Preparing For Summer Break With Kids!
Summer break can be a difficult time for both parents and kids, depending on your summer schedules, working full-time, planning activities for your littles and ensuring that you’ve prepared for the upcoming summer break can feel overwhelming.
Most children will do better with structure and routine, especially for neurodiverse children and those experiencing mental health challenges. In order to have a successful transition into summer break here are some tips and tricks to ensure that you can set both you and your kiddos up for a successful break.
Maintaining a schedule: Ensuring that your kiddo’s know what to expect and when to expect it, can be helpful. This will help to ensure that the same stability and structure is there as it would be during the school year.
Visual Prompts/Schedules: Having a family calendar can be helpful- this allows your child to be able to have a visual schedule available to them, which would allow for them to see what to expect from their day, week, month, etc.
Pre-Planning Recreational Activities: Anyone who has signed up a kiddo for camp knows that
there can be quite a bit of pre-planning involved. Make this a fun activity with your little and allows them to have the autonomy and space to decide what camps/recreational activities would interest them. Doing this in advance will give you both the time to decide what dates and what camps, would make the most sense for your family.
Finding low-cost or no-cost activities: While summer can bring on a lot of financial commitments for families, finding activities that require limited cost or no cost can also be important to include in your summer plans. Finding a new trail or park can be a great way to get outside or going to a community pool to have some fun with your kiddos can also be a great way to enjoy the weather. Here are 10 free things to do in the Waterloo Region.
The Kitchener Public Library and Waterloo Public Library are another great resource as they hold free events that you can check out through their website!
Summer plans might not always go as expected- which is totally ok. Remember to give yourself and family grace as you navigate through it. Having a support network available to you can be important as you transition into a busy season of life.
Written by: Alicia Langlois
Alicia is a registered social worker, with a Masters of Social Work degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, and holds a Honours Bachelor of Sociology, with a Minor in Women and Gender Studies from Brock University. Her work is grounded in attachment theory and uses a trauma-informed lens in providing treatment through drawing upon techniques from: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Narrative Therapy and Play-Based Therapy.