Episode 351: Thriving with Kids This Summer

I'm getting yelled at for being late, everybody.

I'm not getting yelled at.

Happy WaniPools Wednesday!

Surprise! We're joining you from my Facebook page— profile, as opposed to Rebecca's, because I'm sad her account got hacked and disabled. So while frantically trying to get Facebook to let her recover her account, we are doing it from mine. Backup plan.

So for those of you who are friends with Seth and not me, you're confused right now as to what's going on. So every Wednesday night I go live with Seth and we talk about the topic of the week. I'm a social worker, I do marriage, marriage and parenting topics. This week is thriving. Hello, how are you? Hey Mike, um, Michael. So This topic this week is thriving with your kids this summer, but I wrote the blog and then two stressors popped up and I was like, I already did this, I already published it, I can't go back and change it. But since I wrote this, there is a blog at wineinclusive.com if you want to read it. Number one, I have stressed out kids taking exams. Hi, Tayton. Stressed out kids taking exams. Exams are stressful. Number 2, no Facebook for me. That's stressful. We've got a couple stressors going on. The good news is today was the last full day of high school, so my high schoolers are very excited that all they have left is a few exams. They have been— ahaha, you found us! Yes, here we are on Seth's page. I was just wondering how many of my friends he's not friends with.

I got our apparently friends and moms.

Oh my gosh, summer is coming. So, a lot of you are already in the summer and school's over and your kids have been enjoying the summer and then there's us and our kids are still in school. So, we're not at summer yet, we're prepping for summer. How are you gonna survive summer with your kids? How are you gonna thrive instead of survive? What does it take? Now, if you are working every day, all day. It's gonna look different than if you're working at home, working part-time, or a stay-at-home mom. So I want us to adjust the advice based on your work schedule.

Yeah. Okay, very different.

So I think that kids still need some sort of routine. Now you know me very well, and you know I'm gonna throw the routine out the window. I'm gonna throw it out the window and stomp on it.

You're gonna be all flexible, and I don't know what we're doing, when we're doing it. We're gonna figure it out.

And I'm gonna need that for a little while.

Yes, you're gonna have to rebel against routine until it bites you in the butt, and then you're gonna need a routine again.

I tend to resist routine. I know routine is good for me. Routine with my food is good for me. Routine with my kids is good for me. I know that I benefit from all of that stuff. I still resist it because I think that I like to be all loosey-goosey, and then things might get stressful, and I will retract that and say, maybe we need a little bit of a schedule.

A little bit.

Like a meal schedule, some sort of activity schedule. I find for my family, we need to get out of the house every day, and I work at home, and I'm here. We'll see how much work I get done. Adrian, you are going to hear this. I am talking to my wonderful producer. I do my best over the summer. I work with a lot of chaos in the summer, and those of you who work at home with little kids, You understand my kids go to school, so they're only home in the summer. So, some sort of routine will help keep you sane. And I really like to ask my kids what is their agenda for the summer. What is something fun that they want to do? What kind of fun—

summer market—

what kind of fun activities do we want to do this summer? Lily has already said she wants to go to Darien Lake. So, Plan some fun activities so that they have stuff to look forward to and get their feedback on it. I think that helps.

You gotta have something to look for.

I like having stuff to look forward to. And my birthday is coming up soon, so I gotta make some sort of fun plan.

Yes. Where would you like to go out for your birthday, honey?

My whole—

you wanted a family adventure, right?

My whole family is going to be home on my birthday, so that will be some sort of fun activity today. If you hear this, feel free to give us suggestions of what we can do. Two of the things we have done on my birthday are Griffiths— Griffiths Sculpture Park and Darien Lake. Those are— those were two fun days.

Yes, they were.

Yeah, so embrace outdoor play. We got to get our kids outside and off the devices. Off the devices. Get outside. Go ride your bike. Go take a walk. Go play with a friend. We got a pickleball net, go play pickleball. We got a pool, go in the pool. My kids will get bored of the pool very soon, very quickly, and I will still encourage them to go in the pool.

