Best Ways to Keep Your Children Occupied This Summer

Summer is a great season. You get to enjoy the warm weather and numerous outdoor activities. However, the season can be filled with mischief as well, and if you are a parent you might know this all too well. This is because kids will be home most of the time. Of course, they are likely to whine a lot and get into trouble because of boredom. No parent wants to be driven up the wall regardless of whether they work or stay at home.

Fortunately, there are many activities for keeping children occupied this summer and can help you maintain your sanity. Read on to find out more.

Find a Fun Summer Camp

Most conventional summer camps all over the country have either postponed or canceled camp season. That is understandable considering the pandemic and all.

That said, cancellations are largely dependent on each state’s regulations. You may want to find out about yours and if they have measures in place to hold summer camps safely.

If not, you could consider enrolling your kid or kids in a virtual summer camp. There, they will have interactive classes where they can learn things like coding and photography. Sure, they won’t leave the house, but they will be busy enough not to drive you crazy.

Sign Them Up for Sports

The thing about kids is that they have pent-up energy that needs to be released on a regular basis. You can choose to have them release that energy constructively or destructively. Obviously, you would opt for the former.

One of the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer and ensuring that they get their regular dose of playtime is by allowing them to engage in sporting activities. It may not be professional athletics, but they get to have fun and release all that energy they have. Think along the lines of tennis, football, or even swimming.

Help Them Discover New Hobbies

Your child being at home most of the time should not be a reason to get you anxious. If anything, that is the time you should take to bond with them as well as help them discover new things about themselves.

In that regard, you want to be observant and find out what they like to do. Once you have established what that is, you can encourage them and provide resources to help them pursue it. Discovering new hobbies is one of the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer. They may be interested in anything from archery to collecting stamps. Whatever it is, make sure they take some time to do it because it will afford you some alone time with peace and quiet.

Schedule Their Appointments for the summer

As a parent or guardian, you know how hard it is to keep up with various appointments with your child during school days. Why not take advantage of the summer season and schedule their appointments for then? This is the best time to see that child dentist or have that routine physical exam.

Scheduling appointments for the summer period also frees up your time as well as your child’s when schools reopen so that they can focus on their studies. It is among the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer.

Get Them Started on a Straight Smile

Your kids will begin losing their milk teeth from around the time they get to six years of age. Sometimes, their teeth will not grow as properly aligned as they should.

Early orthodontic treatment ensures that they get into adulthood with a straight smile. Wouldn’t it then make sense to visit their dentist during the summer when they have more time on their hands? You may also want to note that kids are prone to cavities because of all the sweet things they eat. Summer provides a great opportunity for them to seek treatment for the same.

Renovate Their Bedroom

Perhaps you do not like how your kids’ bedroom looks. It could be because it is disorderly or that it doesn’t match the rest of the house. Well, you can get them to help you renovate their room. By that, we mean painting, rearranging furniture, or even putting together the kids bunk beds.

In this way, you get an organized and aesthetically appealing room without having to do much. It also offers a way to bond with the kids. This is also one of the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer.

Do Family Activities Together

You don’t get to spend as much time with your kids as you would want when school is in session, right? Well, summer offers you a chance to make up for the lost time. With all that time in your hands, you can engage in various fun activities as a family. Think about doing bicycle rentals to engage in a cycling race at your local park or even going together on a vacation.

This is not only among the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer, but it also strengthens the bond between parents and their kids. You also want to keep in mind that doing family activities together helps siblings bond and learn more about each other.

Give Them Some Responsibility

Only a few things can be as satisfying as having responsible children for a parent. Your focus should not just be on finding the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer. You should also aim to make responsible adults out of them. You can start with a chore chart, which may include unpaid chores including pet care or watering the garden.

After a while, you can begin to step up your game with commission-based chores. This teaches the kids that they have to work to earn a living. Doing that not only teaches the kids how to be responsible but also how to manage money.

