The Secret to a Fun Family Summer

Each year, weeks before summer vacation starts, most families have a detailed calendar of camps, vacations, and activities planned. Looking at the landscape of your family, what are your children’s attitudes about summer activities? Do you have an easygoing  child who is up for anything as long as it’s fun? Do you have a child who is already nervous about attending camp at the end of the summer? Do you have a child who loves to dive into the details and create elaborate games and experiences for the family? Or finally, do you have a child who would rather spend the summer in their room building a better gaming computer or reading Lord of the Rings?

It can be frustrating to navigate the complexity of the summer schedule, especially if your kids have differing personality types. If you must constantly cajole and encourage one of your kids, while pulling back the reins on another, you can feel exhausted before summer even starts.

What if you had the ability to understand your child’s unique temperament and knew before the summer even started? What if you could then adjust the schedule, communicate the plan, and ward off battles between siblings?

Temperaments

Temperament is your innate wiring from God. Much like your eye color and fingerprints, it is unchangeable. The idea of temperaments is not new. Galen of Pergamon—a Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher in the Roman Empire, born 129 A.D.—deepened the study of temperaments and applied Greek names to them: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. We have given them colors to make it easier to talk about, but the general temperament descriptions have remained the same and are the foundation for many of our modern personality assessments. Below are some general descriptions of the four temperaments and how parents can use this tool to create a better summer.

Sanguine/Yellow

• Yellows are the life of the party, and most people would describe them as “loud.”
• They show their emotions openly and wear their hearts on their sleeves.
• They need approval, acceptance, attention, and affection.
• These are the kids who will dive into the summer with a mind toward full participation, planning, creating, and leading everyone to have a good time.

Summer Fun for a Yellow:

Help your Yellow child balance their need for fun and action with the needs of the rest of the family. Yellows are loud, over-the-top kids, and summer is their time to shine, so look for camps and activities that give them the chance to thrive. On family vacation, ask for their help in making long travel days fun, or invite them to help plan family game nights throughout the summer. These kids are your snugglers, so slow them down by curling up on the couch to watch a new TV series, enjoy a movie night, or read a book together.

Choleric/Red

• Reds are self-directed, responsible, and always have a plan or a purpose.
• They need a sense of control, appreciation, and credit for their work.
• Summer for these kids must include a good plan with details spelled out. They need goals, such as reading 10 books or running a mile every day, and they need rewards for the achievement of those goals.

Summer Fun for a Red:

Your Red needs to have something to have control over. Allow them to pick the rides you will ride at the theme park, or maybe choose the restaurant you will eat at this week. Invite their input on choosing camps and activities for the summer.  The biggest fights will happen when your Red is being overly bossy to their siblings, so you will need to set boundaries for your Red. And as your Red work to “accomplish” something this summer, remember to recognize and praise their accomplishments.

Phlegmatic/Green

• Greens are kind, considerate, easygoing, sensible, and reflective.
• They are warm and inviting, and they make friends easily, but they are also comfortable alone.
• An over-packed schedule will be a struggle for these kids. They need a good balance of activity and down-time. They need friends, but they also need a healthy amount of alone time.

Summer Fun for a Green:

You will need to push your Green out the door to play with friends or hang out at the neighborhood pool.  Once they get going, they are happy to participate, but they are equally happy just being alone. These kids can only focus on the next thing, so don’t overwhelm them with too much detail of your summer plan. You will need choose adventures for these kids. They will not be the kids who research the latest Lego camp, but they will be grateful when you drop them off.

Melancholic/Blue

• Blues are deep thinkers who are reflective, serious, and purposeful. People would describe them as “old souls.”
• They can be creative, musical, or artistic, but they prefer solo pursuits.
• They need silence and space to recharge. Younger Blue children can be overwhelmed by busy, noisy environments.
• A summer with less is best for these kids. They like doing their own things and will get nervous if required to try new activities. They are perfectionists and will expect everything to work as planned.

Summer Fun for a Blue:

Allow your Blue to pick their own activities, and set the expectation up front about the camps and family activities they must willingly participate in. If you want them to take golf lessons this summer, make sure they understand why you want this. Since they worry and over-plan, share the details of any of your plans with them in advance. Finally, you might need to break up busy days into segments of activity, followed by breaks, followed by more activity.

Pulling a Mmix of Temperaments Together (maybe in a small RV driving across the country)

If your kids and your spouse were all the same temperaments, this stuff would be easy to do. But because your kids and your spouse (and you) are unique, the art of blending is the key to a successful summer. Here are three tips to help you get started:

1. Awareness is the key. Determine both your temperament and your child’s temperament. You can do that by studying their innate character and noticing what they are like on both a good day and a bad day. You can also use online tools such as kindwordsarecool.com.
2. Remember that you cannot always accommodate everyone’s needs. Allow yourself grace and allow yourself to meet your own needs sometimes. Some days may better fit your Blue and other days may be totally geared toward your Yellow. You might not notice your Green has not left the house in four days. It’s okay to have days that are just what they are.
3. Plan a summer kick off. Probably by this time, most of your plans are in place. You paid for camps, bought airplane tickets, and made some reservations. But as school is winding down this month, plan a special family night, serve fun food, light the backyard fire pit, and sit down as a family. Talk through the summer plans and set expectations. If you have Reds and Blues, help them set goals for the summer. If you have Yellows, help them understand everyone’s need for down-time, and drag your Green into getting excited.

Here are a couple of last thoughts before you run off to summer. Have fun!!! The best memories are the ones that are created when life just happens. Care for your people by allowing them room to be who God created them to be, even when it makes you crazy. Look for those opportunities to connect with your kids when they are not stressed by the routine of the rest of the summer.

Happy Summer!