With only a few days left of the school year, parents are scheduling children for summer activities. Some summer camp started in February. I have friends who stood in line for hours to get their children into summer programs. Many working families need childcare and look to day-long camps like the one offered at the Athens YMCA.
Something I've thought about a lot lately is my overscheduled children who have no unstructured time to play. By play, I mean screen-free time without a planned activity. It always thrills me when I can't find one of my children because they're quiet.
While the absence of noise can scare parents of younger kids, this usually means my kids are in the backyard playing on our immense boulder, building with blocks, reading or drawing. My children participate in a myriad of activities during the school year: tennis, baseball, climbing, dance, piano, and cello. Sometimes it comes as a shock to them when they have the rare moment of just "being." After they get over their first response ("I'm bored"), it's interesting to see what they gravitate to.
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An interesting article spells out the benefits of letting children self-direct their own activities. Play is also valuable for parents too, as Michael Segman discusses here. I look forward to summer with longer stretches of downtime for my children, and, hopefully, for me, too!
What are your thoughts on unstructured play time for your children? How do you encourage it? Do you have any tips when children first transition into summer and they utter "I'm bored" way too often?
