Summertime
Several
of us at school were talking the other day about summer. For me, it was
backyard football, but you could assign any activity you’d like: tag,
basketball, hide and seek, kickball, softball, etc. Regardless there never
seemed to be an adult within earshot. Enforcing the rules was your own
responsibility, dinnertime loomed large poised to decimate your fun, and some
part of your body was usually bleeding without you even knowing it. Sitting at
the table with the family, the mind could never shake the maddening possibility
that you might be the only sucker who couldn’t get back out to the game and
play till it got so dark that you could no longer see the ball.
With the school year winding
up at a stunningly rapid pace, many of us parents are struggling with the issue
of how to provide meaning to our children’s summer. There are many great
resources out there to help. Learning Bridge-type programs have popped up all
over
Yet
while many of the summer’s trappings seem commonplace to us as adults, the
whole concept of the summer experience was different to us as kids. For most of
us, it seemed like our parents never felt all that obligated to assign meaning
to our summers. Summer was what summer was: hot, long, boring, and wonderful. A
“play date” was Mom shouting, “Turn off
the tv and get outside!” My enrichment opportunities usually involved
having to stand next to my Dad’s car with just his feet poking out from
underneath while he shouted at me to fetch tools I’d never even heard of.
Improving socialization and coping skills was comprised of shouting at that whiny
kid who always thought that no one could tell that he was only squinting when
he was “it” during Marco Polo. Remember him? Man, I couldn’t stand that kid!!!
Come
to think about it, there was a lot of shouting going on during our summers.
But
in the midst of all that shouting, we kids were in the process of assigning our
own meaning to summer. Grown ups magically faded into background noise, and the
only real threat to our safety was our fathers’ justice-primed hands sprung
from steering wheels to deliver blind redemption to whichever woefully-loud
offspring was unfortunate enough to reside in its path. I know I read a ton of
wonderful books each summer whose titles have long faded. I took lessons in
stuff that I can’t recall. And I have no doubt that I am the smarter for it.
But it’s the lessons that we can still smell, touch and taste that made us the
individuals and parents that we are today. Our knowledge base requires a
constant diet of facts and information, but it’s the universal experiences of a
swelteringly magical summer that builds the soul and assigns meaning to our
lives.
My
guess is that such a summer still awaits our children. Swimming pools, camps,
one-hundred degree days and boredom are universal truths which offer an
unalterable reality.
Kids will always be kids and
our July voices will, too, sound more like a Peanuts adult than a Peanuts kid.
In many ways, it’s not our summer anymore. Somewhere along the line we’ve
handed it down to them. And like everything I want for my kids, I want them to
have the best of what I got at their age. That’s why books will be read,
lessons will be taken, but meaning will come from the glory of the season and,
tragically, will not be fully realized until they, too, have let it slip away
with their youth. Summer will always belong to the children.
Thank you for all your
support, friendship, trust and kids. Have a safe and wonderful break!
Brian
p.s. I’ve provided, free of charge, a full
summertime “experiential” curriculum guide.