For the most part, summer has been great. Carla, I think, has had a good mix of being in camp and not being in camp. It’s been a good mix for me, too, because I’ve had some nice chunks of Not Driving. We could be doing more friend get-togethers, but those have proven surprisingly difficult to arrange; I’m assuming everyone else is in the same boat of trying to work vacation and camp and downtime into the remaining days before school starts.
The hardest part of summer for me is the lack of a set schedule. Sure, it seems nice, to have loose lazy days where we do not much of anything at all… but in practice, I end up feeling kind of yucky about it. I think if we had a more rigid schedule on most days, an occasional lazy day would feel more like a break than a waste of time.
Well, it feels quite late in the game to be thinking about re-jigging our schedule. Especially as we have both a two-week vacation AND another full week of sleepaway camp coming up which will throw everything into disarray.
It feels kind of stupid to be stressing about schedules in the summer. And yet, I persist. The stress is the result of two pressures. No, three pressures:
- Academic Pressure: I want to make sure that Carla stays engaged in things that challenge her brain and encourage critical thinking. Plus, she has a robust array of summer assignments she’s supposed to complete.
- Sports Pressure: Carla is an active, athletic kid who likes to participate in sports. We’ve never gotten into the whole travel/club sports scene, about which, frankly, I feel quite relieved. (My god, talk about stress and scheduling complexity.) She’s only participated in sports through school. For my particular child, who is unlikely to play sports in college let alone professionally, sports offer an array of benefits that go beyond Being A Star X Player. I want her to continue to play the sports she likes and continue to feel good about her contribution to her teams. As she gets older, and as her peers advance their own skills, it feels more and more important to encourage her to practice and build up her strength and endurance. I would also love for her to get into the habit of regular exercise, because it’s good and necessary for her. She got this for her birthday, which seems like a way to combine fun and exercise. If the weather would cooperate, maybe we can try it out.
- Break Pressure: The counterweight to the above two pressures is the pressure to give Carla a freaking break, and let her experience the pleasure and freedom and, yes, boredom of long, lazy summer days with no commitments and no expectations. When I was her age, I had ZERO summer expectations. I’m pretty sure I either stayed at home with my brother and his nanny all day, or my mom dropped me off at various friends’ houses on her way to work in the morning and the friend and I roamed around town all day until my mom picked me up on her way home from work. I had no summer homework, no summer sports practice, no summer camps, no supervision. It was glorious. Clearly, it was a different time. For many, many reasons, I don’t think trying to recreate that experience for my kid would fly. But I do want her to have SOME of that summer freedom. It’s so fleeting.
My reaction to all these pressures has been to create a daily schedule.
I did a lot of research into schedules, and compromised my morals by asking ChatGPT for help fitting everything we wanted to do into each day. Then I designed the schedule in Canva and had Office Max print it out and laminate it for me, so we can add specifics to each day. It’s taped to the kitchen wall, directly across from Carla’s spot at the table.
I like this schedule because it incorporates all the things I want Carla to experience in a week: dedicated time for schoolwork, exercise, and music alongside plenty of time to do Summer Things. The key for me is that we get all the work done before noon, and then our afternoons are wide open. That feels both doable and like I’m not weighing her down with a grueling workload. I feel like having a half-hour dedicated to music practice, for instance, is a lot less onerous than telling her, “You need to practice your music today.” I want all her to-dos to be finite.
The schedule worked beautifully. For about a week and a half. Then, as is ALWAYS my problem, one little hiccup brought down the whole system. If I had to identify one culprit, it would be going to bed late. Carla still, at thirteen, does best if she gets ten to twelve hours of sleep a night, and sleep has always, always been one of my top priorities for her. Which means I am reluctant to wake her up at seven when she’s gone to bed at eleven the night before.
Nights are SO HARD though! My husband is not on a summer schedule. He is on his regular, everyday work schedule. He gets home at six or seven most nights, works out, and then we eat dinner at eight or so. We like to watch Taskmaster as a family, and it’s very difficult to keep ourselves to one episode a night (although we succeed, most nights). This means that Carla’s 8:30 bedtime creeps up to 9:30 or 10:00 and sometimes later.
Could I be more strict? Certainly. But it’s not easy, and I grow weary of being the Bedtime Bitch who is pushing and nagging and trying to keep everyone on track. (I would also prefer to go to bed at 9:30 or 10:00; but I still read to Carla every night, so when her bedtime gets pushed back, so does mine, and I end up in bed around midnight. I still wake up at 5:30, so I am VERY TIRED a lot of the time. Which also makes it harder for me to keep on top of things.)
Last night was one of the late nights – and I think Carla was up until midnight working on her summer reading, which is both commendable (and relatable) and also go to sleep. This morning, I feel groggy and unmotivated. How am I supposed to motivate my child into action when I struggle with motivating myself??? If I allow her to sleep in, she’ll have more energy for getting things done… but then our schedule will creep into the afternoon, and we won’t have time for the fun stuff… and then I’ll feel like a Mean Mom, or we’ll allow fun stuff to bleed into the evening, and then we’re in bed at midnight and the whole misshapen cycle continues.
