Whether you love or loathe summer, no one can deny that longer days, soaring temperatures, and no school routine means a change of pace around the house. Today we're tackling questions about how to keep your kids fed, how to manage work from home life when the kids are around, and how to inject FUN into summer as a red mom.

Mentioned on today’s episode:

New Mom’s Baby Box

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Question 1: Why are my kids so hungry in the summer?! At school they don’t have a chance to eat this much!! Any thoughts on how to break the cycle of them standing in front of the pantry or asking me for a snack every 30 minutes? Would love some tips! 

Karen’s Answer:  A lot of the time they want to eat because they can and they are bored.  I would tell my kids specific times they could have a snack, lunch and then an afternoon snack and other than that the kitchen was off limits. I’d have a variety of healthy snacks and regular snacks, and tell them to pace themselves because that is it for the week.  

Question 2:  Summer camp is a WHOLE THING where I live. Moms start talking about who is signing up for which camp months before school ends. I swear to you, there is this one camp here, where parents get up at like 5am to be sitting in front of their computer hitting the refresh button waiting for registration to open up. I have a gaggle of kids and #1. Can’t afford to send them all to camp and #2. Don’t really feel compelled to send any of them! 

Any suggestions for helping me tell my kids why I don’t want to send them to camp? Any thoughts on how to be a fun mom this summer without lining up camp after camp to entertain the kiddos? 

Karen’s Answer: I think honesty is the best policy. Tell your children how much the camps are and then times it by the # of children you have and say, I don’t have an extra $___ money laying around.  Tell your children you have some fun things planned.  Ideas, maybe do one outing a week, where you are going somewhere new, you can do hikes, walks to a waterfall, take a picnic lunch, etc. Go to a water park and let everyone bring a friend. Pool is always a fun day, go to a friend’s pool too to change it up. If you have a lake nearby that is fun! We would do $1 matinee movies, when the kids were younger and they loved it. VBS is always a fun week, sign up for multiple churches.  Go check out your local zoo, botanical gardens, Six Flags or theme park in your area.  Around the house, maybe get a jigsaw puzzle and let the family all work on it together. Have a Yahtzee or Hearts tournament at night. Make movie nights and let everyone stay up late.  Let the kids put on a play for the family, since you have a lot of children, and let them practice, then give the performance one night. 

Question 3:  I’m a red mom and summer kind of drives me nuts. My kids are “off”...but I’m not! I still have to work and make dinner and do all the mom things. How do you establish routines/rhythms so that they get a summer that is fun/feels like a break, but I have time and space to do all the adult things I need to do. 

Karen’s Answer: Put everyone on a schedule, let the kids sleep in, which is a break and a nice change, but then if you have to go to work, leave a list of chores that they need to do.  When my children got older, I would assign them to cook dinner for the family and they actually liked doing it.  If you like a schedule, then keep one in the summer, just build in some fun too. 

Question 4: I've challenged my 11, 13 and 15 yr old daughters to make some goals this summer in 3 areas: physical fitness, art/craft/creative project and a spiritual goal.  I'm struggling a bit to help them define a spiritual goal for the summer. Any ideas or thoughts?

Karen’s Answer: They could set a goal to read x amount of books of the Bible, and then share with the family what they were about.  Challenge them to journal their prayers.  A spiritual goal could be ways to serve others and put others first. Or have them find an attribute of Jesus to study and model and then tell why they picked what they did and how they implemented it in their lives.

If you have a question about motherhood we want to hear it, so make sure you visit birdsonawiremoms.com/askkaren and tune in each week to see if we cover your question. You can also find on us on Instagram and Facebook, so follow us over there and send questions our way on social media as well.

Moms, we know your time is precious. Thank you for spending it with us. We hope you feel encouraged, equipped and most importantly—the peace of God. You can receive encouragement each week by tuning in to Wire Talk; so subscribe today and be sure you never miss an episode.