There’s always this weird tension for me when summer break splats on our family like an ice cream cone on a sidewalk.
The kids are fatigued, even exhausted, from school. Heck, I’m tired from the school year.
Reading Time: 3 minutes
My husband was Mufasa from the Lion King; my oldest has always born a resemblance to Cars’ Lightning McQueen, while my second son makes us laugh like Tow Mater (and happens to be going through a Duck Dynasty phase? I digress.) I may have had some references to Mary Poppins, or Ms. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. (Sigh.) The jury’s still out on my daughter (maybe Belle, maybe Lilo).
But my youngest son is a whole lot like Dash from The Incredibles–often seen merely in a blur. Friends have likened him to a cartoon character before, so this isn’t new. He’s also my two-sports-at-a-time kid nearly every season.
Allow me to compare:
That said, I’ll give you a free guess on which of my kids is the hardest to entertain.
Like, since he was born.
As a toddler, he busied himself unscrewing the tops of the bottles in the tub (so one might dump three months’ worth of conditioner into one’s hand).
He unloaded my appliance cupboard twice a day to assemble all the parts (I had long since removed the blades).
And while I was in the bathroom, pulled up a stool to the toaster oven, where I’d set drink packets. He punched them open with his teeth and sprinkled them around the first floor like fairy dust. (Woe to the mother who takes a bathroom break with this child.)
Now, he just wrestles with run-of-the-mill summer boredom.
After the church’s hot-dog picnic lunch in the park on Sunday–where he rode his bike, mingled for two hours, introduced his puppy, and messed around on the playground–he slammed the door, ran upstairs, and fell on the bed. “I’m bored.”
Oh, help.
So today, we landed on a summer-boredom solution.
I’ll give you two versions of this game: mine, and a make-your-own version.
If you’re interested in creating your own:
Complete a brain dump of activities.
Mix up fun activities with those that are educational, spiritual, or requiring some discipline or service. On our list
Grab more ideas at
Here’s one premade.
Write in your own activities in the white spaces, or have your kids write in their favorite activities. Ask that at least one challenging or less-fun activity show up in each row.
If you’re that kind of parent–as I shamelessly am–consider light incentives for each row, then for completion of the whole sheet. Are there better incentives for the more rows your child completes?
Reading Time: 6 minutes
But I’m sure it was no easy feat. Our team consisted of 90 teenagers (not a typo). Tents were lined up with military precision, and meals were planned down to the number of boxes of macaroni and the packets of oatmeal.
In a similar spirit, free time wasn’t called free time, but “O Time”: Organized time. As in, be intentional. Don’t fritter it away.
I’ve thought about this as an adult–the healthy part of it, and the unhealthy part. I like to be intentional about free time, because mine feels like it vanishes like a bunny in a hat. And then hops away with tenacity and feeling. I hate that feeling of “Oh, shoot! I wanted to bake a mincemeat pie and ride my unicycle, and instead I got distracted by watching Dick Van Dyke reruns.”
Or y’know. Whatever.
I mean, did Jesus have “O Time”? Was he that intentional? Or is that making even my Sabbath…distinctly American? (If you wrestle with this like I do, please, please click here for Ideas to Take Back Your Sabbath.)
Though I learned so many things that summer, something was lost for my particular overachieving, people-pleasing, never-let-them-see-you-rest personality (/sins). Something about O Time felt absent of the grace to simply…be.
So as you evaluate how to steer your kids in the long, lazy days of summer, I’d first observe your kids and their personality.
Do you have
What would a full, wholehearted, rich summer look like from your perspective, and your kids’? This part of “O Time” is great: Intentionality, so you don’t get to August without riding your metaphorical unicycle.
Think (prayerfully) about questions like these.
If even our summers are overcommitted, taxing, and structured to the hilt, our kids might not develop that essential need to sink into God’s Sabbaths, his times of feasting and pure happiness (again–a post that’s In Praise of Sabbath). Contrary to popular belief, summer vacation didn’t start so kids could help in the fields.
Interestingly, there aren’t a lot of Bible verses about playing. But I did find a reference to peace and prosperity in Zion: “And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:5).
Sounds like a happy city, to God, has some playtime for kids.
I also think that in general, Western families run at the pace of Navy SEALs with ADHD, maybe being chased by a swarm of bees carrying horsewhips. Are we setting patterns that “normal” means running at max capacity?
Are we communicating, subtly as a bullhorn, that we should always be performing, always achieving, always pushing ourselves, always on?
