Get off the Couch! Keeping Your Family Healthy During the Summer (and Beyond)

Get off the Couch!
Keeping Your Family Healthy During the Summer (and Beyond)

by Mikey Smith, M.Ed

It used to be that the start of summer meant that our parents would push us kids outside, lock the door and tell us not to come home until dinner unless someone was bleeding profusely. Nowadays, however, more and more kids are spending more and more of their summer sitting on the couch playing video games and watching TV. We all know that kids and adults and people in general are more sedentary. What can we do to reverse that trend in our own homes?



Make it a Family Affair

As with everything, parents can start by being positive examples. It's hard to expect your kids to go outside when you're sitting inside watching TV with a snack in one hand and the remote in the other hand. Go on family hikes or walk the dog together, or even get down and dirty with yardwork. Taking care of chores is a great way to make them go faster as well as to burn calories!

Making Room for Nothing by Lara Krupicka

After the mad dash at the end of the school year we could all use some rest and relaxation.  The relatively calm and stress-free start of the summer is a good time to reflect on ways to downsize your family's jam-packed activity calendar.

Raising the Bar summer programs fit perfectly into a streamlined summer schedule. Our camps don't start until the end of June to give you and your family some much needed downtime. Once July approaches, we have half-day options (as well as full-day) and each of our camps run for only one week to promote engagement and excitement, not exhaustion!

Making Room for Nothing
Scale Back and Enjoy the Downtime!

by Lara Krupicka


Most parents have times where they feel like they have to be in multiple places at one time to manage their children's calendars. But what happens when the imagined need becomes real?

Like a typical mom's, Hillary Homzie's schedule for her family was a house of cards, a careful stacking of one activity on the other. Then one day it came toppling down. A change in plans with a carpool partner, when all three of her kids had somewhere to be, left her scrambling. "I remember dropping off one kid at a swim party and not even being able to have the time to arrange how my fifth-grader got home," she explains. She herself had to get to a doctor's appointment where she was diagnosed with multiple ailments, brought on by stress. It was then she realized something had to change.

Homzie's story may sound extreme, but it's more normal than many realize. According to a research study conducted at the University of Michigan, children experienced a major decrease in time spent in unstructured activities between 1981 and 1997. A followup to that study showed free time activities for kids continued to decrease into 2003. With shrinking amounts of down time, you have a recipe for collapse.

Decisions, Decisions. . . Finding the Perfect Summer Camp for your Child

Decisions, Decisions...
Finding the Perfect Summer Camp for Your Child

by Mikey Smith, M.Ed

As summer camp season approaches, the choices are seemingly endless. There are camps for everything from cooking to karate to quilting and everything in between. But what's the best fit for your child? Sometimes, the obvious choice might not be the best one. Thinking outside the box when making decisions about what camp your child will attend can go a long way toward helping make the most of his summer camp experience.

The Athlete
Sure, there are sports camps for just about every specific sport under the sun, but how many football or soccer or volleyball camps can you go to? Attending the same sports camp year after year can get a little stale. Encourage your budding superstar to branch out with another sport, or a multi-sport themed camp. Help them get and stay fit with a nutrition or yoga class.
Raising the Bar Recommendations: From Fishin' to Football, Karma Kids Yoga, The Great Outdoors, "What's Cookin'?"

Spring Showers Bring. . . Standardized Tests!

Springtime means sunshine, flowers, and. . .standardized tests! Thousands of students (and teachers) across the country will welcome the warmer weather but not the standardized tests that the spring months usually bring. Read on for more information about one of the most commonly administered standardized tests, the Stanford 10.  This test is used in some districts, including HISD, as part of the criteria for Gifted and Talented qualification.

Spring Showers Bring...
Standardized Tests

by Mikey Smith, M.Ed


The unseasonably cold weather most of the country has experienced this winter has most of us hoping for an early spring and the warm weather that comes with it. For students and teachers however, spring is not only the season of sunshine and daffodils, it is the season of standardized tests -- lots and lots of standardized tests. Most accredited schools give at least one form of standardized test per year, but it is not uncommon for students to take two.