Ignored Necessities Every Child Needs This Summer

As parents, we often think of preparedness in concrete terms.  I need to purchase – learn – or do things in order to be prepared.  Especially when it deals with our children, we need to take a different tack.  Kids need to be prepared too.  While they do need to learn and do things in order to be prepared, but they need other things too – things that aren’t as concrete.  Kids need to learn to look at the world differently if they are going to be better prepared as they grow up.

But let’s put that into focus as a Mom.  I’m betting that you probably take one of two approaches to summer vacation.  Mom-type #1 fills the weeks full of fun places to go and people to see.  This mom and her kids are always on the go.  Downtime?  HA!  There’s no such thing.  Mom-type #2 sees the summer as a time for her kids to do whatever they want.  She’s pretty hands-off with her kids so long as they don’t go breaking things in the house, pretty much anything is on the table.

But what both of these mom-types miss is that there is value in both approaches to summertime.  Making summer fun without wasting it can be a delicate balance, but to that end, I have five suggestions of things to either include to make time for depending on your usual take on summer parenting.

1.) Reading and Read Alouds

(This can include prepper fiction that they can learn from and be inspired by.)

There’s no better way to instill a love of learning than getting your kids to read.  For some moms, this probably isn’t an issue.  For others it is.  I have two kids that won’t come downstairs before 10 am most days during the summer.  When I holler upstairs to make sure they are awake, they always are.  When asked what they are doing – they are reading!  I love it.  It’s especially a sweet victory because one of those two children was a very reluctant reader until he discovered adventure books.

But what if you have a child who hates reading and refuses to read.  At one point my youngest was really struggling to read.  We found out after the fact that he had vision issues which (thankfully) have since been remediated!  For a long time, there was no way that he’d sit down and read a book on his own – even a very simple book on his level.  So what do you do for kids like that?  Read out loud to them.  Need some suggestions?  You can find some fun suggestions with preparedness themes here.

But what if YOU don’t have time to read to them?  Can I tell you, that I just love Audible!  Yes, it usually is $15/month, but the number of audiobooks that my kids now have access to is well worth it!  We’ve listed through The Green Ember series, The Wingfeather Saga, The Wilderking Triology, The Chronicles of Narnia, and so many others.

2.) Creativity

Kids need time to learn to think outside the box and to be creative.  Learning to think creatively helps kids as they learn to be prepared.  That could take the form of keeping craft supplies around like these, these, or these.  Another creative outlet that some – at least several of mine – children like is the ability to play musical instruments.  There’s not a day that goes by in our house where I don’t hear two different children playing piano and another playing guitar.  Creativity could take the form of drawing.  A good drawing pad, a decent set of pencils, and a “how to” drawing book or two could be hours of fun time for certain children.  For the child who loves it, creativity can be as simple as gardening.

3.) Downtime

Especially during the school year, there’s so little time that kids can do just whatever they want to.  During the summer, some times they just need the ability to do whatever they want to.  If you’re a mom who schedules everything, every day, give your kids some downtime to do what they want to do.

4.) Adventures help kids to be prepared.

If Mom-type 1 has a hard time with downtime.  Mom-type 2 may have a hard time making time for adventures.  This is generally where I fall.  At this point in my life, my life is so full.  Making time for adventures sometimes feels like just ONE MORE THING added to my schedule, but my kids need this from time to time.  They need to go out and do things that THEY want to do.  Things that THEY consider fun.

Mom, don’t schedule ‘adventures’ that the kids have no desire to do!  Make sure they enjoy these things and that they are FUN!  Ask your kids if they could choose one thing to do this summer within a 2-hour drive and (insert a dollar amount that includes everything you’d have to pay for) for the whole day, what would they choose?  Where would they want to go?  What would they want to do?  Try to incorporate one or two of these in your summer.

These could even be free.  Is there a beach or lake within two hours where you could fish or swim and take a picnic lunch?  That wouldn’t cost anything but gas!  Is there a family that your kids want to get together with?  Take a day at a park and get together.

And while you’re having adventures, throw in a preparedness adventure!  Grab your Bug-Out-Bags and a camping tent.  Just go overnight somewhere.  Go and have fun and……learn

5.) Learning to be better prepared.

There are so many ways that learning is still enjoyable over the summer.  Grab some fun games that include learning.

But what about other things that kids can learn?  Do your kids know how to cook a meal?  How about this – do they know how to start a fire?   Another good skill – do they know how/where to hide from strangers if one got into your house?  Do they know how to navigate by stars or understand what the clouds rolling in mean?  Want some suggestions for preparedness related learning (that’s FUN) along with resources to teach those items?  You can find them here.

On a side note, if you want to make sure that you’re stocked for summer power outages (like we had last night), you’ll want to check out this article too.

What About You?

Are you making time for your kids this summer?  How do your activities help your kids be better prepared? What activities do you have planned?  Do you struggle with giving your kids downtime?  Let us know in the comments below so that we can all be better prepared.

Together let’s Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome

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