And you will still want to be in the pool.

I—

they are bored.

I'm not gonna get bored of the pool. The kids get bored of the pool. So What I do to fight the boredom, and we're going to talk about boredom, is that I invite their friends over. And it can be a lot, but they are so much happier with their friends here. They'd rather swim with their friends than me.

Yeah.

Okay, schedule downtime. My kids are toast. I don't know about your kids, but my kids have been studying and studying the structure of the day. All of it is very draining. They need to chill out. I'm not gonna go hog wild with the schedule. I'm not gonna go hog wild with chores. I want them to have some downtime. I want them to regroup and de-stress.

And we all need it, including you, including me, even though I keep work where I do not get summers off.

One of the things—

I will get to sleep later though.

One of the things that Seth is wonderful and he gets up early with me with the high schoolers and he ends up taking Ella to school a lot because Max goes in early. So, I will be like, "I need you to take Ella to school at 7 AM." And then he'll just go to work.

And he'll say— Hurry up!

He gets dressed, he gets ready, and he goes to work at 7 o'clock in the morning.

So, Seth has added, "You're gonna take away, you're gonna take away some work hours." I'm gonna be excited to sleep later and chill out in the morning as opposed to running in.

Oh yes, Jesse gets to sleep in too because he's not driving Nolan to school. That's awesome. Seth is very excited. What time are you gonna get to work now? I'm gonna preface that. Okay, I'm gonna guess 8 o'clock.

Depends on the day. So I was actually gonna shoot for 9 on Monday and Friday.

Emma found us. Yay! Hi, Emma. You were— Donna found us, and Donna found us. What were you gonna shoot for?

9 on Monday and Friday.

I see, I knew he was gonna say that he was gonna go to work at 9. I'm gonna make a bet with all of you. I will report back to you in a week. Next Wednesday, I will let you know what time Seth has been going to work. I'm gonna guess 8. I knew he was gonna say 9. Let's see who wins.

Shoot, now I got public accountability here now. So now I gotta— now it's a thing. Now I gotta try and prove you wrong.

No, I know you, you're gonna get up and then he gets all antsy.

Right, I don't want to sit around the house and like on my laptop. I might as well just go to work.

He just wants to get up and go to work. Okay, so where were we? Every single thing that I read about the summer is to encourage reading for your kids, and we read every day. Yeah, so they see us read, so we're modeling that for them, but it keeps their brain cells going and it gives us all downtime. And I love that I read online start a family book club.

Oh, that's cool.

I never would have thought of that. I found that online.

Could we find a book that we would all read together, agree on, and discuss? That would be fun.

Wouldn't that be fun? Family summer—

cats required.

Family summer book club.

Family summer book club.

Okay, stay cool and hydrated. I'm gonna tell you something about Lily. If she hasn't had any water, if she hasn't had food, if she hasn't gotten sleep, you don't want to be around her. So we want to make sure that our kids get AC time and cool down time and water time. When my kids overheat, they are not fun. Okay, we talked about fun activities, but like, how about some fun day trips?

Like, vacation—

we don't have to go away. We could just plan a day trip to go do something fun. Like Seabreeze was fun. Do you remember Seabreeze in Rochester? That was fun. Okay, so my girls love crafts. I'm just trying to help you stay sane and happy this summer. I'd love to take them to Michaels. We do have a craft area that I need to clean up.

We do have it.

I think I'm gonna put Lily to work this summer.

Lily, do it.

Lily is so much better at organizing than I am. She has a knack for it. She has the eye for it. She's like, my house is gonna look so much better than your house.

And I'm like, Trash talk in 11 minutes.

First of all, you're right. And second of all, can you please work on our house and make it better? I'm going to pay for the summer to work on our house.

All right, right.

So I like to take my girls to Michaels. We do have a craft area, is what I was telling you, but it's fun to go to the craft store.

