🌴 Life After Debby

Good morning, Palmetto Parent!

We hope this email finds you safe and dry. It’s been a wild week with the school start date getting pushed back and entertaining kiddos for multiple rainy days. For those of you with school aged kids, we wish them an amazing first day back on Monday! We hope this weekend will include some sun for everyone to enjoy the events around town and celebrate the start of another school year.

By the way you can now LISTEN to this newsletter by clicking “Listen Online” at the top of this email. 😎 🎧️ 

If you haven’t yet, be sure to follow us and give us a like on Facebook. On our page we post updates and reminders for our featured stories and let you know about other opportunities in the community. We’d love to connect with you there.

Finally, our little guy is supposed to be starting preschool next week but we are being those parents and having him miss the first day of school for vacation. We want to give our sons, each other, and our extended family our full attention so there will be no newsletter next week and we will pick it back up the week after. 🫶🏼

Remember to check out next week’s Third Thursday back to school event from 5:30-8:30pm in Hutchinson Square.

To Do: Keep Active at Rollins Edwards Community Center

Fall programs are in full swing for the Rollins Community Center! Located in the heart of Summerville at 301 N Hickory St., you get access to opportunities like open pickleball, open basketball, line dance, and family open gym for only $50/year (for anyone ages 5 and older).

You can see the full schedule for the gym on their page.

The community center also regularly offers skill classes for kids of all ages. Here’s a short list of programs they currently have running:

• Adult Judo & Jujutsu (Ages 13 & up)

• Adult Karate (Ages 9 & up)

• Line Dancing (Ages 11 & up)

• Women’s Self Defense (Ages 13 & up)

• Kids Karate (Ages 4-8)

• Junior Judo (Ages 4-12)

For those with young kids (ages 1-4) their tot time is now open again on Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Fridays from 8:30am-12pm. Tot time is an open gym for toddlers and they fill the area with parachutes, riding toys, slides, and balls. It gives your littles time and tools to interact with other kids in a free form, low pressure environment. Tot time is great for rainy or super hot days when you want to meet others and get out of the house. It’s $3/kid and parents are free.

Summerville Parks & Rec is still looking for coaches and referees for their fall youth sports. If you are interested in helping, call (843)508-0766 or email the Assistant Director, Laura Moorer, at [email protected].

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An Event: Back to School Bashes

This Saturday, Lumber Jill’s is hosting a Back to School Bash from 10am-2pm in partnership with Illuminate Church. The event is free to the public and includes free food, games, snow cones, face painting, and prizes.

Click here to save a spot for your kids.

Lumber Jills is an axe throwing lounge that has lots of fun for the family. In August they have Wednesday night family game nights and Friday family fun nights. Check out their site for more details about the venue.

Lumber Jill’s is located at 4650 Ladson Rd Ste 205 in Summerville.

On Sunday, Bolts & Brews Beer Garden (the one connected to Ace Hardware), is hosting their Back to School Bash.

They’re partnering with Carol’s Balloon Art & More to provide fun balloons and back to school tattoos for the kids. Two Chicks on Wheels and Sno Biz of Summerville will have their trucks there for refreshing treats. If you bring a school supply item for their drive, you can receive a free slushie or $1 off a drink and they will be doing a raffle that benefits Dorchester School District. Teachers with an ID get $2 off drinks, as well.

Restaurant: Annual Family Day at Top Dawg Tavern

Top Dawg Tavern is “Summerville’s Favorite Family Friendly Neighborhood Tavern.” They have indoor and outdoor seating with a pet friendly patio and live music three nights a week. They have an extensive menu so everyone in the family will find something to enjoy. They also have kids meals for $5 which include a drink and ice cream.

This weekend they have their annual family day which will be a great time. Your family can enjoy lunch there between 11am-2pm and they will have:

• A meet and greet with Queen Elsa and Spider-man

• The Paint Pixie Face Painting

• Carol’s Balloon Art

• A Coloring Contest

Top Dawg Tavern is located 9512 Dorchester Road in the Wescott area of Summerville.

Palmetto Piece: It’s Okay to be Bored

In today’s world it’s so easy to avoid being bored. Unlike past generations, we have screens everywhere and computers in our hands. In Summerville we have tons of opportunities to entertain our kids with parks, splash pads, events, etc. None of these things are bad at all, they are great things.

But sometimes we need to create space to be bored.

My son had a very busy past week staying with his grandparents and then we have vacation next week, two amazing weeks — but they’re stimulating tend to affect his normal sleeping patterns. I planned for this week to be a very low-key, stay at home kind of week. And thanks to Deb, this week was even lower-key and with even more staying at home than planned.

The extrovert in me loves to get out so it’s really stretched me as a mom to be forced to be at home for days in a row.

One thing I have to remind myself is that my main role as a mother is to not be an entertainer. Sure, I want to create great memories with my kids, help them be social, and take advantage of all the things our community has to offer. But I believe strongly that my main role as a mother is to shape their characters and help them become men that can reach their full potential and be a blessing to the world.

And that includes letting them be bored.

Also disclaimer: my husband Daniel coparents but has a full-time job so I’m speaking primarily about the time of day when I’m the parent and he’s not around. He helps shape their character too 😃 (written by Daniel during the editing process). 😆 

As the Gia Miller, writer of “The Benefits of Boredom” summarizes, being bored can help your child develop creativity and self-esteem while fostering organization, problem solving, and flexibility skills. When kids have free time, they are pushed to create their own entertainment which stretches their minds.

Miller suggests that you proactively make a list to help kids get their creative juices flowing when they’re bored. Then when they find themselves with nothing to do, they can choose from their list of activities. For younger kids their list options might be things like building and playing in a fort, going on a nature hunt in the yard, or building something with legos. For older kids, it might include learning a dance, writing a story, starting a garden, or working on sports skills. For kids too young for a list, it could just require you jumpstarting that independent play. This week in our home there was a lot of play-dough and monster trucks sprawled on the table for some creative play.

Miller’s full article is worth the read to help your kids embrace free time and boredom.

Boredom helps kids develop resilience towards less than ideal situations, which is a great parenting win and worth the initial discomfort.

Here’s to more moments of boredom!

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