Keeping the Kids Occupied While You Work from Home this Summer
Ah, summer. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and your kids are climbing the walls like caffeinated squirrels. If you’re like me, you sequester yourself in your home office while you’re just trying to make it through a Zoom call without someone yelling “I NEED A SNACK!” Thank goodness for that mute button, amiright!
I love my kids, I do, but they do not contribute to a productive work environment. As a gen-xer, my parents would make sure the hose was hooked up to drink from and then I was forced out of the house until the sun went down as a kid. I am not advocating for that because I know what I did with that lack of supervision. No questions will be taken at this time. But a little quiet would be nice…
So, for all the work-from-home parents out there, like me, holding onto sanity with a thread made of coffee and frozen waffles, I’ve put together a list of ways to keep your kids entertained this summer. Please note that I am not a professional and my advice should absolutely not be taken by anyone.
1. The Great Backyard Rock Relocation Program
Get a pile of rocks. Any pile. Dump them at one end of your yard. Tell your kids the president of Rocklandia has requested an urgent migration of all pebbles to the other side of the lawn. One at a time. Using only spoons.
Declare them “Honorary Rock Transporters” and award imaginary medals when they complete phase one. Then reverse the process.
Estimated free time earned: 3-5 hours. Sanity cost: minimal.
2. The Amazon Delivery Driver Caper
Let your kids pick a disguise. Tell them the Amazon driver is secretly delivering clues to a lost treasure. Their job? Follow him (on foot or scooter), staying hidden while decoding “packages.”
They’ll either end up with a sunburn, or 4 blocks away with a confused retiree named Bob. Either way, you’re off the hook for a solid hour.
Bonus points if they come back with something cool.
3. Reverse Hide and Seek
You hide. And they seek.
Take the kids outside and tell them that you’re now a rogue operative and they’re bounty hunters. Tell them the house is off limits because it’s made of lava or something. Have them close their eyes and count to 100, so you can hide. Quietly go into the house.
To really sell it, leave decoy clues like a trail of Goldfish crackers or a Post-it that says “You’re getting warmer…” nowhere near where you are.
4. The Magic Ant Farm
Give them a plastic container filled with sand and tell them it’s a high-tech, magical “invisible ant colony.” Tell them the ants are rare, shy, and very judgmental, so they need constant observation and interpretive dance to keep them happy and if they do really well, the ants will become visible and talk to them.
If they stop moving for more than 3 minutes, tell them the ants are sad and restart the experiment.
Science!
5. Kid-Sized DMV
Make your kids fill out pointless paperwork, wait in line for imaginary services, and go through eye exams using a cereal box. Make one of them the DMV worker who is in charge of reviewing the paperwork and handing out more. Switch roles every 30 minutes.
This is a great way to teach them about adulthood and bureaucracy.
6. Pet Detective Agency
Inform your children that the Pet Rescue League has hired them to track down some lost pets in the neighborhood. Give them print outs of a couple of cats or dogs that no one in your neighborhood has. Tell them that this is also top-secret so they can’t talk to the neighbors about what they’re doing.
If they ever ask you a question, respond in an ominous whisper, “That’s classified.”
7. The Paleontology Dig
Hand them a plastic spoon, a clipboard, and a small paintbrush. Inform them you’ve discovered a “Couchasaurus” fossil under the cushions of the couch and they must excavate the bones (some crayons, and whatever random things you can find) with great care. Occasionally yell “You’re damaging the artifact!” from the other room.
Extra points if they find your lost remote or some loose change.
8. Start a Fake Kid Podcast with No Recording Equipment
Tell your kids they’ve been hired to host a podcast called “Socks Are Just Shoes for Cowards.” They’ll need to plan episodes, write scripts, rehearse, and hold interviews with family pets. Periodically, interrupt to say, “Can you re-record that segment? The vibe was off.”
It’s their new full-time unpaid imaginary job. Welcome to showbiz, kids.
9. Capture a Cloud
Give them a butterfly net, a backpack full of random items, and a mission: “Capture the fluffiest cloud. You’ll know it when you see it.”
If they ask how, just whisper: “Believe in the net.”
This should buy you enough time to finish a meeting, drink some coffee, and wonder what parenting choices led you to this moment.
10. Fun with Tools
Put out a hammer, saw, a handful of nails and screws, and whatever scrap wood you happen to have around. Print off a design for something kind of complicated like a bird house and tell the kids grandma really wants one of them.
Note: You may need to leave a box of band aids with them as well. Also, make sure tetanus shots are current.
Make it Through the Summer
Is parenting while working from home during summer hard? Yes. Are you doing your best? Also, yes. Do any of these ideas make sense? Maybe. Maybe not. But neither does giving a toddler a permanent marker and hoping for the best. And yet here we are.
At the end of the day, just remember you’re doing great. You’ve kept the kids alive, the Wi-Fi is mostly functional, and you haven’t thrown your laptop out the window yet. That’s parenting success in the digital age!
Now go forth, and may your coffee be strong, your mute button reliable, and your kids mildly entertained (or at least not lighting anything on fire).
All images in this post were created by Dall-E AI.
