5 Tips to help working parents crush summer break

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:As the chief operating officer of the household, the COO, your job is to facilitate the priorities. Either make the priorities or understand from other people, like, what is it that's important to you? So that as I'm making choices on who goes where and what I solve for and what we spend money on, I know what's important to you versus it just being my lens of what I think is important. And I find, especially as my kids get older, like, I want them to make choices in their actual lives when they get older. And so how do I understand their priorities so that I can make choices in what would be important to me if I was 15 again?

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:35]:I'm a small town kid born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life. Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. 17 years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy. And ever since, my husband, J.R. and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you, too.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:10]:Im Tiffany Sauder and this is scared.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:13]:Confident. Ready or not, summer is coming very quickly, and I am big on looking ahead into these seasons of change because that's when everything tends to break. Things get crazy, you get behind, and then you're screwed because there's no time to catch up when life is really busy. So I made a list of some things that I am doing to get ready for summer. And even some of these are just like, things I've learned that make summer go a little smoother. The kids are home alone. Some we'll have our nanny. Some I'll work from home.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:51]:Some it's like every day is kind of different. Sometimes my big kids will be off at camp. Sometimes they'll be home. It's a big season of lots of family and cousins for us. And so that unpredictability can be really exhausting, actually, when you're working and you're trying to keep some semblance of, like, cadence and availability and, like, you're still working Monday through Friday, but the kids are not getting on the bus every morning. And it's like, will they wake up at 830? Will they wake up at 1030? Like, what will happen? And that variability for me can be really, really hard. So I've learned a few things. This is maybe, just maybe, this episode will be nothing more than a reminder for you to like hey, get the troops together.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:29]:You've got to talk about what summer is going to look like and how you're going to get through it as gracefully and as fun as possible. Or maybe you'll pick up a few tips to help you in your world, because it's just hard, you know, there's like all this pressure on it to be fun and it's hard. I think summertime is the hardest season to be a working parent. I've always felt like that no matter what season we were in, if I was, like, crushing it and going crazy or if I've got flexibility, it's just a hard season to be a working parent because there's a lot going on, a lot of last minute changes and plans, and that stuff eats me alive. It's hard. So, okay, the first is I went through an exercise of, you can do this in a family meeting, or you can just talk to each person individually, but understanding what are everybody's priorities for the summer? Because as the chief operating officer of the household, the COO, your job is to facilitate the priorities. Either make the priorities or understand from other people, like, what is it that's important to you? So that as I'm making choices on who goes where and what I solve for and what we spend money on, I know what's important to you versus it just being my lens of what I think is important. And I find, especially as my kids get older, like, I want them to make choices in their actual lives when they get older.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:39]:And so how do I understand their priorities so that I can make choices in what would be important to me if I was 15 again. So that's one. What is the family priority? And in that meeting, printing off the summer so that everybody can see, like, when is the last day of school and how many actual weeks are there between last day of school and school starting and then even penciling in things like, when are we going to do back to school shopping? When are we going to get your physicals done? Because that always has to be done before the school starts again. Like that. Even that kind of stuff I put on the calendar because otherwise every single Friday, Saturday will be covered up and then we'll be going back to school and my girls will make it my fault that we didn't have time to go back to school shopping. So, like, I put that stuff in there, too. What are the things we have to get done? My oldest just finished her driver's training, like, stuff online, and so she's going to need hours in the car. She's going to plan her whole schedule, summer, with all this fun stuff.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:38]:But she's got a summer course she has to take, and she has to do driver's training. So me putting that in front of her and putting that in front of them before we even get to summer helps take away this tug of war of. Mom told me I can't come over because I have to work on my course. I didn't decide to take a summer class. You decided to take a summer class. So my job is to help you facilitate that choice. And let's look at that together so that I'm not the bad guy telling you no, that you have to study and you're not mad at me because I'm holding you accountable for the thing that you chose to do. So this family priorities backdrop that can be done in a meeting or that can be done in, like, one off conversations.