So basically, I have minimal theology backing this up. Most of my thoughts are cultural–like the fact that my kids will be working their entire lives.
Or that kids learn immensely through play.
Or that, like in this post, there’s A Mountain of [Surprising] Reasons to Get Our Kids Outdoors this Summer (…and Maybe Follow Them).
I’m not setting our family up as some stellar example. (That would be a bad idea.) But if we were standing together at the playground, this is what I’d tell you.
I’m still linking chores to screen time, though my kids are old enough not to use the popsicle stick system. My kids do two chores for 20 minutes of screen time. They get an extra 5 for making their bed, and an extra 5 for doing a quiet time. Those chores could involve anything from raking to folding laundry to making dinner.
Most of them have selected a reward of their choice, and agreed on a goal with me of how many Bible verses they’re willing to memorize to achieve their “prize.” Click here for the Spiritual Disciplines for Real Families series. There are a ton of (actually fun) ideas.
I’ve asked them each to select a way they could serve the church or another family over the summer.
We’ve noticed an uptick in disrespect…so have implemented a 10-pushup rule for overreacting and rude responses.
One of my children may or may not have done 140 pushups in one day last week. (But I put the penalty on myself, too–and had to do 30 on a day when I was not responding very much like Jesus. But the same son tells me I will be ripped.)
School-wise, my suppressed inner homeschooler has decided my kids will do 30 minutes of school. Usually, this means alternating between something they’re great at, and something that’s hard for them.
My kids will go to youth group and camp and Grandma’s, and will participate in some sports. It works for our family because living in a small town, they can easily bike to a lot of activities.
Don’t miss the links below for lots of creative ideas for kids on break.
We go to the library and cart home more than our proportionate share of books–mostly stuff that just interests my kids, but I also ask them to pick up one they can learn something from. I purchase some strategic (usually highly visual) used books and leave them out (this summer I’m getting a reading list from this book and this one), usually finding one languishing with a kid in an arm chair.
We do some read-alouds at night, and check out audiobooks from the virtual library, too.
Well. That’s the idea anyway. So the structure helps. (I get up early to get work done while the kids sleep in. It takes some pressure off when they start fighting. Maybe they can come fight at your house?)
I work from home so I can be a part of their moments. So as much as the stress has ratcheted up…it’s worth it for me to be here, which sometimes means stepping away and just making fun happen.
I also find having friends over–that whole “subtraction by addition” thing–works well for us.
But sometimes it just means I schedule something fun a few times a week: Going to the army surplus store. Making waffles for breakfast. Calling kids’ friends to join us as I work poolside at the local aquatic center.
And not being afraid of my kids being bored. Because pretty soon, bored makes kids creative.
It was literally snowing here in Colorado during the first two days of summer break–so my kids decided to have a cooking competition. I won’t tell you about the mess they had to clean up–but the afternoon of creativity was well worth it. They got the science experiment book I love out, too.
Reading Time: 4 minutes
So my kids are home for the summer after their first year in public school. Observations:
a. I’ve been looking forward to quality time with them. That said, if they fight like, one more time? I may be glancing at tickets for four children to, say, Abu Dhabi.
b. I am still working from home. So in contrast to what I wish summer looked like for moms, it’s more to the tune of “more bricks, less straw”.
c. Despite point b, I still want to enjoy quality time with my kids. I have four more years left with my oldest in the house. So as much as I’ve got professional and financial goals, and clients to attend to–I’ve got some other priorities, too.
d. I don’t need to entertain my kids every day. It is not until the last handful of years that parents have included in their job description something akin to cruise director and resident court jester. Boredom for my kids is okay. (See my friend Kristen Welch’s post, Hey Kids: It’s Called Boredom and It’s Good for You.) Melissa Bernstein, cofounder of Melissa & Doug toys, writes here, “Let your kids get bored—it’s the essential ingredient of childhood. A kid won’t begin to use his imagination until he has to dig deep and create something from nothing.”
But if you’re wanting some fresh ideas to connect–or enhance their hearts or brains–I’ve been gathering (and road-testing) some for all of us. Would you share your own in the comments section for all of us?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
But as we wove through the mountains, I had to admit that maybe it was good this was blacked out on the calendar. How long had it been since I’d been able to tell everyday life “Stop. For right now, just stop”?
My sheepishness reached its hilt the next day when my kids’ skin was glittering and shivering as they picked their way through the river, counting rainbow trout and daring each other to duck beneath the current. Their courage and confidence mounted before my eyes. The spikes of pine behind them were stunning; the rock formations solid and timeless.
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