Summer: Should you keep up your routine?

Truth be told, there is no right answer: The way you spend your summer vacation will often depend on your family’s situation.

Some parents have to work around a full-time job, a tight budget, or children with special needs. What matters is that you listen to your kids and make sure their summer vacation is as relaxing as possible.

For me, relaxing requires being able to forget about structure and routine for a few weeks a year.

That means having lazy mornings, skipping dance class or swimming lessons, sleeping in, ignoring meal times, jumping in the pool at eleven o’clock at night because “it’s too hot,” letting the kids wear mismatched outfits, taking naps, picking up (or putting down) a book, playing board games, baking that cake I’ve always wanted to make, etc.

Choosing to do absolutely nothing
I work as a freelancer, so I get to take the entire month of July off. A full month at home and no routine. Our only weekly commitment is the book club at the local library. It’s an hour-long return to civilization that makes reading fun—all the while giving parents a chance to read in an air-conditioned setting!

The first week of vacation at home is always the hardest: the kids bicker and don’t know what to do with themselves. They complain, get bored, and spend all their time on screen devices. During week two, the kids gradually settle into a slower, more relaxed pace.

In vacation mode
Free to do as they wish, the girls make up all kinds of games. They put on plays, create their own cooking show (which they hope to put on YouTube), play school, write books (which they also edit), and build a local library, daycare, and farm.

They go for swims, play make-believe, go to the playground, make their own clothes, open a store to sell painted rocks, set up a lemonade stand, paint their faces, make dirt pie, and go on great adventures with swords made out of sticks.

They catch and feed a toad, open a restaurant for their dolls, make music videos for their favourite songs, browse Pinterest for craft ideas, spend the night in a fort they built out of blankets, etc.

The long-awaited return to routine!
In August, we slowly get back into our routine.

• We start eating proper meals.
• The girls get used to getting up and going to bed earlier again.
• Some nights, they do a few exercises in their workbooks, in exchange for an ice cream cone or other treat.

At the end of the month, we always make a trip to the salon to tame their wild summer hair. We buy new shoes, and label their school supplies. The girls can’t wait to go back to school.

We realize that we’ve missed our “normal” life and always wind up feeling grateful for our routine!