by Charlie Brooks posted in Parenting

I usually feel like I don?t spend enough time with my family, and that feeling gets worse in the summer. I definitely don?t want to be the dad who works through every vacation. But, alas, I'm a bit of a workaholic. I not only have my normal full-time career, but also two part-time jobs.
So I've made a few summer resolutions I'm hoping might help make sure the season goes down as an enjoyable one instead of one that I wasted working, again.
Stop being such a jerk. True, I should avoid being a jerk anyway. But I really like teasing my kids. What works well as a bit of joking around at the bus stop, though, gets old on long summer days. Might as well save all my A material for when school starts up again. Take time to educate. Determined to avoid an academic summer slide with our son, my wife had the great idea to ramp up the amount of reading we did last summer. It worked very well. Reading and learning games are a great way to increase the overall quality of family time.
Budget family time. I?m really good at budgeting my work time. I can extend that to my family time without overextending myself. Basically, this means setting aside a block of time each day where family is my job. No fiddling around on my phone, no napping on the couch ? it?s time to play.
Take advantage of later bedtimes. When school's not in session, I?m usually out of the house before the kids get out of bed. It?s possible to offset that loss of morning time by loo...