You can't just do what's already there, you got to get new stuff, something out and bring it home and make it.

It It takes up lots of time and you feel like you've done something with your kids. Win.

Yeah.

Okay, make chores fun and get yourself help. We as mothers do not have to do everything. Do you know that? Am I alone in knowing that? We do not have to do everything. Our kids are capable and they gain confidence from helping us.

I would like to give you the credit for realizing that because there was a time many years ago when you tried to do everything. I— you've grown and matured a lot.

If only I had access to my podcast and other podcasts when our kids were little. I don't know that I would have been able to pull it off, but it's helped me grow as a parent and person so much. And I've learned about the— Lily would love to redesign a room this summer. She would love that. Yeah, she can have at it. Go wild. I told her, I'm like, let's get rid of toys. We're sitting in the playroom, okay? They don't like the wall behind me with all the artwork from when they were little. They want the artwork on.

Oh, let's do it. They, they can save it forever. It just won't be on display, honey.

They're like, you could take down our artwork from years ago. And if you could see, if I could take you on a tour right now, there's still toys.

You've done a great job reducing the amount of toys that are in here. There's just a little bit more to go.

When's the last time she's touched this stuff? I'm gonna pay attention. I'm gonna give it 2 weeks. Let's see if she touches anything. If she doesn't touch anything, we need to get rid of it. She could redesign the playroom. She could do so much. I'm gonna put her to work. So put your kids to work. They're capable. It gives them confidence to help. Ella wants to learn how to do laundry this summer.

Wow, I did not know that.

And A lot of them— there's 3 of them— 2 out of 3 have expressed an interest in doing more cooking this summer.

Oh, fun!

Wouldn't it be nice if each of them took a night to make dinner?

Wow, that's a great— 3 nights a week off. We know Max knows how to grill.

Max, I don't know that I can count on Max, but we can try.

We can try.

Yes. So make chores fun, ask them for help. Put them to work. Don't put it all on you. Stay flexible. The days are not going to go as planned. My kids randomly have friends they want to come over, or friends ask them to go do stuff, or I had a fun day planned but a friend calls, so forget it, Mom, I'm ditching you.

Yeah, like that.

I just try to lower my expectations. If they want to stay in pajamas all day and they don't want to go shopping, okay, we're having a pajama day. I just feel like summer is the time to be flexible and to lower our expectations.

I want the kids to each make dinner one night a week too, so, yes, yes, I mean, we deserve it, Tayton. That's right, we deserve it.

And then they learn to cook more.

Yeah, have them make some food, clean the house, do some laundry.

I think that we as mothers can sometimes get ideas of what the summer is supposed to look like.

Oh boy.

And then I've— oh, I've let that go years ago. You might have little kids and still be attached to the way— perfect summer, right? What does a perfect summer look like? First of all, there is not a perfect summer. And I'm going to tell you that you might have a plan of what it looks like and it looks different, and then you're hard on yourself. Just lower the expectation and then lower it some more, and you'll be happier. That's what I do.

There you go.

I also remind myself of something super important over the summer: boredom is okay. It's okay for my kids to be bored. Do you want to know what Lily did when she was bored? She made bracelets. She sat at the dining room table, she made a ton of bracelets, made a lemonade stand and then sold bracelets at her lemonade stand. And we posted all over Facebook and social media that she was having a bracelet lemonade stand, and our friends showed up. So she was bored—

need more bracelets—

but she was bored, so she got creative.

Yeah, we went to somebody else's lemonade stand who also had a bake sale going on.

Oh yeah, yeah, that was fun.

Or she was— we bought like one of every treat.

I just feel like our kids get more creative when they're bored. And I read about one mom who said that every time she warned her kids that every time that their— that her kids said that they were bored, she was going to give them a chore.

Oh, I like that.

So she said, if you tell me you're bored, I will give you something to do. Don't tell me you're bored.

See, look at that, some negative consequences.

Yeah, I had some fun looking up summer tips.