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:19]:I'm very visual, so it's hard for me to have those conversations without something to look at. So I usually print off the calendar. Like, literally just go to Google calendar and print off months so that you can see the weeks. The second thing every summer, I tell myself I am also a customer of summer. Too many times I got to the end of summer, and I literally had never put a swimsuit on. Like, I might have dropped kids off at the pool. I might have brought pizza home for a bunch of kids in my backyard, but I never actually sat beside a fire and roasted a marshmallow. I never actually had a glass of wine on the backyard.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:54]:I remember one summer, there was literally mushrooms growing underneath our patio furniture. That was how little we were, like, home and experiencing summer. I was like, there are mushrooms growing people. Like, what in the world? I hadn't put a swimsuit on, and it was like, August 3, because I can get very much into task mode, and I'm into facilitating. Everybody else is everything, and I don't put myself on the calendar, too. So over the last couple summers, I've done way better at everybody needs a friend with a boat and a friend of the pool. I have a friend with a pool, and she's been so gracious about, like, having girls nights over at her place sometimes, and we sit in the pool and we hash and we talk and we just catch up. And now I know to be like, hey, Laura, when are we going to, like, go over to your pool and hang out and have fun? Because that's part of summer for me, is being with my friends in that way and making sure that it happens.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:49]:So what do you need to have happen in summer for you to feel like, ah, I also felt summer. One of the things I've been doing is getting up really early in the morning. I have to take Aubrey to practice, and I run at 06:00 a.m. She has to be at practice. And so I just park the car, literally at the high school, and I just run from there for a couple miles. And feeling the spring air, hearing the birds, smelling like nature, I don't put airpods in. Has been a great way for me to, like, experience this warmth because all afternoon and evening, I'm driving kids to practice. Like, I'm not able easily to just go take a three mile walk in the afternoon or the evening because somebody's got to be somewhere.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:30]:And so again, I like to feel nature. I like to feel like I got a swimsuit on. I like to feel like I got to do some things that look, smell, and feel like summer. So you pick your things, but don't forget, put those things on the calendar, too, and let your family know because you need to be a customer of summer as well. Okay. The third thing I'm doing right now is updating some key, like, kid zones. So I don't know if your fam does this, but, like, my kids just get bored with everything. Kind of all of a sudden, it feels like.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:59]:So I'm doing a couple things. One is I'm updating some stuff. So we have, like, a little Tex kitchen house, and a sandbox and that kind of area. So I got some new grill food. I got a new bucket, just a few things. I'm getting a new rug. I'm cleaning it up, just, like, throwing away the trash. A few new things.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:18]:That's what I mean by update your kid zones. I probably spent $70, I don't know, not that much money. And it's going to look and feel way better. And I know the kids are going to use it a ton more because it looks like it's ready to play, get all the spiders out, all that kind of stuff. I also bought, like, this massive bubble wand, huge bubble wand. Who knows if it'll work or not. I got some of those reusable water balloons that, I don't know, kind of, like, magnetically go together. So that's what I mean.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:49]:Just like, getting a few new outdoor toys, getting new sidewalk chalk, getting some new hula hoops. I got a bunch of orange cones. And the girls are all into, like, making obstacle courses out of them. And last year, our trampoline ripped down the middle. And so we're getting new trampoline. So that's what I mean, like, just updating it. I, like, often think to myself, I will think nothing about signing a kid up for a week of camp. That's $300 to $700.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:14]:But then I like him haw around like, crazy, being like, I don't know if I should spend $16 getting some new sand buckets. We already have one. And I thought in my head of, like, instead of spending all this money sending them somewhere else that has all this stuff, what does it look like if I just update what we have at home so the, a, I don't have to drive them, and b, they get to experience those things at home. So I'll also go to hobby lobby and buy a bunch of new markers and construction paper and stickers. Just update our craft area so there's some fresh new things for summer. It will just give us hours back. I know this because there's, like, new fun stuff there. So I'll sort it out.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:51]:I'll thin it out. You know, like, we've been inside a lot. Things kind of get a little heckery and so updating your key kid zones, go to Amazon, buy a few new summer toys. My sister in law got us one of these last year. It's like this little styrofoam rocket that you, like, step, and then the rocket goes, like, flying in the air. And it's, like, literally fun for both Quincy and Junior and I. It's so fun. So take a minute, go to Amazon, spend a couple hundred bucks, update some things, clean out some cobwebs, move some things around.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:18]:I'll probably also, like, move where our play kitchen is in the basement to a different wall. Moving things just gives kids a new sense of it, and I just find it, like, makes it all new again. Updating key kids zones, making it a little, judging it up. We are not like a Pinterest. Like, it doesn't look like Pinterest in my house. It very much looks like people live there. So it doesn't have to all be monochromatic and match and be from pattery barn kids. It doesn't have to be that hard and expensive.