Setting a summer schedule poses challenge for parents | THE MOM STOP

I can imagine what summer is like for kids who have a stay-at-home mom or a parent who is a teacher and has the summer off.

I see the “ultimate summer” checklists on Pinterest or the videos on TikTok of moms who are planning to make every moment count for their kids’ summer, because — cue the guilt trip — childhood only lasts so long, and we only have 18 summers with our children before they are grown. Those checklists are filled with activities like going to the movies, getting ice cream, going to the pool and doing crafts.

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I largely had “free range” kind of summers as a teenager. I’d walk down the street to spend the morning at the neighborhood pool with friends, then back to my house for lunch and to watch "Days of Our Lives" or "Little House on the Prairie" before heading back to the pool or signing into America Online to chat with friends for the afternoon. As a teen, I had the option of sleeping in most days.

But before that — before I could stay home alone — we had summer babysitters. We went to summer camps. My grandparents helped out. And while I don’t remember much from that time, I do remember being stuck outside one sitter’s house for most of the day, told to “play in the yard.” I’m fairly certain we drank from the water hose. Again, fairly normal for kids in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Now, my kids don’t have the luxury of sleeping in on most summer days, because like many other parents, my husband and I work full time. And they’ve certainly never been kept outside in triple-digit heat and told to drink from a water-hose, although my 8-year-old might say that sounds like fun. And while my 14-year-old daughter will be in high school next year and does sometimes stay at home by herself, I don’t feel comfortable leaving her alone all summer long.

Surely there is better use of all that time. Plus, I can only imagine the state the house would be in with all three kids at home alone during the day. Our dogs would likely escape from the house, multiple times. One of our kids would probably almost burn down the house and I shudder to think about the sheer amount of junk food my kids would tear through if they have free reign.

And so, I, like so many other parents across the U.S., turn to a complicated system of “summer learning” opportunities and camps instead. We juggle vacation Bible school and specialty camps. My daughters will go to art camp while visiting my mother in July, while our son will go to a World War II-themed history camp while he visits my in-laws. And while my teenager will get some of that precious summer-sleeping in, much the way I did at her age, she still will go to summer school to get a PE credit knocked out of the way before high school, and go to a camp on the University of Alabama campus so she can learn what college might be like and start thinking about what she could major in.

Do we, as parents, overschedule our children each summer, between the STEM camps, the tennis camps, the swim lessons or art classes? Possibly. But is the alternative of staying home, “free-range” style the way I did as a teenager any better? I don’t think so.

The difficulty is, finding out what summer opportunities are available, signing up for them early, and hoping, with all fingers crossed, that the kids actually enjoy them. For my three kids, the jury is still out. We drop them off for the first class of “summer learning” tomorrow.

Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at momstopcolumn@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Parents face challenge in scheduling summer activities | THE MOM STOP