For Children, Summer Means Fun
Boredom, obligations, free time and vacations are a mixture that can generate tensions between parents and children, and in the couple as well. All of this can be prevented. How? With a previous mentalization work and with the acceptance of emotions and thoughts related to boredom by children.
Summer, paradoxically, is perhaps the most difficult time of the year. Many wait for it like May water and sometimes it brings more problems than solutions. One of the main ones is the children’s vacation period.
Summer and free time can turn into a nightmare if not managed properly. Children crave this period and dream of it. The older ones will have generated expectations of what they will be able to do and the younger ones just know that math, language and science are over.
Nevertheless…. the mix of free time and children can sometimes be exhausting. To begin with, the environmental conditions do not help to carry out any activity. Despite the fact that as a species we are used to changes in temperature, the heat generates lack of concentration, insomnia, aggressiveness and irritability. If adults are faced with these types of sensations, emotions and seasonal problems, children are no less. Still, not all blame is on the heat …
Obligations: a wrong message for nine months
Summer is freedom, it is a feeling of breaking with routine and letting go of homework, homework and teachers. If you give the little ones the option of being the protagonists of their own time, they will respond with swimming pool, friends, beach, cousins, falling asleep late … that is, outside responsibilities. It is then when the clash of ideas between parents and children appears. Why is it so hard for you to understand that not everything is fun?
Many children get the message for nine months that their only responsibility is to study and get good grades. This idea is usually a resource for parents to call their children to order and mentalize them in some way. There are other situations where children are very good students and do not see emotional reward for their effort. The message is the same: “it is the least you have to do, your only responsibility”.
When the notice throughout the year is that, how are we going to ask them for other commitments during the summer? Generally what they feel is a sense of legitimate irresponsibility. For parents after finishing school and extracurricular activities, it seems a necessity to complete the day. How? Homework notebooks, reinforcements in academies, English camps, homework, taking care of their little siblings …
If the mandate for nine months has revolved around the fact that their only task was to carry out the course at school, at the piano, in English, in mathematics … and they get it … How do we want them to understand that when the holidays come and Does it all end should they continue to occupy their time with it?
Boredom: damn free time …
School, basketball, violin, English academy, math academy, crafts, chess, homework…. All this two or three times a week spread over the five days. In the end, the free time is for the shower, some television time and rest. For nine months the children have an agenda that is marked to them and that is square to the millimeter so that it fits with that of the parents.
They generally do not make decisions and are transported from one place to another doing activities that they more or less like; something that, to a certain extent, is not bad. They don’t always have to be activities that they enjoy. The path of effort learning includes some “troubles” that go through obligations that are not liked, although we know that they are beneficial.
Children notice the change; on the other hand, for many parents it is a real burden to find activities that occupy the enormous amount of free time that their children have. More and more voices are raised to remind that boredom and “not knowing what to do” are essential for the mental, motor and creative development of children. When your son tells you that he is bored, what do you feel? Grief or burden? Feeling like a bad father? Do not be fooled, you are not a bad mother because your child gets bored.
Prepare for what is coming. Pool? Yes friends? Yes. Boredom? Too. Buy materials or provide elements of the house with which they can investigate (spices to paint, flour, bread, wool, shoe boxes, buttons, etc.). Be careful, it does not mean that you give them the ideas. We must be facilitators, not programmers. They have to awaken their own resources such as interest, creativity, joy, curiosity, and motivation to try new activities.
