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Staying Afloat in Summer

ByAimee Davis

Summer is upon us, and to be honest, this summer hit me like a brick. My youngest graduated from high school, and with her graduation also came the stark reality that summer is really different for us.

I’ve been nostalgic listening to the parents of my second-grade students musing over how they are going to get through the days of summer. It was hilarious to listen to my second graders discuss all the things they were going to do when school was finally finished.

All these conversations caused me to think back to the summers when my now-grown children were small. Every summer, all my teacher muscles went into figuring out what “program” I could come up with so that my children had structure and goals every summer. I cannot even consider the number of boards I designed with cute graphics dictating what chore each child was responsible for, what treat they might be working towards, or what discipline might occur if they neglected their duties. I spent hours with a clear contact paper and velcro dots creating something appealing. And the reality is, every summer it fell apart. We never stuck with it. I never stuck with it.

By the time my children were in middle and high school, I realized all the summers I had missed by attempting to program all their time. I was constantly fighting against the draw to technology, and my response was structure. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a second-grade teacher, and I am a firm believer in boundaries and structure, but all these years later, I have realized that old adage that “boredom is the best creativity boost” is actually true. 

Pinterest and Instagram, and all the other social media have stolen so much from parents. They have fed us a lie that everything we present to children needs to be polished and appealing. I raised my children pretty much pre-Pinterest and social media, and I still felt the pull, and I still believed the lie. But the truth is that children need you. They don’t need you to put up this amazing magnet board made from sheet pans with cutesy magnets for all your children. They need you to sit with them at the table and watercolor the bird that visits your birdfeeder. They need you to pile up on the couch and listen to an amazing real aloud together. 

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

So as a mom looking back at all those summers lost, here are a few tips:

  • Buy some good, quality art supplies. Splurge on a fancy set of watercolors and some nice brushes. Sit with your children and learn to paint together. Save the cheap 8-pack crayons for another day.
  • Find a nature center or a new-to-you park in your town and practice sitting. Challenge your children (and yourself) to just sit for 3 minutes and listen and watch. You will be amazed at what you see and hear. Challenge yourself and see if you can get to 5 minutes by the end of the summer. Even better, start a nature journal and spend five minutes after that in silence, drawing what is around you.
  • Discover a good read-aloud. I recently read Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang to my class and it was amazing! A few good ones that could stir up some fun outside play would be Swallows and Amazons (make a sailboat to float in your kiddie pool) or Swiss Family Robinson (make a mini treehouse out of sticks).

Don’t throw out the chore charts, but figure out ways to incorporate chores into your regular day. Some children need the checklist, but others do well to just remember this is their week to take out the trash. Even a simple post-it on the fridge works. Don’t fall into the lie that it won’t work if it’s not beautiful and perfect.

Ultimately, embrace the slow days. Even if you are a working parent, balancing how to get everyone everywhere and shuffling babysitters and nannies. I know it’s hard, and it’s easy to fall into the temptation of structures and goals. But summer is also a time—in some ways a Sabbath—that is built into our American schedules. That can be a gift. Before you know it, that precocious little six-year-old is packing up for her first semester of college.

Aimee Davis
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