Summer time is now here. For most children, this means more outdoor activities (swimming, camping, bike riding, etc…) and with the 4th of July celebration, fireworks. This means being extra vigilant to keep your child safe and healthy. Here are some tips to keep your child safe and happy this summer:

Surviving Summer Boredom with your Kids

Sometimes, especially with younger children, cries of boredom are really calls for companionship and attention—their friends may be away on vacation and without the structure of school they may find it difficult to keep occupied during long summer days. Prolonged intervals where the kids have nothing to do can be stressful . When bored, children often become whiny, cranky and demanding.

Here are a few easy tips to help child care providers combat summer boredom and help kids develop the internal resources that are important for developing creative, resource and time management skills:

1. Put a weekly calendar together so as not to overwhelm yourself with planning entertainment for an entire summer, just take it one week at a time—day trips, arts and craft activities, play-dates, reading time, nature hikes, picnics, bike rides, a trip to the movie theatre etc. This way kids will have something to look forward to during down time. A calendar also helps with getting kids prepared for what comes next.
2. Ask: “If you could do anything, what would you like to do?” Try and encourage your children to generate their own ideas for activities—they are more apt to have fun when they thought it up on their own! Reinforcing that children use their imaginations will also help them develop a sense of resourcefulness and get them in the habit of making their own choices about how they will spend their time.
3. Keep an “art box” handy full of supplies: scissors, fabric, felt, glue, paints and brushes, stickers, paper, markers, canvass, needle and thread, beads, yarn, picture magazines etc. Rummaging through a box of art supplies can ignite the imagination and occupy children for long periods of time. They could even begin an entrepreneurial enterprise and sell their wares at the end of the summer.
4. Inspire them to play with water. Water is very calming and soothing for children and they can while away many hours playing and keeping cool. Get them to wash the car, hose off the deck, or run through a sprinkler. Spend time together at the beach or pool*.

*Water Safety

1. Never leave a child unobserved around water. Your eyes must be on the child at all times.
2. Maintain constant supervision. Watch children around any water environment (pool, stream lake, tub, toilet, bucket of water), no matter what skills your child has acquired and no matter how shallow the water is.
3. Swim at beach near lifeguard. Do not take your eyes off child even when lifeguard is present. It is your responsibility to watch the kids!
4. Keep a phone nearby so that you can call 911 in an emergency.
5. Learn Red Cross CPR
6. No running in pool area!  Decks surfaces are slippery and accidents happen quickly.
7. No diving in shallow water. Head and neck injuries result from diving in areas too shallow.
8. Always keep basic lifesaving equipment by the pool and know how to use it. Pole, rope and personal flotation devices are recommended.
9. Don’t rely on substitutes. The use of flotation devices and inflatable toys cannot replace adult supervision.
10. Keep toys away from the pool when the pool is not in use. Toys can attract young children into the pool.
11. Keep doors and gates locked leading to the pool!

Since many of our Rhode Island au pairs will be attending the Blue Man Group performance this weekend at the Providence Performing Arts Center, I thought you might enjoy reading an article that was published in last Sunday’s Providence Journal.  It may give you a little more insight about the show that you are about to see….which should be very entertaining!

Actor Peter Musante had been kicking around Los Angeles after graduating from UCLA, auditioning for TV, commercials, and musicals. That’s when he saw a casting call for Blue Man Group, the innovative show that features mute, bald men slathered with blue paint. He’d never seen the long-running show before, and showed up for the audition on a whim. “The way the casting director was talking about the character got my attention,” said Musante, a 28-year-old San Francisco native. “I had a blast at the audition”. That led to a call back in New York and an offer to join Blue Man Group’s first-ever theatrical tour, scheduled to play the Providence Performing Arts Center March 4-6. “I never looked back,”, said Musante, who’s been with the company for four years. “it’s the greatest job in the world.” 

What Musante actually does is a little hard to describe. “As a Blue Man,” said Musante, “you’re doing every art form you can imagine in an hour and a half.” The Blue Man (there are four on the tour and three on stage at any time) is a “completely blank slate,” said Musante. “He resembles a human but has no knowledge. He is experienceing everything for the first time. One Japanese critic said watching Blue Man is like watching a newborn baby.”

The show, which has been in Boston for years, is all about the relationship Blue Man develops with the audience. He has to figure out what the audience is about, and somehow through facial gestures and eye movements, communicate with the fans. He starts with some drumming, and gauging the audience reaction, improvises other routines such as making sounds on homemade instruments, or dragging a patron on stage, painting him up and throwing him against a canvas to make a work of art.

Musante said the show reflects a lot of what’s going on in pop culture, or “screen culture,” as he put it, meaning computers, cell phones and the like. “The show has evolved over the years,” he said, “to take in what are current phenomena.” Musante, who is now based in New York, was calling from Austin, Texas, where the show had stopped for performances. He’s been on the road since September, and plans to stay with the tour for the foreseeable future. “Most shows don’t take in the audience that much,” he said. “They treat it more like the fourth wall.”

The show got its start in New York around 1990, and opened at the Astor Theatre in 1991, said Musante. Right now, there are five Blue Man troupes with long-running gigs in major cities across the country. And there are shows in Berlin and Tokyo, as well as on the newest Norwegian cruise ship, The Epic, which sails the waters of the Caribbean.

As for the blue makeup, Musante said that’s not as complicated as one might imagine. It takes about a half hour to get into costume. A vinyl skull cap is glued in place to cover the hair and ears, then gobs of bright blue theatrical grease paint are smeared on the actor’s face.  Over the show’s 20 year history, there have been dozens of Blue Men like Musante. “It’s like a family,” he said.

Blue Man Group plays at the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset Street, March 4 – 6. Tickets are $38 – $65. Call (401)421-2787 or visit ppacri.org