The Nine Days with kids can feel like a long stretch — no swimming, no music, no meat, and a house full of children who are very aware of all three. But the Nine Days don’t have to be miserable, and they don’t have to be boring either. With a little creativity, they can actually become one of the more meaningful weeks of the summer. Lakewood, with its parks, libraries, and community spirit, is a genuinely good place to spend them. Here’s how to make the days count.
Reframe It for the Kids
Before the activities, a word about attitude — because kids take their cues from us. If the Nine Days are presented as “the week where everything fun is banned,” the kids will spend it counting down. But if it’s framed as a special time with its own rules — a time for being a little more thoughtful, a little more giving — most kids rise to it surprisingly well. Talk about why we do what we do during the Nine Days, at their level. The mourning for the Beis Hamikdash is a big concept; “we’re being extra careful and extra kind this week” is something a six-year-old can hold onto.
It also helps to name what you can do, not just what you can’t. Kids respond to a plan. “This week we’re doing nature walks, a chesed project, and a learning challenge” lands very differently from “no pool, no music, no meat, find something to do.”
Nature Walks and Outdoor Time
Swimming is off the table, but the outdoors isn’t. Lakewood and the surrounding Ocean County area have lovely options for nature walks — the trails around Lake Carasaljo, the quieter paths in the Pine Barrens, and several county parks within a short drive. A nature walk with a purpose keeps kids engaged: bring a simple scavenger hunt list (something smooth, something that makes a sound, three different leaves), or turn it into a mini science outing with a magnifying glass and a notebook.
Early mornings and evenings are the sweet spots — cooler, quieter, and somehow more contemplative, which suits the mood of the week. A family walk after supper, with no phones and no rush, can become a Nine Days tradition the kids actually look forward to. Pack water and snacks, keep the pace kid-friendly, and let the littlest ones set the speed.
Learning Projects the Whole Family Can Do
The Nine Days are a natural time for learning, and a family project gives the week structure. Pick something with a finish line: learning a perek of Mishnayos together, working through a sefer on the Beis Hamikdash, or a “one mishnah a day” challenge with a small prize at the end. For younger kids, story-based learning works best — there are wonderful children’s seforim about the Churban and the Beis Hamikdash that make the history vivid without being frightening.
A villa stay actually helps here: a dining room table becomes the learning table, everyone gathers in one place, and the project becomes part of the day’s rhythm. Some families set a fixed time — after breakfast, before Mincha — so it feels like a real part of the schedule rather than something squeezed in. The key is keeping it joyful. This is learning l’shem the week, not a punishment for no swimming.
Chesed Activities
If there’s one thing that transforms the Nine Days, it’s chesed. The week is about what’s broken in the world; doing something to fix a small piece of it is the most fitting response there is — and kids love it. Lakewood’s community makes this easy: organize a food drive for a local pantry, bake (dairy or pareve, of course) for an elderly neighbor, write cards for someone who’s homebound, or do a park cleanup as a family.
Let the kids choose the project. Ownership matters — a child who picked the chesed mission will throw themselves into it in a way no assigned task can match. And talk about it afterward: what did it feel like, who did it help, why does it matter especially this week? Those conversations are the real point.
Library Visits and Quiet Indoor Time
Lakewood’s library is a genuine asset during the Nine Days — air-conditioned, calm, and full of Jewish children’s books, seforim, and quiet corners. A library trip can easily fill a morning: let each child pick a stack of books, find a corner, and read together. Many families make it a daily outing during the Nine Days, and the routine itself becomes comforting.
For indoor afternoons, lean into the quiet: puzzles, board games, art projects, baking. These are the activities that get crowded out during the louder weeks of summer, and the Nine Days give them room. A big dining table in a rental — the kind you get with a LakewoodHosts villa — turns out to be perfect for spreading out a 1,000-piece puzzle or a family art project that stays up all week.
Keeping It Meaningful Without Being Miserable
The goal isn’t to pretend the Nine Days are a party. They’re not, and kids can handle that truth better than we sometimes think. The goal is to fill the week with things that fit its spirit — thoughtfulness, togetherness, learning, giving — so that by the time Tisha B’Av arrives, the kids have some sense of what the mourning is about, and the week behind them felt purposeful rather than punishing.
A change of scenery helps more than you’d expect. Getting the mishpacha out of the house and into a comfortable Lakewood villa for the Nine Days gives the week its own shape — new walks to take, a new table for the learning project, and enough space that everyone’s not on top of each other when the days feel long. Sometimes the most meaningful weeks are the quiet ones.
