Communities

Moms With School Age Kids

All Communities > Moms With School Age Kids > How do you make summer a happy and active time for your...

How do you make summer a happy and active time for your kids?

Mercede - posted on 03/18/2012 ( 2 moms have responded )

42

2

Hi everyone,

I remember as a kid I used to spend most of my summer playing with neighbours' kids on the street/ backyards, biking, playing tag and lots of traditional games-which almost don't exist now-. We never went to camps or different classes in summer and we loved it. It was all fun and very joyful as we could be creative and decide how to plan our days without adults' commands and supervision at all times. We would play, explore,learn and make friends.

We live in a neighbourhood where people are very private and don't like to mingle with others ( and I don't think it's just our neighborhood that is like that). we never see kids playing on the street or even in their driveways. My kids are very sociable and love to have playmates but I always have to put them in the car and drive to parks just to find some kids(if any)that they can play with. I wish I knew what other kids do inside all they long. even in a beautiful summer day we don't see children outside playing, well, maybe a few, sometimes, very short.

I wonder if this is a bad idea these days to let our kids play with other kids on the street-of course with adults watching them- . To me it's very healthy and neccessary for kids to have that pure free play time (not in classes or camps or schools).

I would like to know what other moms think about it and if anyone has the same issue how you deal with it.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Join Circle of Moms

Sign up for Circle of Moms and be a part of this community! Membership is just one click away.

Join Circle of Moms

2 Comments

View replies by

Jakki - posted on 03/19/2012

724

11

Yes Mercede I know exactly how you feel. We live in Sydney Australia and it is the same thing - there are lots of families living near us but you don't see them, they are all tucked away in their houses doing god knows what. I think they're not all in front of screens all of the time, but in every family it's a struggle to limit that temptation to an acceptable time.



Sometimes I ring up the neighbourhood families and formally organise a play (invite them over or they invite one of my kids over). But for my 9-year old son, there aren't any kids the right age/sex for him, so he gets sooooo frustrated. We have to go further afield and invite boys from school, but this can be tricky because lots of people seem to go away for long periods over summer.



Oh one thing we have done at the beginning of the school hols is to create a list of all the things everyone wants to do - eg bake a cake, go for a walk, ride a bike, do some art work etc etc and then they work their way through the list and always feel like there's something they want to do.



We do find that if we go away somewhere for a week or two to some kind of camp ground or cabins by the beach or a river, that old fashioned outside fun really starts to happen. Actually we stayed at a caravan park before last Xmas which was perfect - all the kids just roamed on their bikes going to the ping pong room, swimming pool, bouncy pillow or whatever. They made friends and it was all perfect.



But you can't stay there all summer - some of us have gotta work!



Good luck!

Brittney - posted on 03/18/2012

1,463

49

I think with the rise in electronics, they don't see the need to go outside and play. My daughter isn't of school age yet, but we go to parks and I let her play with the neighborhood kids if they're out. She spends most of her day outside with me. I have seen what you mean by driving around and no kids at all. Maybe they just don't like outside anymore (too old)? I personally loved being outside but I was very shy and didn't make friends easily. My mom didn't know anyone at the time who had young kids, I played mostly with my older and younger nieces. Then when I started to go to school, I made more friends and we would set up play dates and get out of the boring houses and neighborhood...but times are indeed changing. My husband spent his entire childhood sitting in front of a tv screen playing video games, while I was constantly outside doing something whether it be tag, hide and seek, or climbing hills...

Want to find out the opinions of this community?

Add Poll