Summer Schedule

It’s here! It’s summertime! I hope wherever you are reading this that all is well and that you are have a great summer so far.
 
I wanted to discuss something that I have been working on with various families this past week - A Summer Schedule. Summer schedules help us make an outline of what will happen every day of the week during this summer.
 
Summer schedules give routine and structure for our kiddos by letting them know what will happen every day which in turn can help decrease meltdowns as they know what will happen next and what they may need to do to prepare. For us as parents, they give us structure as well in addition to taking some of the guesswork out of our day making things go smoother for us.
 
The beauty of the summer schedule is that it can be as detailed or as basic as we need. It is specific to each family, and there is no wrong way to make a summer schedule.
 
In this example below, we see 2 different summer schedules – 1 more detail-filled and 1 more basic.

Summer schedules also help us enforce rules as well. If your children are allowed screen time with video games, tv, tablets, computers, phones, etc. we can put that in the schedule which will make it easier for us to enforce those rules.

• For example, we get to play video games from 10:00 am – 11:00 am each Saturday morning. When it is 11:00 am we turn video games off and then it’s time to read, play outside, do arts & crafts, etc. That way if your child tells you they want to play more video games we can bring them back to the schedule and show them when video game time is up and what will happen next.

 
With our summer schedule, we want to leave opportunities for spontaneity as things come up – it could be a spontaneous play date, trip to the pool or splash pad, vacation, or an unexpected doctor’s appointment – things come up and we want to be ready for this. By making changes in the schedule it allows us to be spontaneous and it also teaches our children flexibility. (“Hey, I know that Monday morning we typically go to the park, but your sister is sick, and we need to go to the doctor instead”)
 
I have made a Summer Schedule template that is free to download from our store here: Free Summer Schedule Template With this template, I have also included 2 examples of summer schedules to get you started. With this template, you can simply put in the activities next to the times and then you are ready to go. I recommend writing things in pencil, so it is easy to make changes if needed.
 
I hope that the summer schedule is helpful for you and your family this summer. If you have any questions about it, how to set it up, or how to use it, please email me at blog@goflowoccupationaltherapy.com and I would be more than happy to help.
 
See you soon!
Michael Jankowski, MS, OTR/L