Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE)

The last day of school is almost here, and summer break is just around the corner. In my ECFE classes each spring, I ask families to help create a Summer Family Fun List. This list contains the collective knowledge of families in our community of parks to check out, places to visit, special events, and things to do at home for the summer. Families in my classes always enjoy creating this and using it throughout the summer to help keep their families entertained. So without further ado, here are some of the recommendations families shared for our Summer Family Fun List this year.

Summer is almost here and with it comes longer days and warmer weather, more opportunities for fun activities and family time together. It can also bring its own set of challenges whether you have a baby, toddler, preschooler, or school-aged children, including changes to the daily schedule, changes to childcare, the need to find things for our kids to do and so much more. Today I am sharing some summer sanity savers to help you and your children enjoy all summer has to offer.

Let’s do a little word association. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word siblings? I am going to venture a guess and say that if we compiled your first thoughts, we would have a mix of positive and negative things. Things like fun, caring, friendship, and also things like fighting and rivalry. And maybe, just maybe more of you will have thought of the more negative aspects of siblings first.

In my parenting classes, I often ask parents to think of whom they want their children to be when they grow up. What traits, abilities, or characteristics do they want their child to have? This list usually includes responsible, respectful, happy, hardworking, empathetic, kind, successful and so much more. These are the long-term goals of parenting. These won’t be achieved overnight and take many years to fully develop. Building our child’s sense of autonomy and independence is vital to meeting these long-term goals. Independence can be thought of as the ability to do things for oneself. While autonomy is the ability and opportunity to decide how to do things for yourself. We need to teach our kids how to do things for themselves and give them opportunities to practice making choices, trying things out, and learning from their mistakes.