Summer vacation is officially upon us, at least for the girls. The kids think they’re the only ones celebrating, but I think I speak for many parents when I say that as much as we cherish our incredible schools and all they do for our children, we are also rejoicing at the freedom and lack of academic pressure that comes with summer. And let’s not even get into how the teachers are feeling!
And yet, summer isn’t a time to totally and completely let free. We might not be in school anymore, but we are still bnei Torah and bnos Yisroel, of course. There’s always learning and always growing to be done; it just looks a little different than the learning and growing we do in school, under the guidance of our wonderful teachers.
Why Keep Growing Over Summer?
Even though Shavuos is over, we still say Pirkei Avos. We know that we say it during the weeks between Pesach and Shavuos to help prepare us for Matan Torah. But why during the summer months as well?
We go all the way until Rosh Hashanah. Maybe in Elul we can understand it as preparation for the tikun hamidos necessary to ready ourselves for the yom hadin. But what about these months now?
I used to teach my students in a kiruv school that the summer months have the unfortunate potential for unbridled hefkerus and yeridah. If we aren’t careful, all the growth we’ve attained during the school year can go down the drain in just a couple of months of relaxed standards and loosening boundaries. Pirkei Avos keeps us in check, reminding us of who we are, what makes us special, and how to act toward others and toward Hashem.
Five Minutes That Make a Difference
Here are some ways you can keep the learning and growth alive in your house during the summer months, without cutting into all of the summer fun the kids (and perhaps you too!) have been looking forward to for so long. You can choose one and carry it through the summer, spending five minutes every day as a family. Or you can try a different one every day/week or month.
Final disclaimer: This is written with the assumption that in the absence of homework and long school days, we have more time in the evenings. For some this may be the case, but I know for others there seems to be even less time during the summer, with sleepaway camp, long day camp hours, the allure of spending all day outside with friends and neighbors. If five minutes a day is too much for your family, you can aim for once a week, or even just an every once-in-a-while exercise.
Say Tehillim
Imagine if every member of the family spends five minutes a day saying Tehillim. You can use Tehillim cards that split up sefer Tehillim into a perek or so per card, or you can divide the perakim to be said each day among the members of your family. Everyone can sit down together and say their perek/perakim during a designated time, or whenever they have time throughout the day.
By the end of the summer, you could finish sefer Tehillim together as a family and make a siyum. Depending on your motivation and family size, you might even finish it many times. Alternatively, schedule five minutes into the schedule where everyone sits together and says Tehillim on their own, following their own pace and schedule.
Call Your Grandparents
If your children are fortunate to have grandparents, or even great-grandparents in their lives, the summer is a perfect time to get in the habit of calling them regularly. They can make weekly good Shabbos calls, or call each grandparent one day of the week so they get to speak to each of them weekly.
The same goes for aunts, the third-cousin-once-removed in a Florida nursing home, or anyone else who might appreciate a cheerful phone call from your lovely children.
Explore Pirkei Avos
Many children don’t even know that we continue saying Pirkei Avos on Shabbos afternoons right up to Rosh Hashanah; to them, it’s an end-of-the-school-year alternative to Parshah.
You can read it together on Shabbos, and then have each child choose something from that week’s perek that they will work on the rest of the week, for five minutes a day. If your children are older and love “playing school,” have them each prepare a mishnah to give over in some fun, creative way. They can make up a song, make a poster, a skit, or a game.
If you are a crafty family, why not try a Pirkei Avos scrapbook? You can keep one scrapbook as a family, as everyone works on the pages featuring different mishnayos of that week’s perek together, or with every individual child keeping a scrapbook on her own.
Practice Gratitude
Summer can sometimes be prime grumpy time. It might be the extreme heat that our children insist on defying as they play outside for hours on end. Perhaps it is the hyper-exciting, sugar-filled, overstimulating environment of camp, where they get so much and yet still crave more.
One way to take some of that away is by working on gratitude as a family. You can spend your five minutes a day sitting down together as a family and going around the table as each person shares something they are grateful for today.
Alternatively, you can keep a giant chart on your wall that everyone adds to every day. If you want to be more private… use individual gratitude journals. Gift each child with a beautiful notebook special for the summer… Every day, give them time to write down what they are grateful for that day.
You can make things more challenging – and keep the education going! – by having everyone fill out the ABCs of gratitude every day (or every week). They need to come up with one thing they are grateful for that day for each letter of the alphabet.
Brush Up on Skills
You can individualize this for each child, if you have the time and energy to invest in it. One might need more kriah practice, one could use encouragement to read more chapter books.
Devise a contest or game… You might need to speak to their teachers to determine in which areas your investments are most needed… or perhaps you have been extremely involved and intuitive all along and you know exactly where they could use improvement.
If you don’t have the energy or will to introduce more school-like agendas into a blissful summer, you can be yotze by encouraging them to do the summer homework the teachers have already prepared, by adding additional layers of contests and incentives…
Write Letters
It’s an old-fashioned endeavor gone the way of the cassette tape, but there is no reason why letter writing should go out of style. Encouraging your child to start a penpalship over the summer will help them practice their writing skills and expand their social horizons.
Just make sure your children have rachmanus and don’t write in miniscule letters. (Sorry Grandma!)
Keep Up the Zechusim
Who would have thought after all these months of horror, our people are still at war and our brothers and sisters are still languishing in terror?
Now would be a good time to have each family member take on their own project or kabbalah as a zechus either for Eretz Yisroel or for whichever specific suffering member of klal Yisroel they choose.
It creates a bond, makes it more real and connected. You can choose something as a family – reading five minutes of shmiras halashon every day, making brachos out loud, etc.
Love and Inclusion
Perhaps you are reading this and rolling your eyes. “Who has extra family time in the summer?” You’re thinking. “I can barely get the kids inside for a bite of semi-nutritous supper before they disappear on their bikes again.”
One thing you can do is encourage them to be mindful during their play. For five minutes a day focus on being kind to their peers they don’t usually notice. They can include a kid on the block who usually stands on the sidelines…
Summertime can lend to a lot of friction between peers, because of all of the hours of unsupervised – or less supervised – interaction. Let your family be the shining example of what it means to be a true friend.
Final Thought
Even just keeping a growth mindset in mind for yourself, without actually implementing any of these activities with your family, can have a powerful impact on the environment in your home.
