Liam’s Summer Schedule

Summer is near and that means one thing and one thing only…. I will be home with both my kids all day. I guess I should say this up front: I am very thankful to be able to spend the whole day with them. I know some parents wish they could.

But I will say staying home all day has its challenges. Especially with my oldest, Liam. Liam needs structure. Actually, maybe I need the organization more than him. Anyway, we both need some sort of schedule. So today I worked on an early draft of what our schedule will be for the summer.

This is basically a daily schedule that changes every half hour or hour. Like for example: 8:00am to 8:30am would be wake up and breakfast, etc. You get the idea. This year is a tiny bit more challenging though. Liam is older and Luca is actually mobile. So I have to figure in all the new opportunities of mischief that can and will occur.

Also, Liam needs to be challenged way more this summer. He’s a smart kid but 2 months of just watching “Wild Krats” or “Moana” isn’t gonna help his cause. To keep his brain active on school things I’ve made copies of his work sheets from school. They are blank and he could continually work on them throughout the summer. Also, I am going to have a reading slot somewhere in the day with random books. This doesn’t have to be a super educated time slot, maybe even comics or something fun like that.

I don’t know, the other side of me feels sometimes I am too hard on him. I don’t want to be that kind of dad. I just want him to not disappear into the tv abyss for the summer. I want him to learn and experience some new stuff this year. Making good habits is also important to me. Hopefully we could start on some good hobbies this summer and revisit them every summer. This is what I would like to be spending our time on.

I also wanted to include an outside activities slot per day. Maybe like an hour where we could just go outside and do whatever. No rules or anything like that. Just a fun time. The thought also crossed my mind to take part in some hobbies that he could see progression in. Like planting a tree and making sure we water it everyday. etc.

Who knows? I’ll keep a log of what ideas I came up with. What worked and what didn’t. I guess zooming out and looking at the big picture, the ultimate goal would be to keep his screen time less than an hour a day and his brain engaged. I mean, maybe some days he could watch a movie. But those would be special days.

Am I being too harsh? I really don’t want to be. I just want whats best for him.