I see that.

Yeah, schedule a camp or activity if you can afford it. Now mind you, I know that some people, their financial situation is tight, their kids are going to stay home with them all summer, and that's just how it is, and parents need to deal and kids need to deal. If you can swing it, even one camp for one week breaks it up and gives you all a break from each other. Lily's got— Max has some stuff that he has scheduled, Ella has some stuff scheduled, and Lily has some stuff scheduled. It's not the whole summer, but it's just stuff so that they're not on top of the house doing something with other people. Just do something. It doesn't have to be a lot.

Just—

I think it helps. Okay, so now for the bonus. So moms, you're gonna need even more self-care this summer than you did during the school year. I'm going to tell you that having our kids home, like, I get so excited, and I am so excited because I love having them home. I love not having the school schedule. I love not hearing them complain about homework. I love not getting up early. But I'm gonna need to say to Seth, I've been with the kids for 7 days straight and I'm going a little loopy. I'm gonna go to Target all by myself, or I'm gonna go to Starbucks with my book and I'll be back after I decompress.

And you would say, go, please, why don't you take a spa day or go away for the weekend?

Oh, a whole weekend? You're gonna give me a whole weekend?

How many times have I traveled for work? You give me like a week, I could certainly give you a weekend. Granted, I'm working the whole time, but still, I am away and not here to help.

And this is not on my page, so my friends are not hearing this declaration.

They are not, but my friends are. And you have some of your friends who are here.

Lunch date, says Emma. Yes, Emma. We could bring the girls or not bring them.

I think you need a break, ladies. Can I make a— can I toss out an idea I have? Yeah. So I— some of our kids have hobbies or activities. I think that we should block off time, it doesn't have to be routine, to keep practicing those things so they don't backslide. Billie needs to tumble this summer, even if it's practicing in the backyard, to not go backwards before cheer starts. Ella needs to keep singing and not go and not forget and not sing for 3, 2, 3 months.

Ella's gonna keep taking voice lessons.

I wasn't sure, I hadn't asked you about that yet, so that's awesome.

So as far as Lily, I need to find like some actual tumbling class.

Hire someone one-on-one.

Yeah, I thought you were gonna say something else. I just think summer is a fun time to learn something new.

You could do that too.

That's what I thought you were gonna say.

Oh, I'm not gonna say that.

Maybe your kid has been dying to try soccer. It's a great time to I might try.

Yeah, you could do a house league.

What keeps you sane over the summer? Going to work?

Yes.

Okay, so picture yourself as a mom who's home with her kids a lot. What do you think would keep you—

I know, I keep the kids busy so that they're not driving me crazy, and I need to make sure I get time away from them to myself because theoretically when they're at school, you might have 5 or 6 hours a day to yourself. Even if you're working or you're doing other stuff, they're not on you that whole time. I think you still need to build time in, I would say, every single day into your schedule to do something for yourself not involving the kids, if that's possible.

It's funny because you get in this routine of having 5 hours of quiet.

9:30, 9 something to 2.

So, so 9 to 2 the house is quiet, so I can focus on writing. I can focus on, you know, prepping for a podcast or doing a podcast. Now I'm gonna do podcasts and the kids are gonna be in the background, and I'm gonna have to shut my door with them.

Your door?

I'm gonna—

we'll see.

I'll bring you—

we have signs at work that say, 'Do not disturb, podcast in progress.' I'll bring you one home.

Yeah, but here's what I want to tell you about that. It's also real life. Like, it's mom life. The dog is there, the kids are there. Like, moms understand.

Yes, it is. Okay, Emma says, Zara and I love a trip to the library to pick new books for the week and get a treat on the way home. That's a good—

oh, I love that. So a lot of times my kids, my girls— Max doesn't read, if I'm honest with you. Does Max read?

He reads for research.

He reads.

He doesn't read for fun.

He likes to read research online. He likes to read— I don't know if he likes to read his textbooks, but he does read his textbooks.

