- Outdoor columnist Ben Smith says you have a great opportunity ahead of you this summer to create some real memories with your family. Don’t miss out!
For all you guys that have kids you know the summer routine. The first week out of school is filled with things to do. They’ve been waiting for months to have a hundred “play dates” at the pool or take an afternoon trip to the movies. They are like Jekyll and Hyde that whole first week out. Happy-go-lucky in the morning and as irritable as a bobcat in a phone booth by the time the sun goes down. But by the end of the second week of being out of school you’ll hear these words, “Dad, I’m bored.”
Those words make me so mad I wanna kick a grizzly bear between the legs. One, you’ve bent over backwards as a parent to give them the best summer experience that the heir of an oil company would be envious of. Second, there is literally a thousand things for them to do. When I hear my kids say, “I’m bored” I go immediately into lecture mode. Kids today don’t know what bored is. They don’t know what it’s like to be locked out of the house for the day with nothing but a peanut butter sandwich and a garden hose to survive on. I bet none of your kids have ever played “kick the can.”
This week, I’m going to help you combat summer boredom for your kids with a few fun ideas to get them outdoors. Yes, outdoors. Video games, iPads, tablets, cell phones, and television are making your children dumb. They are also making your children fat, lazy, and generally unhealthy. I’d be willing to bet the farm that if we got kids off of technology for the summer and put their little tails outside that their overall mental health would improve drastically. We used to not hear about anxiety in children because there wasn’t anything to be anxious about when you were building a fort to keep the commies from invading your neighborhood.
The easiest thing to get kids involved outdoors is making a garden. It will teach them some work habits, a little patience, and responsibility. Kids today need to understand where their food comes from. Aside from going out into the woods and killing something, this is the easiest way to show them that. And don’t just build a garden and let them watch it grow. Get them outside to bust dirt, plant the seeds, keep the weeds out, and keep it watered. It doesn’t have to be a garden large enough to feed Patton’s 3rd Army. It just needs to be something they can tend to daily. When they see the fruits of their labor it will be an experience they’ll remember for a long time.
I’ve seen some parents do this next thing before and I’ve never done it with my kids, but I think we will try it this summer. A nature scavenger hunt. Sounds lame at first, but the more I think about it the more I think it’s a great idea. I’m all about teaching kids about nature. I want mine to learn about different trees, flowers, birds, bugs, and all the things. I want them to learn what berries are edible and what berries might kill you. A scavenger hunt might be the best, and most fun, way to teach them all of this. Create a list of different types of leaves, rocks, feathers, berries, etc. for them to collect. If you can make it competitive that’s even better. The first one to accurately complete the list doesn’t have to pull weeds in the garden. There are several state parks where this would be great to do, or you can do it in your own neighborhood.
Another thing to do with your kids during the summer months is take them camping. But don’t just go camping, prep them ahead of time for the trip with different activities. Take a day, or two, and go over cooking while camping. Every kid should learn how to cook their food over an open flame. Cap it off with roasting marshmallows to make it more fun. Use another day leading up to the trip to teach them how to build a makeshift shelter with natural materials. This goes back to the fort building days for those of us born before 1990. Show them how to tie different knots and how to make a water catchment.
I’m sure a lot of you are thinking that it’s way too hot to go camping in Mississippi during the summer, and you’re not entirely wrong. I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m a machine. Maybe something water related would be more appealing to you. Mississippi has puh-lenty of opportunities for you to take the kids kayaking. Nothing says summer fun like kayaking down the river together as a family. It’s a great opportunity to teach them about nature, water safety, and catch a few fish in the process. And if you’ve already taught them how to cook over an open flame, you can always pull up to a sandbar and cook up some freshly caught fish for lunch on your trip.
Now I know I’ve said keep the kids away from technology for the summer, but there’s one exception to that. When you do these things with your kids take plenty of pictures to remember the summer years from now. Don’t do it for your Instagram page but instead create a photo album with actual printed pictures. They’ll have something to look at and remember it for the rest of their lives. And so will their children one day. I know this has sounded like a bunch of rambling for the week, but you have this great opportunity ahead of you this summer to create some real memories with your family. Don’t miss out!
Ben Smith
