“Summer is often a God-given opportunity for more unstructured time with your kids, which might be an opportunity you don’t really want.”
In a group text of moms at the end of the school year, Parent Steering Committee member Molly Witherington put those words to the trepidation every mom in the group was feeling. On the one hand, parents love spending time with their children, but on the other, shifting gracefully from the overscheduled rat race of the school year to the unstructured rhythms of summer is harder than it looks.
We asked a few Rooted parent writers how they chose to approach the summertime with their families. We think you’ll find their comments helpful and hopeful.
Melissa Powell, college professor and mom of two
As a working mom who thrives on routine, unstructured summer days scare me. This has been a year where my job skills have felt stronger than my mom skills. It will also be the first summer that our youngest is not in daycare and our oldest is not going to summer camp. In addition to end-of-school year activities, my husband has had a broken leg since March. I am entering the summer months already weary.
In “The Captain of the Storm” (Mark 4 and Matthew 8) from The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones writes, “Jesus’ friends had been so afraid, they had only seen the big waves. They had forgotten that, if Jesus was with them, then they had nothing to be afraid of. No matter how small their boat – or how big the storm.” For me today, motherhood feels like a small boat and summer feels like a big storm.
The temptation will be to (over) function as my children’s daycare teacher or camp director when I am called to be their mother. But scheduling our days like a teacher or counselor would likely offer my children nothing more than a golden calf (Exodus 32) fashioned out of my illusion of control. So, this summer I want to work and rest in being a mom. Maybe I will teach a few life skills, and I hope we will read a Gospel together, but mostly I want to remind myself and my kids that Jesus is with us, whether we are traveling, sitting by the pool, disagreeing about screens, or bored out of our minds. I am especially looking forward to the summer rains on our metal roof that will drown out the grumbling and complaining of children (and parents) and beat like a drum into our hearts that Jesus is the Captain of all of our storms.
Dan Hallock, pastor and father of three
My family and I are entering a new season of life this summer, as my son begins high school sports. He will have basketball practice at 6AM every morning and weightlifting for football every night. Obviously, this requires much commitment not only from him, but also for us as parents.
We are thankful for the personal growth and benefits that sports have brought our son, and at the same time, we don’t want it to become an idol to which our family bows. Thankfully, our son is a believer, and we pray that God will use these sports as an opportunity for our family to shine the light in the darkness.
Connie Nelson, mother of three
I have been a parent of school-aged children for 10 years now, and I still feel ill-equipped to handle the unstructured schedule of summer.
It begins in March, when I get the first texts from my friends asking for daycamp recommendations and sending links to the ones they’ve signed up their kids for. After all the bookings are secured, taking care to balance their interests with cost and logistical convenience, I take inventory of the remaining unstructured weeks and prepare to make a flexible ‘plan’. I want my kids to enjoy the freedom from having minimal official obligations, but they (and I) need boundaries and limits to help us make good and wise choices and to build up self-control.
For me, it is deciding these boundaries and limits that is daunting.
Every year my kids are getting older, and as they move from playground age to biking-around-the-neighborhood-on-their-own age to go-to-a-swimming-pool-with-their-friends age, I must re-evaluate what freedoms and duties best train them to grow in godly character. How much screen time? What chores/studies? How much autonomy in where they go/what they do?
The prospect, then, of setting and enforcing these boundaries gives me some fear and anxiety, as I honestly reflect on my own sinful propensity to do what’s easiest rather than what’s good. But then, I am reminded that God is my Heavenly Father, and his Spirit enables me to choose the good. He is ready and waiting to forgive me and my kids as we mess up and choose easy instead of obedience. He has given me my kids to steward, and the gift of summer – the gift of time, is a valuable rarity. So I look forward to these months, though with some trepidation, and I’m thankful for all the fun and all the growing that our loving Father has in store for our family.
Steve Eatmon, pastor and father of two
There is no shortage of philosophies that govern how parents with teenage kids approach the summer. When I was growing up, kids were left more to themselves. I often went to live with my aunt and cousin while my mother worked. My aunt was a teacher, so she had the summer off, while my mother, who worked in the corporate world, did not. Every now and then, we went to a camp, but for the most part, us kids got together and entertained ourselves with video games and super-intense pickup basketball on hot summer evenings.
Nowadays, time is much more structured. Especially in suburban areas like where I live, parents tend to plan their summer in February or March. This includes vacations and trips, but also camps to develop their kids’ interests. Even within our family, we do this to a degree. We take the calendar out around the late winter/early spring and say, on week 1 of the summer this kid does this, and that kid does that, and so on, all the way throughout the summer. Part of this is the secondary effects of “everyone’s doing it.” Sure, there are kids that live on our street, but what will my kids do if all of the neighbors are at a gymnastics camp, a travel soccer league tournament, or vacationing in the beach? By default, we feel as if we have to join the rat race.
There are pros and cons to both approaches. On one hand, kids need structure, which is what many summer camps provide. When I was an unsupervised kid, some of our super-intense basketball games turned into needless arguments and fights because we were adolescents with raging hormones and little wisdom of how to deal with problems. When I think about the amount of time I spent watching MTV music videos and playing Sega Genesis, I shudder.
However, I am beginning to feel like our kids are just going to school year-round. The camps are starting to feel more like professional training to out-compete their peers for spots on teams rather than just a chance to have fun and get exercise. I am tempted to stay after camp dropoff and nit-pick every mistake my son makes in a basketball drill or worse, compare him to the other kids there. So I have to remind myself, he will hate the game if you continue to do this.
In short, parents have to decide what works best for their family, but whatever way they go, they have to hedge against the pitfalls of each philosophy. Kids need adult supervision and structure especially during the summer months, otherwise they can develop bad habits. But at the same time, they are kids, so it’s vital to allow margins for rest, physical and mental relaxation and just being a kid.
