The kids have been out of school for only 2 days now... and already they are bored to tears. Yes, we have the family vacation coming up in a few weeks, the baseball camp, the trip to see grandma, but how do we keep them occupied and out of the mall for the next couple of weeks?
When I was young, my mom would not let us be bored. There were always chores to do. We didn't dare say we were bored because she would assign some awful task such as cleaning the garage or the yard. So we learned early to occupy our free time with neighborhood basketball, bicycling around the neighborhood, or just hanging out at the neighborhood school. The community pool was always open in the summer where we would just waste hours playing in the water. TV? Who stayed home and watched tv during the summer... not us. Mom would have kicked us out of the house before she let us waste our time like that.
Parents now are so worried about the real bogey-man that may be lurking. So most of us keep our kids close by or in organized activities. It's a real shame. I'm always reluctant to just say, "Go outside. Go ride your bike..." since, I'm not too sure if it is really safe to do that. So we organize stuff for them to do. This year, some of us have organized a rafting trip for our teens.
The kids will go on a whitewater rafting trip on the South Fork American just for a one day trip. Just enough to wet their whistle on an adventure that they've never experienced. My daughter is dragging a few of her friends while another family's son is bringing along his buddies. The kids are actually excited about this family get together. Can you imagine? They want to go with us!
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