Summer invites us to pause and take a deep breath. Or maybe that's just the oppressive heat. Either way, with less rush during the morning routine and fewer afternoon activities, the longer days offer more than just time to play. They offer space to connect, reflect, and grow together as a family.
Of course, the long, unstructured days can also feel overwhelming, especially for families with young children or kids who need extra structure. Boredom, restlessness, and big feelings may show up quickly. Rather than viewing this extra time as an obstacle, let's make it an opportunity to lean into purposeful connection.
Bonding can happen even in the little things: when we laugh, learn together, and even get a little silly. This July, let's try leaning in with purpose. Use the natural pause of summer to create space for creativity, fun, and maybe an opportunity to serve others.
Learn Together
Kids love when adults learn alongside them—it shows humility and curiosity. So try something new together! While today's hobbies may be new to young people, many are actually pretty old. Here are just a few activities to consider learning together:
- Embroidery, Crochet, or Cross-Stitch: These slow, meditative crafts are making a comeback with those who enjoy personalizing tote bags, hats, or wall art.
- Calligraphy & Hand Lettering: Many kids enjoy writing beautifully with brush pens or dip pens. It’s creative, calming, and often used to make cards or journaling pages.
- Zine-Making & Comic Writing: Telling stories through illustrations, collages, or even handmade magazines is popular with older kids who love creative expression. Younger kids can make a flip book or draw basic cartoon art. Give thumbprint art a try!
- Friendship Bracelets & Beading: Still a classic! These hands-on crafts are easy to start and great for social connection.
- Soap or Candle Making: Kids enjoy this sensory-rich hobby. It’s useful, fun, and often leads to gift-giving or small entrepreneurial ventures.
- Sourdough or Bread Baking: Still going strong after its pandemic boom, this one certainly teaches patience. Kids will enjoy feeding and shaping the dough and baking the bread, or at least they'll enjoy eating it!
- Woodworking Kits or Whittling: With safety guidance, older children enjoy learning to shape wood, build birdhouses, or carve simple figures.
- Pressed Flowers & Nature Crafts – This quiet, seasonal activity utilizes the beauty of nature in creative ways and can produce beautiful decor for the home.
Serve Together
The best way to teach children to think of others and to be grateful for the things they have is to model it for them. When they see their caregivers showing kindness and community-mindedness, they learn to do the same. Find some ways to serve the community together:
- Fundraise: Pick a cause and find ways to do odd jobs together to raise funds and awareness.
- Garden: Many cities welcome help in maintaining community gardening spaces.
- Give: Bake a treat, scoop up some wildflowers, or make some bath salts and deliver your simple gift to someone who might need encouragement.
- Host: Invite someone who lives alone over for a simple dinner or popsicle party.
- Assemble: Put together hygiene kits or snack packs for a local shelter.
Play Together
Laughter, movement, and imagination are powerful tools for bonding—and no one outgrows the need for play.
- Get Sporty: Host a silly backyard Olympics, draw a path in sidewalk chalk for biking or hopping along, or get drenched in a water balloon competition. Keep it casual to avoid rivalry, but the kids will love playing alongside the adults in their lives.
- Camp "In": Is there anything better than draping a blanket across some chairs and climbing underneath the table? The darkened space instantly become a secret hideout, a space station, or a cave in the imaginations of children. What's better? When the parents climb inside, too!
- Game Time: Try a new game every evening! Reach out to neighbors and friends to trade out games for greater variety, look up new card games you haven't tried, or visit the library or used book store to purchase a new game.
- Say No to Screens: Just do it! Have a screen-free evening with music, a dance party, storytelling, or a long walk outside.
- Slime Time: Get messy with painting, playdoh, or bubbles. Kids enjoy a sensory-rich hobby. Don't worry, it will wipe up.
Be At Home Together
Teaching a skill, like sewing a button, planting herbs, or grilling a burger, builds a child's confidence and enhances the connection between parent and child. Hands-on lessons nurture both independence and self-worth in children of all ages. Here are just a few useful skills to practice this summer:
- Kitchen: Cooking, baking, measuring, stirring, & setting the table.
- Laundry: Sorting colors, folding, putting away, & clothing care
- Outdoors: Gardening, yard work, planting, watering, & pulling weeds
- Planning: Organizing an outing, creating a grocery list, or setting the weekly menu
- Budgeting: Using a small allowance or some spending money to purchase, save, tithe, & set goals
- First aid: Practicing safety, applying bandages, dialing 911, & rehearsing emergency procedures
- Reflection: Creating a daily rhythm like “quiet hour” after lunch for reading, napping, or coloring. Or beginning a “Family Journal Time” where everyone draws or writes something about the day.
Don’t worry about curating perfect plans. Instead, focus on creating chances to build connection where kids feel seen, safe, and silly. Where learning is a family affair. And where each person knows they belong—not just because of what they do, but because of who they are.
Embrace the beauty of the long days not just as a break from routine, but as an invitation to breathe deeply, live intentionally, and create memories in the everyday moments.
