Semester Break!!! What To Do?

Most parents, yours truly included (and many of my friends and 99% or working parents), dread the unavoidable semester break for kids. The reason is we simply lose the balance.

The routine says that we wake up in the morning, get ready, drop the kids at school – get rid of them for 7 or so hours. Stay-at-home moms have time to do their things around the house, a little time to themselves, etc. before kids are back and a once peaceful place turns to a united nuthouse again! For working moms (I would imagine), things are pretty similar, they’re back home just in time when chaos is about to start ?.

For us dads, life is a bit simpler because, thanks to the lovely moms, our work is limited to whatever they (the moms a.k.a. our wives) tell us to do. So, we don’t need to think, we just execute.

But that’s not the biggest problem. Most parents feel that if their kids are on a weeklong break from school, they NEED to fill every minute of every day with an activity to keep the kids busy, productive, and not get the illusive “I’m bored.”

You know what?! They’ll live!

Sometimes, as adults, we want nothing more than to sit and do nothing. Absolutely and utterly nothing. Tell you what, as a guy, my favorite thing to do, as Mark Gungor described it, is to go to my “nothing box.”

Men's Brains and Women's Brains with Mark Gungor “Nothing Box”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ6mVumHY9I.

Now nothing drives women crazier than to see their man doing nothing, but that’s another can of worms to open another day ??????… let’s stay focused on kids!?

Here’s piece of advice

Our kids need to have a “nothing box.” It is ok for our kids to spend a few days out of their vacation doing absolutely nothing. Make a day with no electronics, no outside activities, just nothing… they’ll hate you for the first couple of hours and then… oh then something beautiful happens… their creative juices start flowing. They will figure out a way to entertain themselves with “nothing.”

This disconnected time allows them to recharge, reflect, and simply rest.

Let them have it. They’ll thank you for it later.

Well folks, this was my?Verbal Breakdown?for this week. Have a great week and see you in the next one.

Till then, keep it safe, keep it real, and keep it simple.?

Ralph

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