Margaret's advice for summer

Cover of Summer Fun (VALUE BOOKS)

Summer is a punishing time for parents.  It is filled with either varied camps and classes that require complex carpools and schedules or long stretches of family togetherness that serve mostly to highlight everyone's most annoying qualities.

But fear not!  I have you covered!  These five easy steps will keep you humming all the way through to Labor Day.

1.  Fill your days with screen time.  The American Medical Association recommends that children be limited to one hour of screen time per day.  But hey, if you are a member of the AMA you are clearly an over achiever and have spent very little actual time with your children.  And whose health are you thinking about anyway, because you are certainly not thinking about mine.

2.  Make reading before bedtime mandatory.  Sure.  Reading is good and all that, but people often don't realize that if you make children read before bedtime, you will actually have more time to watch TV without them, and, thus, you will finally be able to watch something that doesn't involve people getting hernias by trying to sing way beyond their range.

3.  You can maximize step two by also requiring early bedtimes.

4.  Encourage wholesome exercise.  If the children exercise, they will not be in your house.  That's a win every way you look at it.

5.  Above all, remember that love in a family comes from spending time together, but also in not spending too much time together.  So encourage your children to make friends, and encourage them to make friends with kids whose parents will invite them to interesting outings and adventures because that will save you time and money.  And isn't the summer memory that you will cherish most?

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