Have you ever been told you have only 18 summers with your kids before they leave home? I remember the first time I heard this idea, and it filled me with grief and panic: grief over all the missed opportunities with my boys and panic over how to ensure every summer from here on out was perfect. After several failed attempts at over-scheduling and forced fun, I realized I was missing the point.
Instead of jamming our summers with every activity imaginable, or worse, hours of screen time, what if I tried something different? What would happen if I silenced the voices around me telling me to do more and instead define the specific needs of my family this summer? Peace. Peace would reign in my home and in my heart. A summer full of peace would be far better than grief and panic.
How to Grasp Peace over Panic
I was at a mom’s group and several ladies there were already bemoaning the impending summer break. From the lack of time for themselves to the endlessly hungry children, their anxiety was thick and heavy. Everyone played it off with jokes and survival suggestions, but it made me wonder, “Why do we dread summer vacation?” Here was a gathering of dedicated, loving moms and most had at least one very real thing they were dreading about summer vacation.
As I started to examine my own anxiety, it all came down to expectations: mine, my kid’s, my husband’s, the world’s. We all have expectations of what this summer should look like and, frankly, its impossible for all those expectations to be met.
One way to grasp peace this summer is to set aside everyone’s expectations and decide what is most important for your family’s needs. Don’t base your summer plans on what your neighbor is doing or what that recent parenting study says every family must do. Instead, sit down with your family and discuss what you want your summer to look like.
Ask your kids to make a summer bucket list of places they want to visit, people they want to hang out with, a goal they’d like to accomplish. Ask yourself and your spouse the same questions. Take everyone’s answers and come up with three or four over-arching themes for your summer. (Read this previous post about helping your kids dream and make bucket lists.)
Define Your Own Success
Now you have three or four themes to plan your summer around. You can use these themes to plan a dread-free summer that will be a success for your family’s specific needs. In the next blog post, we will discuss how to create a plan for your summer using your themes.
For now, rest easy knowing that this summer, one of 18 you have with your kids, will be spent wisely because you’ll be embracing what your family has decided is best.
Check out my comment below to see the theme’s my family has chosen for Summer 2023.
As you can image with four different people living in our home, our dreams for summer break ranged a bit. From visions of afternoons at local theme parks to camping under the stars, my boys were not lacking for ideas of how to fill their summer. I wrote down everyone’s ideas for summer and chose the following three themes:
1. Adventure: This will include day trips to theme parks, backyard camping, summer camps, annual beach vacation and birthday celebrations
2. Discover: Since summer give us some extra free time, I usually try to invest in my boys spiritually. We learn new bible stories, verses, and songs. We also try to make sure the boys are reading some every day, this year I’d like to include them in a family book club with cousins.
3. Rest: Summer is a great time for my family to slow down. Though everything mentioned above sounds busy, our days are much less scheduled than during the school year. We can sleep in a little more and stay up a little later. I’ve found my family enjoys the spontaneity that summer allows us.