Well, there’s not a lot to be done except try to get back on track.
You’ve got flex time built into the schedule. And does lunch really take an hour? Allow your schedule to ooze a little into those zones. I bet she can still be done by one. And if she misses one thing, have her do it before dinner ( if she eats with you) or after dinner if she eats earlier. And if she misses one slot in a day, there’s no grade, no penalty. Catch up on the weekend.
You did not schedule playtime with Lenny- don’t forget your Supreme fluffy boy!
Oh, do not worry about Lenny! He gets his playtime first thing: 5:45 to 6:00 daily, and he will not allow me to forget it! And he gets plenty of cuddles before and after.
I cannot recommend The Lazy Genius enough here. You gotta listen to her podcast if you don’t already 🙂
Good idea, Sarah! I will take a listen.
I do remember trying to balance all these goals in the summer when my kids were, well, kids, and how hard it was. Now North has an out-of-state summer job and Noah’s holding down the fort at home while I’m on an extended visit to my mother-in-law with Beth, I am almost nostalgic for that problem. Not quite though– usually by late July I was counting down the days until school started. You’re doing great.
Awww, I can totally see how I will look back on these “stresses” and miss them! I am trying to build in some time for us together, too.
I love a schedule so I would thrive with this sort of set up, especially if the kid can sort of manage the schedule on their own without too much guidance/nagging from the parent. Our boys are at camp or at the school summer program all summer with the exception of 3 weeks that the kids spend at my parents (one of those weeks is with us for our annual summer family vacay). I think I’ve commented before that Phil feels guilty that our kids don’t have the kind of summer he did as a child w/ 2 teacher parents. But parenting is so different these days and free range/come and go as you please does not work in an urban setting with trafficky streets and friends that are spread out around a couple of different neighborhood – and those friends are probably in camps/childcare. So Phil’s childhood can’t be replicated. I had a free range summer, too, but had lists of chores and I lived in a rural area so I was so isolated and lonely and would have loved to have the set up my kids have.
All that said, since they follow a schedule at their summer care, we are pretty lax about any sort of scheduled for evenings and weekends. I do make Paul practice piano twice/week (Fridays and Sundays) to keep his skills up/prevent a regression. His teacher sent home 2 math books that had pages that weren’t completed during the school year, so on the days he doesn’t practice piano, he has to do 2 pages of math. And then we read nearly every night although some nights he plays geography games w/ Phil like worldle and flagle and wheretaken so I let the nightly/reading slide. The math + reading happens after Will is in bed, and their bedtimes are only 30 minutes apart so there’s only so much we can jam into those 30 minutes, especially if he spends 10 minutes whining about having to do math – which is more time than it would actually take to sit down and do that gosh darn math pages!! Sigh.
I remember those long summers of having absolutely nothing to do as a kid, and the feeling of wanting to climb the wall after a while. I would not have been so smart as to organize something like Carla’s schedule for myself, which is why the Big Humans have to do stuff like this for the Tiny Humans. Also what you said that there isn’t much to be gained by being Bedtime Bitch.
I’m doing the math and a two week vacation plus summer camp…summer is almost over! Wah!!! Where did the time go?
That balance of being bored (important in my opinion) and doing enriching activities is so tricky! I admit that I never got the hang of it. My older daughter does better although she has to since she isn’t on a teacher schedule with summers mostly off. I wanted my daughters to find activities and sports that they could continue when older; unfortunately, my younger was passionate about and gifted in club gymnastics. My older one did ballet/dance which she still loves and does occasionally.
Summer break (only 6 weeks in Germany) always felt so gloriously long… both my parents (teachers) were off, too, so we all had a very different schedule during the summer. I can understand though that you’d like to keep a bit of a routine … can some of your morning routine be pushed into the afternoon, if you don’t go to bed early enough? I feel like sleeping in is also part of summer 🙂
Oh, but I have to inquire about this part: “Im pretty sure I either stayed at home with my brother and his nanny all day,’…”.
Was your brother’s nanny not YOUR nanny as well?
I am feeling the summer angst over here, too. Wanting there to be time for spontaneous fun and ALSO, there are so many hours to fill and I want them to be filled well and also it’s exhausting cooking/cleaning/organizing their schedule. I feel like my Mom didn’t dither about this like I do: she just sent me outside to play because it was the early 90s and that’s what parents did.
We have almost NOTHING planned for August and it’s stressing me out, but my son is adamant he doesn’t want any more day camps. Egads.
It seems to me that your schedule already has flexibility accounted for. You don’t have to follow the schedule rigidly to get all the things done. This is a season, and you have to allow for a little flexibility in seasons such as this one.
Agree with checking out the Lazy Genius stuff – I think maybe the level of structure here might be more than you need ot accomplish what you want to accomplish, unless she really likes it! I have one kid who might like the idea of that schedule but still wouldn’t stick to it , and the other two — well, there would be no hope. So it’s more of a “you have to get outside, do some reading, play some piano before you touch an iPad, and by the way no iPad until afternoon anyway” type of deal and that seems to work.
