Tips for the Best Summer Parenting Time Ever

Tips for the Best Summer Parenting Time Ever

Your children are spending the summer with you because of the agreement you’ve made with your former or soon-to-be former spouse. You may have a large block of time scheduled with the children and may have some time off from work. Before you panic that there’s nothing to do with the children, take a deep breath — here are some ideas which are tried and true, and some which are a little less conventional yet fun.

A lot will depend on the ages of the children and on what they like to do. Try to avoid a tug-of-war with the children by letting them know in advance where you’d like to take them or what you’d like to do. If they are old enough for input, it might be a good idea to ask them so they can feel like their opinions matter. If your children are easily bored, you’ll have to be a little more creative, but it can be done. After all, you don’t want to see your children in front of a television set or a computer for the entire time they’re with you. As long as you schedule some down-time for them, it will save you from having to run all over the place. Sometimes a little ingenuity will go a long way.

Think of the obvious first: extended or overnight trips

If you want to take an extended trip with the children, there are many vacation spots in this country just waiting for you to explore. Many cities are great destinations for children, such as New York City with its children’s museums and Broadway shows; or Orlando, Florida with Disney World, Universal Studios, Epcot and other attractions. San Francisco is fun for children — just seeing the hilly streets, the cable cars, and taking the children to Ghirardelli Square where they can get some Ghirardelli ice cream and chocolate, make this city an adventure for children.

From Tennessee, a drive to Florida is not exactly around the corner but if you’re up for the drive, you can get there without flying. Just prepare enough time for getting there and back. Other places to go to are national attractions and treasures such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park, Acadia National Park, Yellowstone, Atlanta’s Stone Mountain, or some of the caverns in New York or Pennsylvania. If the children like sports, you can take them to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, or the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

More exotic places, if you can afford it, are Hawaii and the Caribbean, the latter of which you can fly to or take a cruise. Your destination doesn’t have to be a park or an island; it could be the Gateway Arch in St. Louis or the Space Needle in Seattle. Many people never get to see these attractions in their lifetimes. The memories from these trips will stay with your children for years.

If you like to take short trips, consider going to your children’s favorite ballpark, such as St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati or Atlanta. Some of these will be longer rides than the others, depending on where you live, but if your children enjoy a car ride, you can stay two nights or more at these cities while enjoying the ball game in-between the car ride there and back. It will give the children enough time to see some of the sights in the cities when the game is over. Just remember to take plenty of things for them to do in the car.

Also, camping is ideal for some children but not for others; you know your children and what their preferences are. Consider that before you decide to take your children camping.

Take day trips and let the fun begin

You can spend your parenting time by taking a series of day trips with the children. This gives them a different adventure each time. They don’t have to be expensive trips but they can include trips to zoos; lakes for swimming or boating; parks for picnicking, going on the swings or playing ball; or even picking berries on a farm.

Other choices are to do a different activity each time, such as bowling, movies, or a concert geared towards children. You might want to bring a deck of cards if you’re sitting outdoors on a blanket waiting for the concert to begin. It will help you enjoy your time with the children.

There are always day trips such as nature walks, hiking, experimenting with photography at the lake or the mountains, or seeing some unusual sights in the state. There are websites which include unusual roadside attractions; they give you ideas which you may have never thought of, and some of them are fun or bizarre. Of course there are always Graceland and the Peabody Ducks, but there are also the big dragon statue in Caryville and the Dragon Dreams Museum in Chattanooga.  You can Google “roadside attractions Tennessee” (without the quotation marks) or check www.roadsideamerica.com and come up with things you would have undoubtedly missed. There’s a lot more out there than you think. Each state has a roadside attractions site.

A little creativity will go far with children

Get Creative with Summer Pareting Time Ideas

Your children will be looking forward to spending time with you, especially if there are things for them to do. That doesn’t mean you have to travel. If you have a backyard pool or belong to a community pool, the children will undoubtedly enjoy that. If you live in an area that has miniature golf and ice cream shops, you’re certain to be a big hit with your children.If you are planning on staying home with the children for a week, a month, or even the entire summer, finding new ways to do things will create terrific bonding times. For example, you can make believe your home is like a summer camp and do some of the activities a summer camp might do. Some ideas include having silly utensil night or silly cup night. These offbeat ideas will have the children asking for them again and again.

For silly utensil night, the children are given something other than a fork or spoon (depending on their ages, of course), but it has to be something they can use, like a long wooden spoon or a fancy serving fork. For silly cup night, you can go all-out to come up with some strange and funny ideas. Gather the strangest cups or mugs in the house and everyone, including you, has to use his or her cup for a beverage. There have been occasions where children drank from a Polynesian mask glass or a measuring cup or even a mini-pitcher. It might not sound like much to you, but it will be funny to see the different types of cups or mugs used and the children are likely to request it again. After all, that’s the important part — you want to create memories for the children that will last a long time and even a lifetime.

Also, like a camp, you can plan a “gold rush” in the backyard. This is where there are treasures hidden under yellow painted rocks, but in order to get the treasures, the children have to follow clues or answer questions, making this also a learning experience. Other types of games are scavenger hunts, where you give them a list and they can work together or separately to come up with the most creative ways to complete the list. The more creative they are, the more points they get. An example of something on a scavenger hunt list and how to creatively supply it is a bag of rocks. The children can interpret this and put rock and roll music CDs into the bag. A black-eyed Susan is a great idea if you have a child named Susan; instead of the children picking the flower, they can put a little black smudge around Susan’s eye, and voila, there is your black-eyed Susan. These are just some sample ideas to give to the children. This way, they will understand that you are looking for creative ways to complete the list. The list should reflect their ages and it can be a different type of list for each child, depending on his or her age.

One father decided since he could not take his son to the ballpark because it was sold out that day, they would watch the ballgame on television and pretend they were at the ballpark. The father chose a downstairs television, placed two upright beach chairs in front of the television set, and added the peanuts and the hot dogs. He told his son to throw the shells on the floor like people do at a ballpark. The child looked at him wide-eyed because it was something he had been taught not to do. The child was assured that it was for the ballgame only and that they would clean the floor after the game. That was what they did, and the child, now in his twenties, remembers the home ballpark. It is something special the children can do with either their father or their mother.

A lot of ingenuity goes a long way. You know your children, what they like and what they don’t like. It doesn’t pay to take a screaming or angry child on an outing they will not enjoy, so keep that in mind when selecting things to do. If you plan in advance and use a little ingenuity, you will have memorable summers with your children for many years.

Share with us your creative parenting time ideas.

To learn more, see Visitation Rights, Parenting Time, and Residential Time in Tennessee Divorce.