The school year has a way of helping solo parents find their stride. There is a predictability to it that solo parents learn to lean on hard, the morning routines, the school schedules, the after-school windows that tell everyone in the house what comes next. Over time, that structure stops feeling like a crutch and starts feeling like proof that you can actually do this. Then summer arrives and all of that shifts, fast. The magic of summer is real and worth protecting. So is the honest acknowledgment that this season brings a unique kind of pressure, one that stretches any family, and stretches solo parents especially thin.
That pressure to make summer magical, while still making it through the week in one piece, is something every solo parent knows. Work does not take the summer off. The bills do not either. But suddenly the kids are home, they need more, and there is a quiet expectation that this season should feel special. The same load you were carrying in May is still yours to carry in June, just with more people in the house and less structure to hold everything together. You want to be present. You want your kids to have good memories. And you are also just trying to survive.
In this episode, Robert Beeson, Founder and CEO of Solo Parent, and Elizabeth Cole, single parent, are joined by Marissa Lee, author and single parent, for an honest, practical, and at times genuinely funny conversation about navigating summer as a solo parent. Together, they bring decades of real experience, and the kind of grace that only comes from having actually lived through the chaos.
The conversation moves through the real pain points that do not get talked about enough: the cost of camps that do not even fit your work schedule, the guilt around screen time, the question of how much independence to give a kid who is suddenly 13 and testing every boundary, and the quiet loneliness of being the only parent in the parking lot trying to answer emails while watching your kid at football practice.
Key Insights from This Episode
- Structure is not a punishment for summer, it is a gift you give your kid.
- Letting go of control is a parenting skill that has to be practiced gradually, before you are forced to do it all at once.
- The best summer memories do not require money. They require presence and a little creativity.
Structure Is Not a Punishment for Summer. It Is a Gift You Give Your Kid.
One of the most consistent themes in this conversation is something that feels counterintuitive when you first hear it: summer actually needs more intentional structure, not less.
For Elizabeth, the solution was as simple as a whiteboard on the refrigerator. A checklist, a marker, a few daily expectations written out where Jax can see them. He walks up, checks things off on his own, and knows what comes next. But what makes this feel like real wisdom rather than just a parenting tip is how the structure has evolved as Jax has gotten older. When he was five, she made the list. Now she makes it with him. She asks him what he wants his summer to feel like, what chores he is willing to own, what he wants to do. That shift from dictating structure to co-creating it is significant. It gives a kid ownership over his own days and removes the constant friction of resistance.
Structure can look different depending on the kid and the season of life you are in. For Marissa, summers were looser and more freedom-based for her boys. She encouraged them to go outside, to run, to use their imaginations. And when work was done, she made a point of being fully present with them. Not watching from the edge of the pool, but actually in the pool, throwing a ball, engaging. Sometimes the most important structure you can give a kid is simply knowing that when the day winds down, you are going to show up with your whole self.
One practical tool worth trying is using AI as a planning partner. Not just asking it for a list of summer activities, but actually describing your life to it first. Tell it your work hours, your kids’ ages, your budget, your city. Give it the real picture. Then ask it to help you build a flexible daily schedule, or find free activities in your area, or come up with age-appropriate things your kids can do on their own. It is not going to solve everything, but it can take some of the mental load off. And we could all use that.
Structure does not have to mean rigid or scheduled down to the minute. But a day with no shape at all tends to become a day everyone regrets by 4 PM.
Letting Go of Control Is a Parenting Skill That Has to Be Practiced Gradually.
Perhaps the most emotionally resonant part of this conversation was the discussion about independence and the leash.
It started with a real question, asked honestly and without defensiveness. Jax had asked to go to Sonic with friends before a school dance. Elizabeth said no, offered to sit in the parking lot instead, and then turned to the group: am I too controlling? It opened up a genuinely important conversation about how solo parents tend to hold on tighter than two-parent households, and for good reason.
The response that landed hardest was grounded and long-view. Marissa spent years slowly giving her boys more freedom, starting around 13 and 14, gradually extending the radius, talking to other parents, making clear that broken trust would roll things back. Her youngest is now a senior in high school, about to go to prom, and the goal for this final year is to largely take her hands off while staying close enough to course-correct if needed. She described it as preparing a kid to wade into the deep end before you stop being the one watching from the edge.
Summer, especially at 12, 13, or 14, can actually be a proving ground for this. As Robert pointed out, solo parents are often more protective than two-parent households because everything falls on one set of shoulders. The fear is real. But the season offers a natural opportunity to say: here are the parameters, here is what I am watching for, and here is your chance to show me what you are capable of.
Practical tools help make this less terrifying. Life360, Find My Friends, the simple act of asking your child to name another parent who has agreed to the same plan. When kids know that parents are in contact with each other, the space for bad decisions shrinks. That is not control. That is community.
The conversation was honest about the fact that this is hard for solo parents specifically. You are the only one making the call. There is no one to check with at the end of the day about whether you got it right. But the goal, as Marissa framed it, is not to keep them safe forever. The goal is to raise someone who knows how to keep themselves safe.
The Best Summer Memories Do Not Require Money. They Require Presence and a Little Creativity.
The rapid-fire portion of this episode was packed with practical ideas for making summer feel full without draining a budget that is already stretched.
One of the most memorable images from the conversation was Marissa at a playground, turning an ordinary outing into a full adventure. They were pirates. They were explorers. They were running from imaginary villains. Someone at the park once asked if she was a nanny for hire. She was not. She was just a mom who had learned that imagination is free and that kids will follow you almost anywhere if you go there first.
Beyond the playground, a handful of consistently low-cost ideas came up: splash pads, public libraries, nature trails, and the first Saturday of every month at Home Depot, where there is a free woodworking project for kids. Rec centers often have affordable classes that run just a few evenings a week and give kids something to look forward to without the price tag of a full summer camp.
The evening ritual Robert built into his summers is as simple as it sounds. Three nights a week, a commitment to doing something specific with the kids. An ice cream party. A movie night with phones face down. Camping out in the living room. A walk to stargaze. Not expensive. Not elaborate. Just present and intentional. Solo parents are exhausted by the end of the day, but those small commitments have a way of becoming the moments kids carry with them.
Every summer, Elizabeth and Jax make a bucket list together, a list of things they want to do before September. They rarely finish it. But the act of dreaming it together, of sitting down and saying this is what we want this season to feel like, changes the whole orientation. Summer stops being something that happens to you and becomes something you are moving toward.
A few more ideas that surfaced: neighborhood scavenger hunts, outdoor movie nights at local parks, giving older kids a big project like organizing the garage that stretches over weeks, camping trips with other single-parent families, and a priced task list posted at home so kids can earn money on their own initiative without having to ask.
The through-line in all of it was the same: connection does not require resources. It requires showing up.
A Word Before You Head Into Summer
There will be hard days this summer. Days when the structure falls apart, the budget runs out, and you are just trying to get everyone to bedtime in one piece. Those days do not define the season.
What your kids will carry with them is not a perfectly planned summer. It is the feeling of knowing you were in it with them, doing your best with what you had. That is not a small thing. That is everything.
