Family Summer Planning

by · August 4, 2026

Back home from a beautiful (hot!) holiday in Toscane, the children have another 4 weeks off ahead.

I wanted to help my 8-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl design the rest of their holiday (within some constraints!) by letting them express all the cool things they wish to do these weeks. My idea was to get an overview of their wishes so we could plan together.

That way, we won’t miss out on the things that are important to them (like: swimming! and: petting a pony!).

Also, on things that are important to me! Because I want to get them involved in keeping the house somewhat structured, tidy, and clean (a never-ending struggle…)

So, as a (former) Scrum Master, what do you do?

The Family Meeting

We sat down with post-its, markers, drinks, and cookies.

And we made it fun!!

(Ok, in reality, my son had a mental breakdown because he needed more clarity. A not-very-gentle reminder for me: it starts with CLARITY. Explain the steps beforehand. Not only at home, the same at work.)

After restoring peace and having our nervous systems all regulated again I explained the steps:

  • Write down on post-its what you want to do during the holidays.
  • Put them on the wall (the backlog).
  • Identify overlapping wishes (“We all want to go swimming!!”).
  • Prioritize together.
  • Mark your biggest wish with 1. Your second biggest wish with 2.
  • Put the most important stickies on top.

Let me tell you this, when you have your kids write down their wishes on post-its phonetically, in their cute, clumsy handwriting, it makes my mommy heart MELT!

Here are some of the wishes they wrote down:

  • Swimming in the very cool pool nearby
  • Go to the zoo with opa & oma
  • Sleepover with best friend
  • Petting a pony
  • Go to the movies

And as it turned out, there was much overlap in their wishes, which made it easy to prioritize and plan for the upcoming week.

After that we defined the tasks. I named this section “the holiday job”, because it gives them an enormous boost to have a holiday job now, instead of just a boring task.

We discussed their commitment for the week: Unpacking the dishwasher. Helping clean up after dinner. They are in charge, they chose (with a little encouragement :)).

How to set this up for your own family:

Get a big paper or whiteboard. Draw 3 sections. The board flows from left to right:

Left
Our master list of cool things and tasks (the backlog)

Middle
The weekly planning (‘This Week’)

Right
Everything we’ve finished (‘Done!’)

Here’s our plan. At the start of the week, we will have a look at the board together (in reality I’m sure it will happen more often). We look at which cool things (plus holiday job) we’re doing that week and stick them onto the ‘This Week’ section. The children are in charge of moving the post-its.

New wishes can be added on the list anytime, but we prioritze, pick and choose together during the week planning.

What is cool about this?

– Transparency and structure

The kids know what we are going to do. Expectations and boundaries are clear. Is this only helpful for the kids? Oh no. A little structure eases my own mind as well :).

– Visual proof of all the cool things we did together.

We keep everything that is done on the board. It helps us stay aware of all the cool things we did. More and more fun things in ‘done’! And by the end of the holiday, the board will be covered in cool done things.

And maybe, hopefully, even the house will look somewhat presentable by the end of the holiday.

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