Summer Slide? Not When Mommy Camp is in Session

While celebrating my twins’ birthday yesterday, it dawned on me that I’ve now spent 10 years growing tiny humans. My munchkins are half-baked on their way to adulthood.

Before long, my brood of four will venture off into teenage independence and the physical distance of college. A decade into motherhood, I’m determined to make the most of these few yet formative elementary years to launch my kids into a happy, healthy, meaningful life.

Nature already had its turn to influence my offspring—it’s fun to see my curls pop up in my daughter and my husband’s math-oriented brain manifest itself in my son. And I trust they will develop into the people they are meant to be.

But I’m not going to just sit around hoping for the best. Let’s see what nurture can do. It’s on me and my husband to establish some norms by modeling the values, skills, and habits that will serve them well as they mature. I also want to equip them with the background experience and vocabulary needed to engage the world around them, whether it’s reading the news, listening to a sermon, flirting on a date, interviewing for a job, touring a museum, learning a game, forging a friendship, or navigating a crisis.

During the school year, I only see my kids a few waking hours a day, which makes my longer stretches of time with them during summer vacation so crucial. Summer provides us the freedom to explore wider, dive deeper, lounge longer, and play uninterrupted in ways the academic year doesn’t allow.

If everyone is peacefully reading, playing, creating, or writing, my summer motto is, “Let it ride, let it flow.” I can silence what would otherwise come out as nagging reminders to brush teeth or put away laundry; I don’t have to interrupt a Lego building step or the belly laughs erupting from the kids’ bedroom. I can give them some low-stakes autonomy and responsibility to manage their own time, bodies, and belongings when mornings don’t involve a mad rush to get out the door.

We do plan something to stimulate our minds and bodies outside each day. Whether it’s a playdate, trip to a museum, round of miniature golf, handstand contest at the pool, horseback riding lesson, or even just a grocerystop, it all triggers growth for my kids.

Last week during our beach resort vacation, I took my son to the driving range, where I showed him how to hold a golf club, estimate yardage with his strides, and choose the best club for what he wants the ball to do. We played a few games of pool, my husband demonstrating how to make a tripod with his hand and use geometry and physics to guide the balls into the pockets. Then we sent a few discs gliding down the shuffleboard court, honing our launching technique.

This may seem trivial, but who knows when a basic knowledge of these games will come in handy? If nothing else, we are teaching our children how to learn outside the context of the classroom and discover hobbies they enjoy.

My kids are showing glimpses of the same joy I found in reading during my childhood summers. I fondly remember biking to the library to check out baskets full of Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew books to devour from the comfort of my backyard hammock. In the past month, we’ve visited five libraries near home in New York City and during our travels. I delight in my kids’ excitement as they peruse the shelves for J.K. Rowling, Richard Riordan, and Jeff Kinney. To see the twinkle in their eyes, you’d think we had entered a candy shop. My daughter’s idea of a good time is to have a “Harry Potter reading day.” It was like a lightbulb went off when they realized they could read on the beach—and of course still build sandcastles and dig giant holes. Divinginto a good book is a pastime that will carry them far in life.

When we emerge from downtime with our books, we seek out learning adventures as varied as possible. “It’s for your cultural education,” I explain, when the kids wonder why we wander through old Philadelphia to Betsy Ross’ house, sing during the 7^th-inning stretch at a Coney Island baseball game, relive pioneer days smoking meat in hollow logs as we read aloud Little House in the Big Woods, fly to Neverland watching Peter Pan, hunt through the Museum of Modern Art for the artwork Matisse painted in The Red Studio, eat buttered popcorn at a matinee, admire ornate Torah crowns at the Jewish Museum, buy fresh vegetables at a farm stand, and gaze at wampum beads at the National Museum of the American Indian.

I relish the opportunity to reinforce what the kids hear about in school with real-life interactions. For instance, my fourth graders studied a painting of New Yorkers and George Washington’s troops toppling a statue of King George III at Bowling Green following a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. This summer, we explored a new playground at the Bowling Green subway stop. A few weeks later, we walked by the former statue site to get a better view of the Wall Street Bull. Finally, we heard our Independence Hall tour guide mention the incident as he recounted the colonists’ rebellion against Britain. Perhaps the next time the American Revolution comes up at school or elsewhere, my children will better appreciate how they, as New Yorkers, fit into the larger history of their country.

As you can see, our family combatted the summer slide by sampling many learning opportunities this summer, some of which were met with enthusiasm and others with skepticism from our pre-teen set. I’m excited to witness what interests develop as a result. Will my daughters follow their current dreams to surround themselves with animals on a horse farm in Virginia and eat ice cream whenever they want? Check back in another decade to find out!