Summer: A Time to Invest in Children

May 26, 2025

I am grateful for the enormous privilege of staying home with my children all year round. From the time I brought our oldest home from the hospital, I wanted to be with my children every day, all year long—the good days and the bad days. I had no desire to “go back to work” once my children reached school age. In fact, once the children reached school age, the real motherhood work of shaping hearts and instilling character intensified. Now that my children are older, can converse with me, and understand more complex thoughts than just eating, playing, and sleeping, the real and deep investments of motherhood are growing.

(Please know that I am not criticizing those who must work outside of the home, for one reason or another. Please know my heart in that I truly desire to encourage, never tear down. If a family is able to bring mama home, I am an extremely strong advocate for mothers in the home during children’s entire tenure in the home. You can never put a price tag on such a sacrifice but in the long run, blessing, of such a choice. It’s a choice with eternal dividends.)

In the shuffle of homeschool life, it can be difficult to spend that one on one or even group engagement time with children, yet summer is the perfect time to invest in children in ways that are difficult to do during scholastic periods. In today’s post I want to share a few ideas that will help maintain a sense of structure in the lazy days of summer and also create opportunities for relationship building. By maintaining a rhythm, even through the summer, we will actually make room for more play and open the door for more relationship building.

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Maintain a routine.

I promise that I’m not a drill sergeant. I’m really not, but I love structure because I tend to be a very disorganized person. The very first day of summer break, my children thought that they would lounge in pajamas all day but very quickly found out that mom had other plans…

The beauty of maintaining a routine in the summer is manifold. Children thrive off of routine. Routine builds self-discipline. Routine maintains a sense of order. Routine keeps us in a rhythm so that when school rolls around again, we are not jarred into reality but can smoothly transition. Most importantly, routine helps us accomplish the necessary so that we can get on to the fun stuff! Duty before pleasure.

Here’s our simple morning routine that we will follow even through the summer. This routine is quite similar to our school morning routine, just minus the school part. Please know that this routine is really more of a rhythm than something I dutifully follow to the minute.

5:30-6:00 Mom up/personal devotions/exercise/shower

7:30 Kids up

8:00 Start breakfast/Bible time/clean up/brush teeth

9:00 Chores

9:20 Spend time together doing something fun

10:00 Kids outside/park/playdate/mom works on house or other tasks

12:00 Lunch

Visit local parks.

Once our duties for the day are done, it’s time to have some summer fun! I made a list of parks within about a half an hour from us and came up with about 7 or 8 that we already know and love. My goal is to visit a park a week.

Create and make.

My kids absolutely love anything art/craft/science/exploration. On our very first day of summer, we made bouncy rubber balls from 101 Kids Activities That Are the Bestest, Funnest Ever! This book is just exploding with easy, inexpensive ideas that are sure to keep the boredom blues at bay.

Recently, we have been exploring Meri Cherry’s Play Make Create: A Process Art Handbook. My kids have loved the open-ended, child-lead art ideas. No mom-made crafts here!

Summer is also a time to explore the kitchen and dive deep into new culinary experiences. My oldest wants to try her hand at homemade rosemary bread using our very own herbs.

Read, and read some more.

We read together every single day, even in the summer. Everyday after lunch, we snuggle on the couch and read library books, chapter books, nonfiction books, and so on.

To encourage my kids to keep reading in the summer, I came up with a simple “reading program” idea. I found a cute reading chart on ABC Mouse and printed one for each child. I then set age-appropriate reading goals for each child. Once a child finishes a reading goal, he can fill in a space on the chart. Once the children fill in their charts, I have some ideas for a special play date and treat! The kids have been so excited about coloring in the spots on their charts—a huge win for Team Reading!

Focus on being, not just doing.

While planning activities and engagements keeps summer interesting, every moment does not (and should not) be packed with activity. Usually in the quietest moments of life, the deepest and most profound growth happens, personally and spiritually. In these tacit moments, one can think, ponder, and reflect, and ultimately have room and space to grow.

When life is filled with constant noise and activity, the mind hardly has time and ability to expand its development. The same is true for children. They need to time to “get bored” and learn to entertain themselves. They need time to sidle up to you, mama, and sit in your lap and talk nonsense (we do this most mornings and call it our “snuggle time”). They need time to make a “mess” in the living room and create fantastic worlds out of simple building toys (In case you’re wondering, I do not view my children’s creativity in building with multiple toy sets a mess as many popular influencers do. Some of children’s greatest creativity comes when they can pick whatever toys they want and then integrate the toys in unique ways.)

Instead of running around trying to do “all the things” a good mom supposedly should do, how about slowing down and focusing on being the right kind of mom. We cannot plan every moment of motherhood, and often the most unplanned moments are the most pivotal in our children’s memories and development. It’s how we react in those spontaneous moments that reveals whether we are the kind of mothers we should be.

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Well, friends, once again, my blog post length keeps expanding in length, but it’s so hard to convey complete thoughts in a measly 500 words! I hope you found a nugget of wisdom or a word of encouragement in this post.

No matter what stage of life you are in, I hope that you can have a positive impact in a child’s life this summer. Even if the children in your sphere seem disinterested in you, they really are not. They need you. And you need them. Invest in them. Love on them. You will never regret it, I promise.

-Ashley

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