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:44]:It can literally just be fun. Okay, I haven't done this yet, but I'm gonna do this this year is I feel like food is always kind of a struggle in the summer because the kids eat way more meals at home, and they oftentimes need to make things that. That, like, I need to have stuff on hand that they could easily make. I like, leftovers for dinner, and so when they eat all that for lunch, I'm just, like, cooking and making a lot more food. I'm gonna have the kids make the menu for breakfast and lunch, and I'll probably give them like, three to five slots on the grocery list, just so we don't have a ton of junk food and crap of snacks that they want for the summertime. So each week when I make groceries, I'll have them figure out the breakfast and the lunch menu. I'll order the ingredients, and then if there's a couple of, like, I don't know, like, mom, we want some powdered donuts for our coffee this week, or we want some croissants. I don't know what they are, but, like, some things, that way, I am not guessing what everybody wants to eat.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:37]:It's one less, way more than one less decision I have to make. And it gives them a chance to, like, conceptualize what do you guys want to eat? Or they might go to Pinterest and pick a new recipe that they want to make, or a deconstructed sushi roll. I don't know. But it's part of teaching them how to cook, teaching them how to, like, maybe tackle some new projects and it makes, takes some decision making away. So that's going to be a new thing I'm going to try. And I think it's going to be great. I think actually they'll love it and it will be just less for me. Maybe I'll even put instacart on their phones.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:06]:I might do this and have the big girls just even, like, add to cart the ingredients that we need. I think I'm going to do that. Even one less step for me. Amazing. Love. Less steps from them. Another thing I do to update key kid zones, I go crash goodwill. They have great stuff for, like, painting.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:23]:So like, vases, picture frames. Sometimes they have games there that, like, I don't know if they're going to be fun or not, but for $2, we can try it. Bookends. Sometimes I'll go get books and, like, you can spray paint them, like, all the same color and just, like, giving them low cost stuff to just paint and experiment with and, I don't know, just experiment, destroy it. Whatever needs to happen is fine. Oftentimes there's baby dolls there that are totally all plastic. And so I'll use those as pool toys because inevitably, 60% of your pool toys get left at the public pool. Always.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:57]:That's what happens. So I'll go to goodwill. I'll crash goodwill a couple times this summer and go look through the toys and the games and the vases and all that stuff and look for projects for the girls to do. Again, totally low lift. I'll probably go in between, like, while somebody's at practice and I have 40 minutes between. But that's another, like, kind of low cost thing that I do. And they love goodwill, actually. And we're not afraid of a garage sale, too.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:20]:A little harder to hit because usually they're on Saturday morning and we're running kids around. But garage sales can also be a good spot for that. Okay, my last thing is just make the schedule visible. I will have the entire summer schedule on the fridge. I'll print out calendars, and I will literally write on every single day who's at camp and who's in charge at home. That way I know I've got the entire summer covered. Every single day is either a sitter or a big kid or myself that's kind of in charge at home. And the big kids know what days they've committed to watch the little kids.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:53]:And those are days that they have jobs. You know, like, you can't call into your job and say you're not going to be available, and so then they can go and manage that. The summer is a great time for my big kids to make some money. And so when they've committed to me, to jobs or watching the littles, those are commitments. Like, you have a job. I'm not going to renegotiate with you. If you can change with your sister, no problem. I don't mind that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:15]:But this is solved and I'm not resolving it, so I'll make it visible. We'll review it every single weekend in our family meeting, obviously make any adjustments as needed. But for the most part, once we get to summer, I want it solved. I don't want microsolving in the week because that makes everything so hard when I don't have time to actually get anything done in my day. Because the only thing I'm doing is scheduling the next day and you know what those days feels like and when we'll have a couple because something will break. But I don't want my whole summer to feel that way. I've been there before where I'm like, I'll just figure it out when I get there. Doesn't work.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:49]:Doesn't work. Well, I'm really hoping that this is, like a great summer for your family. It should be fun. But also, we have to admit to ourselves it's a little bit more work. There's a lot of expectations from a lot of people. Our kids have expectations. Our family has expectations, a lot of expectations to manage. Somebody's going to be let down.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:07]:But hopefully these tips can help you and your family have a little better summer. And so it's filled with more together time than conflict. Thanks for listening.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:17]:Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:26]:I will.

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