The day has finally arrived, the last day of school! Yesterday, I took a chance and shared my fears around spending 24-7 with my girls this summer. I am glad to hear I am not the only one who isn't keen on listening to the bickering and fighting that can come when 2 children are home together for extended periods of time. I put it out there and I got some great support. Thanks.
I said yesterday that I would share something we are putting together to try and curb the insanity around here. The other night I was having a conversation with another mom in the schoolyard and we were discussing summer with our kids. Sure we all know about the summer academic slide, the need to keep kids reading and learning throughout the summer months. But, we were discussing the way that during vacation there can also be a slide of our kids behaviour. You know what I mean. Waking up later, staying up later, hanging out on the couch all day...a recipe for a whining disaster in our house. I knew that we needed to create a list of house rules in our house. A simple list of "rules" that will help to guide our behaviour and keep us all on some sort of schedule. So, I sat down with my girls and we typed up a list, our Summer House Rules. Here are a few items that made our list.
if you are feeling frustrated WALK AWAY
These are a few of the thoughts we had. Actually, I let my girls come up with most of the ideas. They had some great opinions for this one. We printed out the list and have posted it in the kitchen on our magnet board. I hope the discussion we had when we generated this list helps my daughters understand the importance of treating one another with respect and the importance of personal responsibility.
Do I think this list will mean that our summer will be a dream vacation? No. But I do think that this list has given us a great starting place for having a fantastic summer. Now, it's time to start checking things off our summertime fun list!
Peggy-Sue says
When I told my oldest we're going to write up a "Summer Rules" list he groaned. But I can easily see them getting into it, especially when they get to call out one of their siblings for breaking a rule. I love your "if you are feeling frustrated WALK AWAY" rule - I may be using that one myself quite a bit. I think I'm going to number our rules because I like the idea of not having to explain "honey, what about the rule of "if someone says STOP ..." I can simply call out "Rule #2!" Here's to a peaceful-ish summer!