Okay, he's reading like scientific journals.

Yeah, he's not into— don't give him like a fiction book to read. So, the girls, the barrier with the girls is that they like to read and they love to sit in the backyard with me and read, but they'll be like, "I don't have a book." So, That's like perfect, Emma.

Like, you go to the library, they have to look at every book before they pick one, and it'll take a lot longer.

By the time we go to the library, get a book, and come home, like, it's an outing. Now, if you are working, if you are—

oh, I gotta go pick up a book at the library.

If you are busy working at home or working at work, but let's talk about working at home, and you feel guilty because you are not the entertainment committee Let's be realistic here, people. If you have to work all day, you're not going to entertain your kids. I guess if I had a situation where I had to work all day, which I don't, I would probably leave them lists of options. He's like, if I'm working at— I would probably work at the dining room table so I could supervise, but you can go bake something, you can go read something. I would give them a list of options. I also, if they behave, would probably let them have well-behaved kids over.

We're quiet.

You can supervise while they're playing, depending on the kid's age, while you're working. But I mean, I've had mothers say to me like, I feel so guilty because I have to work all day. Oh my goodness, I think it's not guilt. That is not something to feel guilty about. You are definitely contributing, providing. Your kids need you to work and provide for them. Please don't feel guilty about that. And if you have to— if your kids are my kids' age and you have to leave and go to work, they will be okay. Set the rules, set the boundaries. Oh, for the love of God, if I had to go to work, I could see Lily thinking she could ride her bike all over creation. No, that's not acceptable. What are the rules? What are the expectations? Do you have Life360 to monitor them? If you don't have Life360, go get it, because we watch our children. So if you have to go to work, you have to go to work. We just have to adjust our expectations for what our family needs to do. Now, thank you for the job that I get to do at home when I can fit it in.

My pleasure.

And Adrian, I'm gonna do my best this summer gets a little hairy over the summer. It is much easier to work when your kids go to school. That's all I'm gonna say. I have basically 2 months to make it happen, and I seem to pull it off every summer.

You do indeed.

So any other summer tips, Seth?

That was my summer tip.

Okay, so if you have summer activity suggestions, let us know and we will share them with people. Emma already shared the library, and Tayton agrees with having our kids cook us dinner. And if you know anybody at Facebook, yes, who can help me get my account back, please contact Seth, because you can't contact me unless you have my cell phone number. So what else was on the podcast? Oh boy. So I will tell you something, I did not look However, I have my phone that we're not using, and I'm going to tell you in 2 seconds who's on the podcast. So I apologize for not telling you. Oh, is it our Father's Day special?

It is our Father's Day special.

Seth did a special with me, and wow, did he learn a lot about fatherhood. Thanks. You are going to love it. You are going to learn from him. And happy almost Father's Day to all the fathers. I hope that you get to celebrate with your families. We're going to celebrate with 4 dads. Yes, yes. And what else do you want to tell them, honey? Anything else?

Is there a June challenge that's almost over?

Oh, I was supposed to pick a winner.

Forgive me, you got a little distracted.

So it's been 2 days of dealing with Facebook and I'm a little off-center. I'm not my normal self. I will pick a winner and announce it in the group. We did a June Summer Challenge. It was a lot of fun. Come find the Winey Plousa Mom group on Facebook. And I know I'm forgetting stuff. The newsletter, the—

yep, we're gonna pray that her account is restored within the next week. If it is not, tune in, check my page and her page next Wednesday at 9, and you'll find us.

I'm gonna tell you, if we don't restore my account, which we are going to you're going to get a new friend request from me, and I'm going to start from ground zero because what other choice do I have? At whinypalooza.com, you will find all my links. And thank you for joining us. Thank you for finding us at Seth's account.

And thank you for watching Whiny Palooza Wednesday.

See you next week on some, some Facebook page or another. Bye everyone. Thank you for tuning in to the Whinypalooza podcast. If you like what you heard, Please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.

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