Your Family

From one parent to another, six tips on how to get through the summer in one piece

Jen Hogan: Be prepared to make about 471 snacks per day (double that if you have teenage boys), ignore those ‘inspirational’ memes and more

If the weather is good, have a meal outside. The change of scenery can get everyone off screens, away from the intensity of ever-building cabin fever, and do the entire household the world of good. Photograph: Getty Images
If the weather is good, have a meal outside. The change of scenery can get everyone off screens, away from the intensity of ever-building cabin fever, and do the entire household the world of good. Photograph: Getty Images
Jen Hogan's picture
Jen Hogan
Mon Jul 08 2024 - 06:01

By now, it’s likely that the novelty of not having to make school lunches has long since worn off. That’ll largely be on account of the fact that the lowly cheese or ham sandwich has been replaced with requests for approximately 471 snacks per day – give or take 10, or 20.

Summer of Family: This summer, parents are looking for tips, advice and information on how to help their children thrive during the holiday months. You can read all about it at irishtimes.com/health/your-family
Summer of Family: This summer, parents are looking for tips, advice and information on how to help their children thrive during the holiday months. You can read all about it at irishtimes.com/health/your-family

Week two of the school summer holidays is here for the primary school kids (we in the trenches have long since lost count of what week it is for the secondary schoolers) and chances are you’re already losing the will to live. Though you daren’t admit it, lest you be accused of hating your kids or seeing schools as a babysitting service.

Neither of these things may be true, but let he or she among us who doesn’t find it remarkably easier to work while their children are being educated and not looking for snack number 472 cast the first iPad.

Still, here we are, in it together – or some other less recent history, stress and eye twitch-inducing catchphrase – muddling through and hoping for the best. We shall prevail, though we may be browbeaten, exhausted and all snacked out. But it is possible to get through the summer in one piece. And even enjoy parts of it. Take it from a veteran.

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[ Fifty great things to do with your family this summer ]

Here’s how you do it.

  1. Ignore the sentimental photos that circulate on social media. They’re in stereo during the summer season. And often matched, on Instagram, to ABBA’s, Slipping Through My Fingers, for maximum effect. It sets just the right tone of panic to convince you that your child is growing up at a ridiculous rate. In fact, those preschoolers and primary school-aged children are as good as reared, and ready to leave home. And all while you were working.
  2. Ignore the memes too. Things like the helpful, “inspirational” ones that tell you that you only get 18 summers with your children, so make the most of them. For one, that’s a lie. You get way fewer. Yeah, yeah they’re always our babies, but allow me to present exhibit A, your honour: the typical teenager. Finding one who loves to spend every waking moment of the summer holidays with their parents, is as likely as finding one who manages to place their dirty clothes in the laundry basket.
  3. Invest in some decent headphones. If you’re lucky enough to be able to work from home this summer, these are the season’s must-have as you navigate Zoom calls and Teams meetings while your children turn feral. Kids walloping each other over the head with lightsabers, and the resulting fallout, is far less cute than Prof Robert Kelly’s children’s gatecrashing his interview on the BBC would have you believe.
  4. Lunch al fresco. Actually, this isn’t as notiony as it sounds. If the weather’s good, and by good obviously I mean anything that isn’t torrential rain, (this is Ireland after all), take your lunch with the kids outdoors; back garden, nearby green or park, random wall, whatever. The change of scenery, for however brief a time, can get everyone off screens, away from the intensity of ever-building cabin fever, and do the entire household the world of good. Plus, it’s another snack down.
  5. Choose your snacks wisely. I mentioned the 471 daily snacks, right? This figure, of course, needs to be doubled if you own teenage boys. Anyhow, when you’re stocking up on the week’s food, having already arranged with your bank to have your wages paid directly to the local supermarket for the duration of the summer holidays, ask yourself the question, “can they prepare this independently?” Your sanity will thank you for it.
  6. Remember those freer summer evenings. Hands down, those freer summer evenings are the best part of the summer holidays. Children’s extracurricular activities have typically finished up, there’s no homework to be done, lunch box lids to be found, projects to design, uniforms to collect, or random items to find for show-and-tell. Your evenings are your own again. And with no early morning school runs to do, or “hurry up” rows to have, there’s room for flexibility around bedtimes (both a blessing and a curse). But it all means, however stressful the day may have been, or however guilty you might be feeling about not managing to do something nice with the kids during the day, there is always the opportunity to take advantage of lazy, freer summer evenings. So flip the script and park the guilt.

And remember to be part of the fun too, in whatever shape it takes, not just an observer of it.

The simple things are what real memories are made of.

Godspeed.

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