great idea.
Hilary: Yeah, I didn't do that as well with my older kids as I do now with my younger kids and it's always so interesting because I think I think they, I didn't take that opportunity with my older kids because I was. I was a little. Bit nervous about asking but I have found with every single person that I ask, they are very willing because they're in the same boat they're like. Yes, I'm not getting anything done in my house. So I would love that you know if you're making it an equal partnership and saying. You get a day I get a day. Any parents willing to do that. Because I think whether parents are working or not, having that open and available day to do your grocery shopping or get some of the house cleaning done or even. Just have that day for you. And so I think be willing to ask and I would say the majority of parents would love to create that type of partnership.
Jen: I mean, we're working moms, we need to support each other.
Hilary: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think it's important too, that it tucked a little bit later in this article about as you're scheduling all the things to make sure that you. Scheduling something for you, I mean. Summer, for me tends to very much be, what do the kids want to do? Right, like, let's go to the park. Let's go to the zoo. Let's go to the swimming pool. And while I enjoy those things to a degree, right? I think it's important as us as parents to be able to say. I need to find some time to just do something that I want to do and you know, don't forget that we can have our own interests and hobbies outside of our home and outside of, you know, our family structure. I think that's important for us to remember, especially in the summer where most of the time. I think it's consumed with children's events.
Jen: I'm thinking about right below that one of making sure you enjoy summer is that time take time for self-care and just that is super important so you don't get burned out over the summer and. You're like, I'm going to take my kids and have them stand outside the doors of school until it opens. Because I'm done with you. But I think also telling your kids that self-care is good and teaching them those little things that they can do because when those anxiety things, when they do have to go back to school, they have some tools on how to take care of themselves. And anxiety comes or scared feelings or whatever.
Hilary: Yeah, that's true. I'll add this last suggestion, and this isn't necessarily on the article, but this is something that I have found. You're many years of trying, but in my house. I remember. You know those early stages with my kids thinking. I needed to do it all. And you know, if I look at my day, I can chunk out my day into basically four different like areas and so that that I'm over that I oversee that I maintain and that is work that is keeping the inside of my house clean, that is keeping the outside of my house clean and then that's spending quality time with my kids. And I remember as my kids were older thinking. I needed to do all four of those things every single day, and by the end of the day feeling incredibly exhausted and overwhelmed and defeated because I couldn't. I couldn't do it all, and I remember a few years back hearing a suggestion from somebody saying you. What? You're going to have to take turns on what that day's focus is. And so, for me, there are some days where I'm like. Today is a work day. And that's going to mean at my house that my kids won't necessarily be ignored because they're older, so they can independently play. But on those work days, I'm going to get my work done. And that means that my kids are going to play solo. And that probably means that my house is going to look like a disaster. By the time that I'm done, but that's OK. Because my goal for today was to work. And that's what my focus was on. And then there's going to be other days where maybe I need to focus in on the housework, and then there's going to be those days where I'm going to say, you know what, I'm not going to work, I'm not going to clean. We're just going to have fun today. We're going to go to the pool and not we're not going to worry about any of those other obligations that we have. And so for me being able to strategically decide what that day looked like and then to set aside all the other moment was so helpful for me. You know, and then there and obviously there's some days where I could take care of more than one thing. Maybe I work in the morning and we play in the afternoon. Or maybe we clean in the morning and then we work. But I think making sure that you take time in all those areas. But realizing that you can't juggle them all. You need to strategically decide. What that focuses on that day and let the rest of them go. So that that has been one of those life lessons for me. And once I finally embraced that, I was like. I enjoy my days with my kids so. Much more than what I did before when I was feeling like I was being. Pulled in so many different directions.
Jen: Yeah, I think if we all look back. On our childhood, it's the memories that we're making. It's not the clean house or anything like that. It's those memories that are most. I and I also think if you're not one that can, you gotta have some type of clean cleaning done in your home and get each child a laundry basket of a different color and give them 5 minutes to run around. Pick those things up and put them in the laundry basket and there you go.
Hilary: It's true, I think, especially during the summer. I'm like I need to hope my expectations down to an extent. I will have a clean house in the fall there you go. Granted, the house is clean on some days and it's semi clean on other days and it's not clean on other days. But I think recognizing that your children are home, it's summer. It's probably not ever going to look completely perfect. Unless they're asleep. And that's OK, because this is a stage of life. This is a phase. This is going to end in a few weeks or a few months. And so, you know, give yourself some grace, but it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be livable. And like you said, when it all boils down to it, what's most important here anyway? You know, and so. Yeah, you got to make sure that you remember that. We can't do everything. And we're not going to be perfect and that's just fine.
Jen: Alright everyone. Thank you for listening today. We hope we have given you some ideas for this summer and would like you to enjoy your summer. Be safe, watch your little ones around that water. And we do have a podcast about safe water and being safe. So, if you need some tips for that, just go back to that episode of enjoying water and we want you to be kind and patient with yourselves and we'll see you back here next week.
Thank you for listening to the Parents Place podcast. If you would like to reach us, you can at parents@thefamilyplace utah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly – The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org. If you are interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes, we would love to see you there.
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