-by Lori Mueller, executive director

Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation.  If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you.  ~Erma Bombeck

Just thinking of summer makes me smile remembering days of waterskiing, lazy afternoons, camping and of course, chores, lots of chores. I don’t know how my parents learned the fine art of balancing work and play, but they did a great job of seeing to it that we had plenty of play time, plenty of work time, and some down time. At YouthZone we work very hard at making sure the youth we work with are engaged in something, whether that is playing on the local rec baseball team, baking cookies with their mentor, volunteering or working for pay. We know that youth who are engaged in their community take better care of their community. With that being said we also know that youth often feel stressed, are over committed and worn out. So do what my parents did so well, balance, balance, balance. Every family would benefit from having a chore list for the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, weeding, mowing…you get the idea. Every family would also benefit from play time together and time also to simply watch the clouds roll by. Enjoy your summer building memories with your kids!