Plan Activities For the Family
Your kids aren’t the only ones who need to turn the devices off and stop to smell the roses. Summer is a great time for a family vacation – why not take a week off and go camping or visit a nearby national park? These are activities that everyone can enjoy, and while you’re exploring the great outdoors, you can also take a break from the constant attachment to some device or another.
If you don’t have vacation time available, you can still work in some outdoor family activities in the evenings or on the weekends. Go hiking through a nearby nature trail, have a picnic or barbecue, or grab a mason jar and show your kids how to catch fireflies at night.
Sign Up For Summer Activities
Of course, your children need to get out and spend some time playing with kids their own age as well. It can be hard for kids to get together with their friends or make new friends without school and the school and school-related activities to bring them together. But if you look around, you’re sure to find summer activities that will occupy your child and bring them together with other kids.
Sign them up for a summer camp. If your child isn’t up for a sleepaway camp, look for a local day camp that they can attend. Tweens may be a little too old for the summer camps hosted by local childcare facilities, but they’re the perfect age for camps that cater to specific interests, like music, horseback riding, or sports. This way, your tween will get a chance to do something they enjoy with other kids who are enthusiastic about the same things.
Encourage Entrepreneurial Activities
Who doesn’t love cold lemonade on a hot day?
Your tween is too young for a typical summer job, but certainly old enough to have a wish list of things that they want to spend money on. If you want to get your tween out of the house and away from their devices, help them find a way to make some money of their own. Most kids this age will jump at the chance.
Depending on their maturity level, your tween may be old enough to babysit for short periods of time. They can also offer their services as a mother’s helper for birthday parties, beach trips, amusement parks trips, and any other event where a parent could use an extra pair of eyes on the smaller children. Your tween could also earn money dog walking or pet sitting.
If there’s no one interested in hiring your tween, they could always go into business for themselves with a lemonade stand or something similar. You might be surprised how much work your tween is willing to do when there’s money in it, and the responsibility is as good for them as the break from their devices.
Parental control software can help you set boundaries on your child’s screen time and encourage them to spend time outside. To find out how it works, try it for free.
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