The very first time I tried making a ‘summer bucket list’ with my kids, it turned into a disappointment. “Mom, we still need to go here”, or “Mom, we didn’t get to do this”. It was frustrating to me to hear all of the ungratefulness at the end of the summer and stressed me out to try to fulfill all the items on their list. This is why we now make a ‘Summer Ta-Da List’, which has been so much better and here is why…

A Summer Bucket List is where you write out the things you’d like to accomplish before the summer begins. Maybe you’d like to attend a concert, travel somewhere, swim at a certain pool. While all of these things are fun to think about, it’s very unrealistic that they will all be accomplished. We may feel bad or let-down looking back on our bucket list at the end of the summer when we see all the things we didn’t get to do.

A “Summer Ta-Da List” is just the opposite. It is a list that we add to throughout the summer of the things that we have already accomplished. Just like the name “Ta-Da”, it helps us focus on the cool things that we were really lucky to have gotten to do. When we focus on the things we do, we become grateful for the opportunities that we had, rather than the things we didn’t get to do.

I’ve found that by doing this, my kids are really grateful at the end of the summer. I’ve also found that as a parent, I am not stressed because I don’t feel like I have to do certain things every day just to mark them off of a bucket list.

Another thing I’ve found by doing the Summer Ta-Da List is that my kids don’t feel like they have to do GRAND THINGS, like big vacations and all-day outings to be eligible for the list. They will write things like, “go to the library, or visit grandma” and think that those are fun.

I encourage you all to try making a Summer Ta-Da List this year and watch your kids feel grateful for all the fun things, even the small things, that they’ve gotten to do.

Follow along with me to see what sorts of things we do this summer on my Instagram: @SweetCharli