Second – bedtime. Kids with hormones circulating (most 13 yo girls!) are driven to stay up later. There are definitely exceptions, but many kids that age would struggle with a bedtime that early. At some point I just recognized that as long as my kids are off screens, i do not care if they stay up later than I do. (This includes my 8 yo). I still read to them — well, the 8 yo — but once I’m done, I leave and say “you can keep reading or hang out but if you want to stay up be my guest just don’t forget to turn the light out” . Sometimes the 3 of them have quiet shenanigans and are up way later, and I am okay with that esp during summer in this no-camp stretch when no REAL pressure to get up. Will August’s school start (in less than 3 weeks, gah!) be a rude awakening? YES, but they will adjust like it or not!!
I think you can have approximate blocks of time you want to do certain things, but I would personally NOT tie them to specific hours! I’d leave the wake up time flexible! My kids would have killed me if I woke them up to start academic time at 8:30 in the summer, haha! Maybe just say, ok, whenever she’s up/ we’re up and ready, after breakfast, we’ll start with some academic stuff first for 30 min, then move on to some outdoor time/ athletic time for 30 min, snack, then music time. I don’t think the activities really need strict start and stop times- you can still get the activities but have more flexibility then without feeling chained to a schedule.
I also think bed times naturally get later in the summer and that’s okay and that’s very normal! Also, her age…. If she doesn’t “have” to be up so early in the summer, I’d lean into that and just enjoy it.
I have to say, that schedule is so pretty! And it looks lovely and well-balanced. I totally do not remember what we did in the summers when the boys were 13ish. Like, I don’t remember what time they went to bed, I don’t remember what they did all day, I REMEMBER NOTHING. I should go and read my blog to see what we did!
I agree with Nicole that your schedule is so pretty! I love how it offers a nice framework of activities with built-in flexibility. I love that you still read to Carla at bedtime. I think you’re a wonderful mom!
Summer schedules are so tricky! I love the idea of flexible blocks rather than strict hours. To keep the ‘must-dos’ from slipping through the cracks, I use Taskai on my Android. It helps me capture random thoughts so I can focus on the fun stuff.
I have no suggestions, but can commiserate with you. I’m also struggling with late bedtimes, and then a struggle to get my youngest up and out the door to a sport camp. The oldest carried a heavy load through the school year alongside working and volunteering, so I’ve been a bit more relaxed with her, but still. Late bedtimes and instant ramen, the bane (banes?) of my existence!
Summer really does have its own rhythm, doesn’t it? I love that you’re trying to find the balance between having plans and leaving room for the little moments. Those unscheduled pieces of summer are often the ones we remember most. 💕
I really like that schedule. But I think it’s okay to not adhere to it all the time. A 1.5 week run sounds pretty good to me.
When my kids were in the elementary-to-teenager phase, I remember a feeling of quiet desperation in mid-summer, because that was when my work schedule (working from home) increased. I devised all kinds of things to keep them busy, especially my Summer Merit Badge program, which was not a complete failure. https://commonhousehold.blogspot.com/2014/06/best-summer-merit-badge.html
It doesn’t affect me any more, but in our school district, school starts in a month. Not too much longer to go before the school supplies the daily schedule and routine.
That schedule is brilliant, and also I totally feel the ‘one little hiccup throws everything off’ thing on so many levels. Our kids never had summer school assignments and sometimes Eve would be next door playing with her friend Victoria until after midnight. My own sleep schedule is always chopped as fuck, and I let that spill over, but everything seems to have turned out okay. That is only to say that trying is great, and is probably enough for everything not to go off the rails.
I agree with those saying that boredom is important, and that you have wiggle room. I would definitely let her sleep as late as she wants whenever possible. It’s a long life of having to get up early and do things you don’t *really* want to do. I do like all of the thought you’ve put into enrichment and ways to keep her from being *too* bored, though.
I remember the lazy summers of years gone by. When our kids were younger, they went to swim team practice and wrote in a journal and read – usually before lunch, and then we had the afternoon for friends and the pool. Those were the days. I’m familiar with teens sleeping late, sometimes they need that
My cousin and I were talking about summer schedules and kids last week. We are absolutely sure we had it better. We grew up with no schedule until we were 16 and found lake jobs. We spent the summer at the lake — reading, doing art, water skiing and swimming, walking, finding the swamp creatures, calling the phone booth outside the movie theatre to see who’d answer, and just being. Yes, we had chore and rules — no TV, out of the house no later than 11 (porch to read was OK); regular meals with the family (or mostly my mom, aunt and cousins; dads came when the could. I realize how terribly lucky and fortunate we were, that we could go away to the lake for three months with few obligations. Now the boys have one event or camp thing after another. Probably necessary because mom and dad both work — but will they ever understand the power of just “being.” I’m glad Carla is getting a wee bit of a break.
Lots of great comments here already – I love the idea of not making it time-specific but just whenever she wakes up. Have you read the book Why We Sleep? There’s some really good info about why teenagers’ circadian rhythms get so whack! It’s actually GOOD for her to go to bed later. I don’t know how to work this out with school schedules, lol, but it was interesting to learn more about how our sleep/wake schedules change so much throughout our lives!
Anyway, I’d love to be your kid and have this kind of schedule for myself. Ha!