6 ways To Give Your Kids An Awesome Summertime “Old-Skool” Style

If you grew up in the 70's or 80's you had a great carefee childhood. Here are 6 ways to give your kids a similar experience without spending alot of money and without having to entertain them every second of the day.

I am done. Sort of like I how I was done with the school year, but I am already done with summer. And by done, I mean I am done with all the forced smile inducing, uber planned and supervised, over the top  summer life experiences  I am supposed to provide for my kids. You know what I want my kids to experience this summer? The same type of summer I would have experienced in the late 1970’s.  The exact same one.  I survived it, and they will too. As a matter of fact, it must have been pretty memorable because 30 years later I can tell you exactly what it entailed. It entailed FUN. Fun we made all on our own. What. A. Concept.

 

1. Let them watch TV. Plenty of it. But only the TV Land channel. I want my kids to watch The Love Boat, The Carol Burnett Show, The Jeffersons, Charlie's Angels, Gilligan's Island, The Six Million Dollar Man, The $100,000 Pyramid and my personal favorite, Hart to Hart. Seriously, what little girl in the late '70s didn't want to be an amateur detective married to the CEO of Hart Industries, driving around in a yellow Mercedes Benz SL Roadster while sporting a matching lilac pantsuit and perfectly coiffed butterfly winged and wavy brown hair? Because I sure as hell did.

2. Eat whatever you want, and/or whatever you can find. There will be no more pantries full of organic vegetable chips and non-GMO graham crackers. No more refrigerators full of anti-pesticide fruit, free range eggs and cold-pressed juice. This will be the summer of Frito-Lay and Red Dye #5. I want to see my kids' reaction when I tear open a large, fat envelope of cherry Kool-Aid, sprinkle it into a BPA-laden plastic pitcher, dump four cups of regular, granulated, white and maybe even generic sugar (not raw, stevia or agave), then add water from the TAP, and viola! You are hydrated! I will be over here drinking a Tab. Lunch will be fried bologna and a blue can of Planters Cheez Balls, and for dinner we will pile in the car and go pick up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a styrofoam quart of mashed potatoes, and O. M. Gee. dessert will be pineapple upside-down cake! Made from canned pineapples in……. wait for it…… syrup!

3. Make them play outside. Like all day. All. Damn. Day. Hot? Drink from the hose. Run through the sprinklers. Swim in the pool until your hair feels like straw, turns green, and the bottom of your feet are calloused from the bottom of the pool. Search for ladybugs, play hide ‘n' seek between the houses, run down the street gutters after a rainstorm. Read under a tree. I hear this lady named Judy Blume writes good stuff.

4. Spend three nights in a row at your best friend's house. No, you don't have to call to check in every hour. And yes, it's totally OK that their parents will be at work and nobody will be home all day. It will give you plenty of time for #s 1, 2 and .

5. Make stuff, like from stuff you find. No trips to Hobby Lobby for pre-cut, pre-stuck, pre-fabricated crafts. Find crap in the garage and assemble it into something you can play with. No, you can't Google how to do it. Ropes are fun.

6.  Build a fort in the backyard. No, I am not gonna help. Yes, you can use the $125 Pottery Barn Kids duvet cover from your bed. I don't care anymore. Making a memory trumps 400 thread count cotton.

 

Source: 4boysmother

Image source: Matt Molinari

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