Elanso

Each week Michele Borba answers your parenting questions right here on her blog. If you have a parenting problem or question leave a comment on this post and you may have yours answered next week!

My daughter has lots of friends in school, but we live in a very large school district and don't live in a "neighborhood" so she doesn't have many friends that live in walking distance to play with. What is a mother to do?

The answer to this one is, “Get organized” so you don’t end up feeling like a taxi service. (And with today’s gas prices it’s the last thing you want to happen). A little preplanning, talking with your child about her vision and setting realistic expectations before summer starts is key. Then you find something that will work for your family. Here are sanity savers:

1. Check what’s available and affordable in your community for your child’s age. Day camps? Church camps? Library programs? Scouting? Swim clubs? The Boys and Girls Club? Summer school? A sport? Most of that search can be done at home online or through the yellow pages. And because she has a lot of friends, ask what her friends are doing.


2. Network with your child’s friends’ parents. Is there another mother in the same boat as you? Consider having your own “mini-camp” in your homes. You volunteer to take her child every Tuesday. She takes your kid every Friday. Ideally you establish a routine, but of course it doesn’t always work out like that.


3. Start a neighborhood car pool. Is there one other parent who needs to drive her child once a week somewhere? If you can find just one neighbor to share car pooling duties it might help. Of course you also may need to meet your neighbors. You could invite them over for a potluck (or just a gathering) and explain your dilemma, put fliers in their mailbox or send out an email blast. Coordinating any driving will save you time and gas. Keep in mind the kids in that car pool do not have to be friends or even the same age. The only criterion is that everyone is going to a nearby area.


4. Set up a play date co-op. My sanity saver was a babysitting cooperative program amongst a group of ten mothers. All the kids were school age and we rotated homes to watch each other’s kids during the summer. We kept track of hours as well. All you had to do was supply the house, and an activity of some sort. Another mother supplied the snack. The kids loved playing with their friends. The mothers loved having the few hours to themselves. And if you lived near to another family, you picked up their kid as well.


5. Start interest clubs with kids. Set up a book club with the mothers of your child’s friends. Start an exercise club (Yoga? Aerobics? Lifting weights?). Suggest your kid start a band, a theater group, an art club—whatever—along with similar-interest kids. But rotate homes.


6. Hang up a calendar. Now start filling in the days. Don’t go trying to fill in every hour of every day. Explain to your child there will be holes. Those are days when she can READ!, learn to knit, practice violin, practice drawing, or sit outside and set up a lemonade stand or just watch the clouds drift by.

There! Hope some of those ideas help. The trick is just to explore options you may not have thought about before. Get a little organized. And then enjoy the summer!

Click here to read more of Michele Borba's Q&As, or leave a comment below with your own questions and it may be answered next week.

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Dr. Michele Borba is the author of Building Moral Intelligence: The Seven Essentail Virtues That Teach Kids to Do the Right Thing.