The power is out. It’s summer vacation. How are parents and caregivers to survive? Speaking from personal experience, not easily. But there are ways to make a power outage manageable and even fun when you’re stuck at home with oodles of family togetherness. So let’s start with the necessities – keeping them fed.

Food Storage

Food will stay safe in a closed refrigerator for up to 4 hours, in a half-full freezer for 24 hours and a full freezer for 48 hours, but that’s if you keep the refrigerator door closed.

So, do you need to avoid feeding the kids refrigerated items until the power is back on? Not necessarily, but you’ll have to do some prep work. If your kids are like mine, they mostly eat the same items meal after meal, day after day. Start by taking a quick inventory of what items you expect to use in the next day or so and move those items to a cooler filled with ice. It may take a couple trips to the grocery story to replenish the ice, but your most used items will stay cold, you won’t put the rest of the refrigerator items at risk by opening the door repeatedly. 

Snacks for the win

For some kids a power outage is a dream come true. Instead of well-balanced meals, I’ll tend to go the heavy snack route. Snacks for dinner! It’s an exciting time for my kids. But I try to make them high protein snacks to fill up their bellies the best I can. (It still won’t matter, they will still ask for another snack 5 minutes later.)

Since the microwave, stove and other food prep necessities likely won’t be available it’s good to have things that can be kept and consumed at room temperature, like cans of fruit. And it’s important to note – make sure you have a manual can opener!

If you’re headed out to the store for ice, you might consider the following items:

  • Peanut Butter (or a nut-free alternative for allergy purposes)
  • Jelly
  • Bread
  • Tuna pouches – I’m sure I turned some stomachs with this one. You either love or hate tuna, but if you love it – the pouches are a great choice when the power is out
  • Crackers – Add peanut butter, tuna or eat alone for a variety of snacks
  • Beef Jerky
  • Granola Bars
  • Boxed Milk –  Many come in individual containers.
  • Cereal – Eat it dry or with the boxed milk mentioned above.
  • Water

If you’re looking for some easy recipes to make during an outage, check out this article.

Keeping them entertained without electronics

Now that they’re fed, let’s talk about how to make it fun. Power outages can be scary for kids (and not just because their electronics don’t work) – the darkness and change from routine can be upsetting to kiddos. So, trying to keep them busy and having fun is important (albeit exhausting for the parents). When you’re prepping for the storm make sure to have lots of batteries and flashlights on-hand. While these can be used for games, they are also safer than candles when it comes to lighting up your home. Here are some other ideas to keep the kids entertained during an outage:

  • Build a fort – Use blankets or even put up a tent indoors.
  • Games! Play card games, board games, puzzles or put those flashlights to use for flashlight tag.
  • Feeling competitive? Have a drawing, Lego building or craft contest (just don’t step on said Legos in the dark – OUCH!)
  • Go on a hunt! A scavenger hunt! Challenge everyone to find items that start with the letters of the alphabet. Or give everyone a color and see how many of their colored items they can find.
  • Exercise: this is a great way to get out energy out. Try a few jumping jacks, yoga or a dance party to pass the time and get your blood pumping.
  • Story time: Take turns either writing or verbally telling parts of a story. See what silly or creative narrative the family can come up with.