Discover the Wonders of Nature

Keeping your kids indoors all the time is not good for them. They also need to explore the outdoors and find out about nature. You can help them with that by taking them up the mountains for hiking or down to a river to fish. As you do that, be sure to let them get involved as much as possible.

If you can find other kids with the same interest in nature and in the same age bracket as your kids, the better it will be for you, because that means that they will often look for each other to go out and find more interesting things about nature. That way, they get to discover nature and its wonders. Let them do things like plant a tree, or set up an aquarium to be responsible for the fish inside.

Don’t Forget About the Little Ones

Keeping children occupied this summer is not just for the older kids. The little ones also need to be kept busy because they can be just as mischievous, if not more, than their older counterparts.

Aside from constantly needing diaper changes and putting things they shouldn’t in their mouth, toddlers also need to be kept busy. You can get together with your neighbors who also have younger children and form a playgroup for them where they will engage in different activities for toddlers.

The best part is that the parents can take turns supervising them so that no one parent has to keep running up and down trying to keep up with their tots.

Visit Your Local Library

Your kids may not enjoy reading, but having them visit your local library every other day is one of the best ways for keeping children occupied this summer.

There, they will get access to a selection of books, some of which may even pique their interest. Be sure to introduce them to colorful books with many graphics because kids easily lose interest in boring stuff. A great start would be storybooks and comic books.

Reading will not only keep them busy, but it will also expand their thinking. Surely, what parent wouldn’t want an intelligent child who can speak fluently and coherently as well as read and write well? Who knows? They may even end up going back to school with a newfound love for books. Isn’t that great?

Start Driving Classes

The fact that your kids haven’t attained the legal age to start driving doesn’t mean that they can’t learn. You can start introducing them to driving little by little. This will be beneficial to them when they begin the actual classes in a driving school because they will not be new to it. They also get to learn about road safety while at it.

Allow Them to be Bored

Yes, you read that right. It may sound unconventional to just let your kids get bored at home but once you allow that to happen, it encourages them to find fun things to do to keep them occupied.

From their boredom, they may find themselves creating new stuff, discovering things, or taking part in activities that may be beneficial to them. Now, there is no limit as far as what they can engage in as long as it is safe and appropriate for their age.

Teach Them How to Cook

Cooking is an art and a life skill as well. Seeing as your kids will have a lot of free time during the summer, why not introduce them to it? Find some fun, simple, and exciting recipes, gather the ingredients, and start cooking. You can do it with them the first few times but after that, they may find themselves wanting to try recipes out on their own.

Doing that will keep them occupied and help them acquire new skills. If they are older kids, you may just end up with your in-house chef for those days when you don’t feel like getting into the kitchen.

Enroll in Piano Lessons

If you realize that your child has an interest in music, why not enroll them in piano lessons. They can dedicate a few hours each week to learn and it doesn’t have to be the piano.

It could be another instrument such as the guitar. Such lessons equip your child or children with skills that could be helpful to them in the future.

Consider Summer Tuition

Granted, summer offers your kids a break away from books and school, but they don’t have to have too much free time on their hands. They may even end up losing traction as far as school work goes.

In that regard, you may want to consider getting holiday tuition for them. It shouldn’t be a daily thing though as that would defeat the purpose of being on holiday. Have them attend the tuition classes several days a week for a few hours just to get them out of the house and keep whatever they learned in school fresh in their minds.

Yard Sales

You have probably not thought about this but what better way to dispose of items you don’t need in your house than during the summer when you can get your kids to help. They can sort their stuff to determine what they no longer use. If they are older and responsible, you can put up a yard sale and let them sell the stuff.

They also get to learn how to make money. How cool is that? You could also set up a lemonade stand in your front yard where your young ones can spend their time selling the drink to passersby and joggers.

Having your kids at home during the summer should not feel like a punishment. When you feel like they are too much and getting into a lot of mischief, you can have them engage in one or more of the activities talked about in this article. The activities are not only fun but educational as well. What a great way to get through the season with minimal mishaps.