Plus, catching up on vaccines, your kids as teachers, junior meteorologists
|  | Sunday, June 14, 2020 | | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY CAVAN IMAGES, GETTY IMAGES | | By Rachel Buchholz, KIDS AND FAMILY Editor in Chief
So, how was your weekend?
It’s a question that used to be so easy to answer. Parents would talk about travel soccer tournaments, endless birthday parties, maybe a fancy dinner they hosted. Younger colleagues might have snagged a table at a hot new restaurant, gone to a concert with friends, or even turned some text exchanges into an actual face-to-face date. Yeah. Remember weekends?
Although most states are cautiously reopening from the months-long pandemic shutdowns, many parents are still working from home, dealing with playdate-less kids, and not so sure about how social they’re willing to make social distancing. Our self-confinement has caused one day to bleed into another, and suddenly the “weekend” is gone with nothing to show for it. “I was treating every day the same,” mom of two Shermikia Lemon told Nat Geo in an article about taking back your weekends. “I would wake up, get coffee, and head straight to the computer, even on Saturdays and Sundays.”
Just like athletes need time to recover from intense workouts, families need time to recover from the stress and pressures from their everyday lives, especially as those daily pressures build because of COVID-19 stress. “You need to take a break before you break,” says Anna Whitehouse, an advocate for flexible working hours, in a CNBC article.
These days, the trick is making Saturday and Sunday feel different from the rest of the week. Make sure that your family’s lazy mornings have an endpoint. Schedule activities during the day. And plan special events—like a themed dinner or a dance party—for those weekend nights. (Tell us what you’re doing with your family to take back your weekend!)
The bottom line: Taking control of your weekend is essential for your mental health as well as your kids’. Because the best way to make sure your kids are taken care of is to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.
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| | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY MILANVIRIJEVIC, GETTY IMAGES | | Kids are teachers, too. We get it. Being your kids’ de facto teacher can be exhausting. So why not take a break and see what you can learn from them? For a lot of parents, it’s way more than just how to do a Zoom call—they’re learning about resiliency, spontaneity, and confidence. “It’s hard to learn from an experience when you’re doing it,” child psychologist Melinda Macht-Greenberg tells Nat Geo in an article about kids becoming teachers. “But if you can step back and reflect on what’s happened, you can ask yourself, ‘What did I learn from this?’ Then things start to stick.” Learned anything cool from your kids? Tell us!
Vaccines: You may be running behind because of the quarantine. Make sure your kids are up to date before (if?) school resumes this fall. The issue of vaccines has become a major concern for educators and public health officials trying to sketch out the next school year, Sarah Elizabeth Richards reports for Nat Geo.
Family discussion: We’re not sure what you’re planning for Father’s Day next Sunday, but a few readers have shared memories of what their dad taught them. Raechel Ersland, whose dad worked for NASA, said he told her: “Whatever I put my hand to, I needed to do it deliberately and thoughtfully. The reward is just as much in the outcome as well as the process.” Serena DuBois caught a more subtle insight from her dad, a World War II vet, one Fourth of July. Fireworks had gone off and she said she couldn’t imagine that smell anywhere else. "Except a battlefield," responded her father beside her.
Playdate: With all this serious stuff in the world, here’s a change of pace: A deer and a dog in western Pennsylvania, separated by a chainlink fence, are mimicking each other’s moves, as you can see from this short video. “I’m not sure which is cuter, the dog and deer, or the little girl narrating this video,” one fan writes.
While you’re looking for animals: Our readers found more animals around their homes. A partial list: a monarch butterfly amid the milkweed, a green anole on the Lenten roses, turkeys outside a cabin in northern Georgia, a painted stork, hummingbirds, a rose-breasted grosbeak, a Great Blue Heron, and (our favorite) a Lazuli Bunting. Here they are. | | | |
| TRY THIS: BOREDOM BUSTERS FOR KIDS | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY LEENA ROBINSON, SHUTTERSTOCK | | Keeping kids’ brains active. It’s official: Summer officially starts Saturday! And even though kids might not have left the yard in weeks, they can still explore. Hand over your phone so they can try taking some outdoor nature photos, or see how many feathered fliers they can attract with this DIY bird feeder or birdbath. More ambitious families can use these ideas to make their backyard more wildlife friendly. For other ideas, check out the Nat Geo Kids Get Outside Guide. (Got an indoor kid? Cracking open these geodes in the living room counts as exploring!)
Weather at 10. Show kids the secrets behind the wild weather coming their way with these four fun science experiments. With stuff you’ve got around the house, children can become mini-meteorologists and create clouds, trigger “lightning strikes,” and record barometric pressure. (That means they’ll know when skies are clear or cloudy.) 10 o’clock news, here they come!
Need more activities while you’re at home? This week, NatGeo@Home will have a fun quiz about animal dads ahead of Father’s Day, a video about a sea turtle hospital to celebrate World Sea Turtle Day, and an article on how your kids can have an awesome virtual playdate.
This newsletter was edited and curated by David Beard and Rachel Buchholz. Have a healthy and a sane (as possible) week ahead! | | | |
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