Are your kids home for the summer and need a full-staff animation team to keep them engaged for you to maintain your job and sanity?
One of my rest coach clients shared that her ten and 12-year-old kids don’t want to do summer camps this year, and she feels like she has to be entertaining them non-stop while running her business and doing hundreds of other things, including managing the household.
If you find yourself in a similar situation this summer, would you be open to an experiment?
As a Rest Coach, my main goal is to show you that a) you deserve rest every day, and b) you don’t have to do it all today or ever.
The details of the experiment:
The goal: Sharing a practical understanding of how the world works while reducing the overwhelm for you having to do it all.
The experiment: I invite you to give your kids control over the decision(s) related to managing the household. The decisions can vary depending on what’s on your plate this week or this month.
For example, who is in charge of what chores, what we eat today, where we go, what we do, etc.?
The rules: you decide how much control you are willing to let go and set the experiment’s parameters. For example, it can take a day, an hour, or just a few moments. Your experiment can be confined to your chosen boundaries whether physical (we are doing X in the kitchen only) or emotional (I can only do this for 5 minutes because my nervous system will explode). You can try it many times in different forms over the summer and beyond because skills and data are not acquired over one try.
The main requirement for the parents: Do not criticize the process and outcomes while kids experiment. Let them make mistakes, mess around and see that it’s ok to try and learn things without needing to be perfect on the first try.
The benefit: your kids will be gaining new skills and learn about the world and what it takes to manage the household, while you get to relax.
Extra benefit: this experiment instills confidence, autonomy, critical thinking, and problem-solving and it allows your kids to feel that they contribute, they are loved even when they mess up and their decisions are respected in the family.
Remember, we aren’t raising kids, we are raising adults from children so let’s equip them with skills they would actually need in life. Not just how to spell words and do science projects.
Real-life examples for you to consider:
a. Kids can create a meal plan for the day/week for the whole family and shop for it to see how much work it is and what it really takes to feed a family.
b. Kids prep their own snacks for the day with whatever they can create/find in the kitchen to free up time for the mom who is in charge of this task.
c. Kids can make a list of ALL the chores they think need to be done around the house and you can make your own one and compare to find differences.
d. Using the complete list of household chores, kids get to choose which ones they would enjoy doing or would like to try learning. You can make this a summer-long rotation schedule to have them try as many as possible that are age appropriate.
e. If kids have access to computers and search engines, put them in charge of creating an outing plan for the family by doing all the research on the activities, restaurants, or whatever else they wish to do to explore the location.
If you found this article helpful – please share it with your network and comment below on which experiment you are going to try this week!
