It’s summertime, schools out and the temps are rising. Admittedly, in our house this often means that the schedule has been thrown out the window. Between summer jobs and late night movie marathons the kids are all over the place with their schedules.
When my kids were younger we stuck to a pretty strict bedtime routine all year round – I even left Thanksgiving dinner early in order to get them home before bedtime. Sleepy kids meant cranky kids, cranky kids meant a difficult day, and a difficult day meant there was no way anything was getting done in a timely fashion, which led into a vicious cycle of cranky mom and cranky kids, and no one wanted any of that nonsense.
These days my boys are older (19 – 18 – 16 and 15) so bedtime is more like a suggestion and not really a firm rule. They’re old enough to know when they’re tired and they know how much sleep they need to be their best version of themselves. I like to think that having that bedtime routine helped them become these amazing young people, but I doubt they would give me a speck of credit.
Many days I find myself with a house full of teenagers and their friends, because it’s summertime and they’re bored and it’s hot outside and they want to enjoy the air conditioning and play video games in the middle of the day. It’s loud, it’s crazy, there are people going in and out all day long, and I keep the freezer stocked with Popsicles.
So far this summer I’ve stuck with my regular routine of getting up and starting the day while my husband gets ready for work. Aside from a handful of days where I was really just too sick to manage any work at all, it’s worked out pretty well. I tend to work at least one day of the weekend and take the other day to hang out with the kids, maybe see a movie or go out for ice cream.
The kids are doing their thing, I’m doing my thing, and at the end of the day we all get together for dinner and start winding down. We have an agreement that if they help with the household chores and do a little reading every day they can have as much video game time as they want without me nagging them to do something else. So far that’s working out well, the dishes are done and everyone is making progress on their summer reading lists.
I’d love to hear your summer schedule tips or I can answer questions if there is something you need help with during summer. Please leave a comment below and we can talk through it all.
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