Mangoes and ice creams and raindrops on mud, swimming sessions and endless playtime and not to forget the vacations!! These are my memories of Summer!!
Running around the society premises playing hide and seek or bicycling endlessly in the heat. Boys engaged in boisterous games of cricket or football pausing just to grab a glass of cool Rasna or Tang from the ever-caring aunties and rush back not to miss another moment of their game. Not a care about the sweltering heat or sun tan.
Devouring mangoes and ice-creams took care of any worry about heat stroke, and grandmother’s tonic of the ever cooling “Aam panah”, guaranteed that none of us ever suffer from dehydration.
Evenings were spent gossiping with friends, going for evening strolls or reading a book. Holiday homework was completed in the last week of the vacation. Though our vacations were spent playing as if there was no tomorrow, we also did help washing the car with our father, helped our mother in the kitchen or just laid the tables. Small things indeed, but they yet taught us invaluable lessons in building family bonds, being useful and learning important life-skills in the process.
But then suddenly life has changed for all of us. Today, with Summer comes the challenge for parents to keep their kids occupied in constructive activities away from PlayStations, Netflix, Instagram and all the other screen addictions.
The yesteryear’s structure of free playing, reading or learning has been replaced by classes- classes for academics, for Art, Music and coaching for numerous sports such as Football, Badminton, Swimming. The list of things to do is endless and the children and parents are running from one class to another barely able to grab a bite in between.
Given the plethora of activities to engage in, can naturally create a pressure to not miss-out on one more activity and left behind. The pressure can even be so perverse that one might look at any free time as ‘wasted time’ to be put to effective and productive use by joining one more class. In this mindless race, we forget that childhood will never come back, children will never have ‘Summer Vacations’ to enjoy. Yet, some invisible pressure of ‘Competition’ seems to drive us all and effectively make this beautiful, carefree ‘Summer Vacation’ into a hectic race to catch up with one more class.
So, here are few measures you can take to strike a balance-
1. Give them space- Allow children their ‘Me time’ which is totally their own, not curated by you. When they know they have a few hours to themselves doing things they really want to, they will not resent when you want them to do something constructive or to enhance their profile. Giving them their space and time will encourage their creativity and independent thinking -key qualities universities look for in a student.
2. Lighten the burden- Do not burden children with too many activities. While you may be worried about how to make your child’s resume stand out, but the key is to make them do their activities with passion and consistency rather than making them run around in all directions at the same time. Identify 2-3 activities which can be done during Summer Vacations like pursue one hobby class, do an Internship or pick up a community service which they can continue over the weekends later. Or let them begin a project, they are passionate about. Plan smarter!
3. Bond- A good time for some family bonding. No upcoming exam stress, no pressing assignment, so use this time to relax, connect as a family. Communicate with your child, go for a vacation (and please don’t take textbooks with you). Have an evening to just be at home, watching a movie, eating popcorn. Trust me, you will miss this when you face an ‘Empty Nest’
4 Time Management-. Help children create a schedule. Talk to them about the importance of time management, of not procrastinating. Make sure to discuss with them the classes which are important and leave out the unnecessary ones.
5. Break the Monotony- Plan different, plan interesting. Let children explore different ideas such as organizing a senior citizen financial literacy program, surveying the local businesses and formulating a plan to increase their sales, designing a website for the local municipal school and so on.
Give children the opportunity to think, create and innovate for they are the ones who will shape our future!!
