Matthew Voz

Make it count with your kids

WITH SUMMER COME the hot, lazy days, cool night thunderstorms, and open schedules that we who suffer each year through a real winter often dream about in the middle of January. We can all remember as children how we counted down the days until the end of school, shrieked with joy as the bell rang on the last day, and spent the next 90 days dreading the beginning of the next school year. As an adult it is my attitude, not my schedule (I am a high school teacher), that has changed. Instead of counting down the days, a big part of me has a very difficult time transitioning to three months with essentially no structured activity. I know there are certainly worse problems to have, but having three kids and “nothing to do” can be a challenge.

So this month I gathered ideas from friends and family on what to do when there is “nothing to do.” Most of these are targeted at families with young children, because my kids are all under the age of 10. Plus, it seems that children around 10 begin to need less of the sort of constant attention and structure their younger counterparts require. So, here’s to fighting the two greatest villains of summertime—boredom and its mind-rotting doppelganger: video games.

The oldest and easiest thing to do when school is out (and perhaps the most rewarding in the long run) is to plant a seed. Whether you are planning a half-acre garden or just growing a pea plant in a tin can, perhaps nothing is more satisfying to a child than tasting the long-awaited fruits of his or her labor. Even though the entire concept of summer vacation owes its existence to our long-forsaken agricultural economy, you can live anywhere and still give your child the opportunity to cultivate life—and then eat it. For some kids this is the only way to get them to eat vegetables at all. The bigger you go, the less bored you’ll be: cultivating, watering, harvesting, and preserving. And kids can have a hand in all of it—although, be warned that to a child, “weeding” is a pretty vague idea which can often denote pulling up everything.

Children can entertain themselves for hours with water. Find a large container (five-gallon bucket, Rubbermaid container, old bath tub, etc.) and fill it with very cold water. This is best done on hot days when no one really cares if they are doused in icy water. Then, strip your children down to the bare essentials and let them loose with the water. Cups, water pistols, and things that float are good additions to this little entertainment. But the best thing of all to provide alongside a large vessel of water is an equally large amount of good clean dirt. Dirt and water make mud, if we’ve forgotten in our old age. And mud is a simply delightful thing on a hot summer day—just ask a hippopotamus. Be warned that the more children involved in this activity, the greater the risk that one of them ends up in tears.

Another great thing to do near the end of the week is to take the whole family to the weekly garage sales. There are not enough good things to be said about garage sales. To begin with, garage sales are an excellent way to get out and meet your neighbors. Though the bonds that they form are admittedly rather shallow, crisscrossing the streets of your hometown and coming into contact with your fellow citizens provides a rare sense of place in a mobile and atomized society. Garage sales are also a fork in the eye of the consumerism and corporatism of the mainstream retail landscape. You don’t pay sales tax at a garage sale and Wal-Mart doesn’t see a penny of the money that is exchanged.

Garage sales are not often thought of in this way, but they can provide all the intrigue and excitement of a good old black market. There are things for the kids to learn as well. Garage sales are one of the best ways to reuse items and therefore reduce our impact on the environment. Just think, by buying that hideous plastic toy for your child you are keeping it out of a landfill. Garage sales can also be a good way to teach younger children how to use money, and how to tell the difference between what they want and what they need. You can also use them to show kids the rewards of a good day’s work. Giving a quarter or two to a small child in exchange for some extra work around the house can translate into a real treasure for a child, one that they found, chose, and purchased with the sweat of their own brow. They might actually take care of it.

There are also a seemingly endless number of opportunities for picnics, ball games, and other classic summertime Americana. The Viroqua Park Bowl is one of my children’s favorites, featuring an excellent playground and the opportunity to take in America’s Pastime as played by those who love it. Vernon County has great parks beyond the city limits, like Sidie Hollow and Esofea parks, and the incomparable Kickapoo Valley Reserve which offers hiking, canoeing, swimming, and overnight camping. We are only a stone’s throw from the third largest river in the entire world which provides dozens of nature reserves and wildlife areas.

Of course, summer is not filled only with hot, sunny days. Part of summer is the forced relaxation of a rainy day. This can be particularly difficult with little children who have become accustomed to riding their bikes up and down the sidewalk for hours, and also hard on parents who have become accustomed to solving everything by saying, “Why don’t you go outside?” There are two excellent things to do on a rainy summer day. They both involve cultivating arts that are at risk of being lost to this generation: reading and cooking.

Whether or not your children can read makes little difference. If they can read you will have the added opportunity of occupying them with a book that is more than 600 words long and has human protagonists. If they can’t read, then you will have the opportunity to assume the voice of a dinosaur, a dog, a rabbit, or whatever other creature appeals to their juvenile and rather unsophisticated tastes. Reading books to my children is one of the few times I find myself able to be playful and silly, and reading to them the books that were read to me gives me a very powerful sense of genealogical continuity. Make everyone some calming tea, get all the pillows and the blankets out, and read until you are hoarse. This also works on days that are not rainy but when, instead, it is too hot to move—substitute cold tea for hot in this instance.

Cooking can also be a great way to spend time with our kids and a great way to teach them about food, get them to try new foods, and maybe even to appreciate the work that goes into simply running a household. Things that end up with bowls or utensils to lick are probably the most popular, but anything works. The food that is produced may be of questionable quality and it will take at least twice as long to prepare (even with all the “help”) but it will certainly be worth it.

Whatever you choose to do, even if it’s nothing, we should try our best to make summer a time to get closer to our kids. But by all means, avoid Puritanism: If you can’t take it any longer, turn on the television.