Summer break means warmer temps, later nights, barbecues, popsicles, fireworks, swimming … and kids spending more time at home. While kids may love summer free time, parents sometimes struggle to adapt to the new family dynamic. In particular, writers can find it challenging to maintain their writing life with kids—and extra noise—in the house.
If you’ve had a difficult time figuring out how to juggle your writing life with your parenting life, might I suggest you try weaving the two together? In my experience, kids enjoy coming along for the journey, and writing is much more accessible to kids than other professions and hobbies.
So before you put your writing on hold for the rest of the summer, here are five tips to help you include your children in your writing life. You’ll be able to spend time with your kids while working towards your writing goals, and you just might have fun doing it.
1. Share the Joy of Reading
Create a family culture that values reading. Bedtime stories are standard in many homes, but brainstorm other ways to enjoy stories together.
My kids and I enjoy listening to audiobooks during lunchtime, and I appreciate the bonus of less bickering. You might build a reading fort in your home or pitch a reading tent in the yard. Watch a movie based on a book, then compare it with the book.
Share book recommendations with one another. Talk about what you’ve enjoyed reading and why. Don’t shame your kids for their book choices. Parents often get uptight about their kids’ summer reading, which isn’t fair. (How many adults fill their summer reading exclusively with weighty literature?)
If you set summer reading goals, make reading the prize. Visit your local bookstore and let everyone purchase a book. It’s a prize that builds each child’s personal library.
When we value reading in our homes, we respect writing. Your kids may also start writing as they aspire to be like their favorite authors.
2. Show Your Work
Kids are naturally inquisitive, so why not teach them about your work? If your material is not suitable for young people, instead share about the writing life, the publishing process, or how to generate story ideas.
If you are researching for a project, teach your kids how to use the library and online resources to uncover information. Show them how you organize your facts and data. Teach them best practices, including how to find reliable sources. Encourage them to work on their own research project, and you can work side by side.
When age-appropriate, try pitching your story ideas to your kids. This has a double benefit: it will require you to be clear and brief, which is required in a pitch, and kids are honest and they will tell you if it stinks!
Above all, be transparent about the challenges you face. Tell your kids how frustrating it is when you receive rejections. Let them see the arduous revision process, complete with messy markups. Show them how you keep writing, even when—especially when—you’re not sure how it’s all going to turn out.
Kids rarely get to see the process that goes into good writing. They can become discouraged when their writing isn’t perfect on the first try. You are giving them a gift when you show creativity is hard work.
3. Interact with the Writing Community
Be good literary citizens and support writers. Leave a positive book review, or leave one on behalf of your child who is too young to post it. Promote other people’s work on social media platforms. My kids love it when the author likes our post or leaves a comment for us.
Send fan mail. Most writers I know love hearing their work has impacted others. They may reply, and it is a thrill to hear from a favorite author.
Go to local bookstores, library story times, book fairs, and literary festivals. Attend an author event or local book signing. These events help you network, and they show your kids that authors are real people.
4. Establish a Daily Time to Create
Set aside time every day to create. It doesn’t have to be the same time every day, so long as it happens every day.
Your family’s creative time should be enjoyable—not a chore. Let each person pick their preferred activity. Make sure everyone has what they need, set a timer, and create!
Younger children may need short blocks of time (10-15 minutes). Depending on the activity, you may need to sit next to them to troubleshoot, but promote independence as much as possible.
Use this block of time to write. Your child might want to paint, construct something with blocks, or make a movie. The point is to make creativity a treasured and respected process.
5. Respect Everyone’s Creative Output
If you take away only one tip, make it this one: affirm what everyone has made. Compliment the good. Praise the effort that went into it. Encourage them to keep creating.
LISTEN to your kids when they tell you about the new thing they made. Stop scrolling and give them your undivided attention while they talk about what they’ve made. Show them how we listen while others share their work.
Respect and courtesy go a long way. Give your kids time and space to follow their passions and expect them to do the same for you.
A Word on Expectations
It would be disingenuous of me to treat these tips as a checklist for creating an idyllic life where writing and parenting live in perfect harmony. I think we are most discontent when we believe perfection is something within our grasp, but no such life exists.
We feel better about our accomplishments when our expectations honor reality. Set yourself up for success by setting goals that are based on your life right now, not anyone else’s.
Create. Teach your kids to create. It will require effort and time to establish these habits, but if you play the long game, you’ll reap incredible benefits while simultaneously raising the next generation of creatives.
Tell us in the comments: Which of these ideas will you be trying with your kids this summer?
Sara Gentry has a Ph.D. in Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics and is a writer, homeschooling mom, and Author Accelerator certified book coach. Sara uses her analytical and logical brain to help writers corral their ideas into a cohesive and compelling narrative. She works with many types of writers, but has a soft spot for coaching mom writers who are juggling all the things.
You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
