Notes From an Unscheduled Summer

The Good, the Bad, and the Surprising

Jul 21, 2025

We moved down to our new house after the last day of school. Austin is generally more expensive than where we used to live, and putting four kids in camps—even just a week each— adds up pretty quickly. Burned out with all the end-of-school activities and the extensive planning our move had required, I threw up my hands and decided to wing it this summer. Here are some notes from the field, with only three weeks (how?!) left to go of our summer break.

The Good:

Unhurried days. My kids have never been ones to sleep in, but they’ve been starting to dabble in it this summer: making it past 7 AM most mornings. I wish I could go back 3-7 years and tell my sleep-deprived self that it would get better! It feels nice to let the day's pace develop naturally. Usually by 9 AM, we’re getting a little squirrelly and it makes sense to head out to a park, but the commitment-free days feel refreshing instead of suffocating. I chalk that change up to everyone getting a little older and more self-directed.

Pool time. Everyone’s swimming has improved so much, and it’s the first summer that all the kids are independent in the water. I can supervise in the pool if I want, or from a poolside chair if that’s my preference that day. Most of the time, we have the neighborhood pool to ourselves. It’s such a treat being a block away.

Creative Play. We don’t have a playroom in our new house since the layout is more open-concept. The toys are stored in the living room, but they’re inside a cabinet and generally out of sight. I’m not sure if this is the reason they’ve been playing less with toys and more make-believe games, or if they’re all just growing out of them. Either way, it’s been fun to watch them come up with their fun. Some of my favorites have been watching them create complex “river systems” at the park sandbox, making their own houses out of cardboard, the “car game” in which they imagine their bikes and scooters are out around the town, or…wrestling. A lot of wrestling. It’s a delight to see all four of them playing cooperatively together or with other kids that they recruit.

The Bad:

A lot of togetherness. Since we only know a few people down here, the five of us have been with each other all day long. More togetherness means more bickering and conflict, which I’ve accepted as a part of asking everyone to be a unit all of the time. One of my favorite parts of having them in school is that they get the chance to be with their same-aged peers, and that it allows them to temporarily break out of the role and place they have in our family. I can tell that one kid in particular is struggling with constantly being with their siblings, and in hindsight, I’d do better about creating 1:1 times with each of them. Also, implementing a separate quiet time so that they have the chance to have their own activities without interference from a brother or sister.

Managing Screen Time. My general approach to screen time is to see it as part of a whole. I solo-parent 60 hours a week, and it’s a tool that allows me to make dinner, get chores done, or read or write. I try to look at the day and ask myself how it’s been spent. Have the kids read, played outside, played creatively, built or made something, colored, listened to audiobooks or a podcast, gone swimming, gone to a park, etc.? If most of these have happened, I don’t mind turning on the TV or letting them play Minecraft together while I make dinner. What I wish I had done differently from the beginning is to make screen time a set time when this happens every day, so that the questions about when the next chance for it aren’t constant. I don’t think I set the kids up to know what to expect, and it’s something I’ve chosen to adjust this week (with 3 weeks of break left to go). We’re doing either a show or movie between 4-5 PM, and they seem to like that this is a definitive time instead of a 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there type of setup. We’re forgoing video games for the next three weeks because sharing the Minecraft worlds ended up being too full of conflict.

The Surprising:

Time flew. I can’t believe we only have three weeks of summer break left. I was so nervous about having 12 weeks of unscheduled time, and worried that I would regret not having more things to go and do. It ended up not being an issue at all. I enjoyed myself so much, and even though my time “on” as a mom was significantly more, I feel like it was restful for me, too. Again, independence makes such a difference.

The summer was still rich without “enrichment.” We went to the library multiple times a week, read voraciously all around, kept up with our “brain work” to keep skills fresh (and try to improve someone’s handwriting ;)) and had lots of interesting discussions while we drove around. The kids planted veggie and flower seeds on their own, used hot glue and tape to make cardboard creations, played with water, figured out how to fly drones, and worked on navigating conflict more skillfully. I overheard my 4 year old say, “Can you please not do that? You can use this shovel to help me if you want,” to another little kid at the sandbox today, and I could see the fruitfulness of practicing it throughout the summer with his siblings.