By Elena Gatsenko
To make your child’s summer holidays unforgettable, you need not only free time to dedicate to your child, but also an action plan. It is especially important for working parents.
And the most important thing here is not quantity but the quality of your social activities. You can do well without a two-week holiday at some resort.
One weekend spent together and 15-30 minutes on weekdays is quite enough. But this time should be dedicated to your child only, and be ruled by his/her wishes. Introduce a system – think of something new to do every day or have a game continuation. And make sure this activity is interesting for you as well.
What did you like doing as a child? Hairstyling on dolls? Launching ships? Setting off firecrackers? Now you have a good reason to tell them about your hobbies and do it again with your child. Or you can fulfil your own childhood dreams that didn’t come true – dancing in a puddle under the rain, pitching a tent on the beach or disassembling an alarm clock.
Today children are surrounded by gadgets and it is very important to teach them to play and to communicate in a real, not virtual, world. Help them to “turn on” their fantasy.
There will be a high demand for imagination and creativity, but today’s reality leaves no place for that. Do you remember how we made sand cakes, or a train made of upturned chairs or paper money madeof leaves?
Today children have everything – their favourite dollhouses, exact replicas of racing cars and virtual reality. It is great but it also dulls flexibility of one’s mind and vividness of one’s perception. Everything is available for them. But the good news is that you can train and develop fantasy just like a muscle.
The same goes for speech. Learning pages of verses by heart is not necessary. You can play store, with leaves instead of paper money.
Let your child talk as if he/she is a sales assistant praising the quality of the goods, or let him/her be a fashion designer who will make an outfit for you using materials at hand. This is something to do on weekdays. And you’d better hide or turn off your cell phone. Your “Friends” page will wait.
The best weekend is the one that has been planned or arranged. Follow the principle of the advent calendar or a mini-lottery with recreation activities to choose from. Your child can pick at random and read or guess by the picture, which recreation he/she has won – a pizza trip, building sandcastles or a tour.
You don’t need expensive toys or haute cuisine to make your child absolutely happy. Sausages and marshmallows roasted on sticks over a real fire… Twometre- long crocodile made of sand by the water edge together with mom and dad… Lots of soap bubbles the entire family makes standing on a balcony… Or painting pebbles brought from the beach…
You can make up themes connected with various countries for all summer Sundays – Japanese, Russian, American or Indian weekend, for example. All games, drawings, family dinners and crafts will have something to do with a particular country.
And at the end of the day you can draw straws to decide what country you would “go” to next weekend. If after a hard working day you have no energy for anything elaborate, just read your favourite childhood fairytales aloud.
And what shall one do the rest of the time? I suggest finding a summer camp. Luckily, in Spain they have day camps, and you can book a week, not necessarily an entire session. Furthermore, in Spain children are admitted to summer camps from age two.
For instance, at our El Campanario we have already developed a comprehensive development summer programme for children from two to seven years. It starts on 2 July and lasts till 31 August (Monday- Friday, 10am-5pm).
Your children will be able to attend a unique language camp where teachers are professionals – native speakers of English, Russian and Spanish.
Then there are popular dancing lessons; lawn tennis and golf taught by one of the Europe’s best golf coaches; Draw as a Genius school; tasty and healthy culinary lessons; and a real vegetable garden where we grow vegetables for the most mouth-watering soups for lunch and baked puddings.
Together with a stage, playgrounds and orchard located in our green area, there will also be a two-storey playhouse. See you on summer holidays!
Clinical psychologist Elena Gatsenko is a head of the pacesetting polylingual
International Kids Club, where her interactive rubric “kindergarten” is dedicated to questions of earl development and education of pre-schoolers. Urb. El Campanario 3, Km. 168, Estepona
Tel. (+34) 648 493 450 / 673 844 832 / kidsclub@elcampanarioresort.com
