When I was a kid my summer vacations consisted of hanging out with my friends, riding bikes, and using our imagination. Every day was a new adventure. I remember building a fort made out of cardboard boxes...it was huge. All the kids in the neighborhood came over and our imagination took over. One day we were fighting Indians and the next day we were the Indians.... We were too busy having fun to watch TV. We did not have game boys, ipods, or cell phones. Those things did not exist yet... I had a transistor radio and my favorite radio station was KFJ on the am dial....Motown was big and family values were high.... Our family took two big vacations when I was younger. Both were long road trips to visit relatives. My sisters and I would play I spy, read a book, play barbies, or sleep. We did not have a portable DVD player or laptops to occupy our time...
I love to do creative memory projects when I have some free time. The other day I was going through my family's summer vacation. My family meaning my husband and I and the girls. We have gone on two Mexican cruises, Lake Tahoe, Zion National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Bahamas, Morro Bay, and a two week road trip. In addition to our family trips, the girls went to camp with girl scouts and church. When we are home, the girls would attend tennis camp for a few hours everyday... I noticed while I was reminiscing that I have never let my kids just do nothing....meaning let them plan their own day...use their own imagination.... No wonder when there isn't a good show on TV they don't know what to do with themselves...
This summer I have made a decision. We will not go on a family trip. The girls will not go to tennis camp every day. They already have their lessons three evenings a week. I'm going to let the girls figure out what they are going to do. We live in Southern California so there are many things. They can go swimming in our pool, we can ride bikes to the beach, have their friends over, or maybe make a fort out of cardboard boxes....They don't know this yet...but the TVs will be taken out of their rooms... and I will have them read two books this summer. It's not too late to find the joy that I had as a kid...and for them to learn to use their imagination....
2 comments:
sounds like an awesome summer break to me. i'd love to be able to bike to the beach!!
tell them if they don't like it you'll send them to live in detroit for the summer!
What a great story, I remember playing in the back yard all summer long. We built forts, fought the indians and then were the indians too. And my brother and I would ride our bikes to the a place we called the sandhills, that's where a lot of the neighborhood kids would go. We would climb up on our bikes and ride down, somtimes we rolled down (mom never complained about how dirty we got either) and when it rained we would find tadpoles in the shallow pools.
It was fun.
I look forward to hearing what your girls learn to do with their time this summer.
Great post.
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