Summer is coming. For some, the thought is a happy one filled out with imaginings of lounging in the sun and puttering in the garden while the kids run free. For others, the thought instantly engenders dread: “What will I do with my kids all summer?” I propose that both responses miss the rich opportunities summer with our children affords. Drawing on educators and the Bible, I hope to help us look forward to summers with our kids not with dread or apathy, but with eager anticipation and purpose.

Reorientation

It is important to establish a framework for how we view summer and our kids. Many of us, especially those living in the upper Midwest, tend to think of summer as an extended vacation. Without realizing it, we often expect our days to involve lots of time to pursue our hobbies or house projects while spending the evenings sipping a cool drink on the porch. So when our kids get in the way of our plans, we can become angry and impatient.

Others are happy to involve our kids in our summer plans, we just don’t know where to begin. We have gotten so used to the routines of the school year that summer’s lack of structure and predictability overwhelms us.

It would benefit all of us, no matter our attitude and expectations, to step back and look at what the Bible teaches about raising children. Deuteronomy 6 charges parents to diligently teach their children God’s commands. Proverbs encourages parents to train, correct, and reprove their children (19:18, 22:5, 29:17). These teachings are echoed in the New Testament (see Eph. 6:4, Col. 3:21). God does not put a time stamp on these commands; we are to teach, discipline, and train our children day after day, in winter and in summer. We don’t get a summer vacation from parenting. This is important for us to grasp because it reorients our expectations for summer. We are still on the clock. With that mindset, when our painting project is interrupted by a sibling squabble, we are not as likely to respond by throwing the paintbrush at the offending party.

We would do well to pause and ask ourselves if we have developed an unbiblical attitude about our kids and summer, producing a bitter spirit toward our dependent and needy kids. If we have, we need to repent. We must ask God to give us gratitude for the job He has given us to raise our children and a heart to pray for them. God’s faithful and diligent disciplining and teaching us (Heb. 12:4–12, John 14:26) will give us ample reason to repent, but there is more to the story.

The more we grasp this fatherly care of His, the more we will find motivation to care for our charges with similar diligence and joy—not out of guilt, duty, or to earn God’s favor, but because we are so thankful for how God has fathered us. God, who had every right to leave us in the care of our rightful father, the devil, instead sent His own beloved Son to ransom us. He adopted us as His own children, giving us all the rights and privileges of His own Son. And He sent the Holy Spirit as a constant help, companion, and guide. When we see our parenting through this gospel lens, the prospect of a summer with the kids is no longer a burden, but a joy. Our good Father has given us these little ones whom we get to love and parent like He has loved us and parented us. What a privilege!

Three Legged-Stool

Charlotte Mason, a well-known educator, talked about how education relies on three instruments: “atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit and the presentation of living ideas.”1 Another educator, Carol Seid, shared an expanded version of Mason’s proposal from some home educators. They proposed that a fully-orbed education requires three elements: academics, work, and service. An education that is missing any one of the legs of this three-legged stool will not stand up.2 Most kids spend an ample amount of time throughout the school year focusing on academics. However, they likely have little time left for service or work. Here is where summer is a gift.

Work

When I was a kid, summers in my home consisted of a great deal of outdoor play. However, woven in between all that play was hard work. We would always kick off the summer by deep cleaning our house. We scrubbed from ceiling to floor and every piece of furniture and knickknack in between. My father was a painting contractor. His kids were his crew. From our many hours of painting alongside him, we learned a valuable skill we all have put to use. (Through his tutelage, I was able to start my own business that helped feed us through the lean seminary years!) When we got home from painting, we would exchange paint for shovel and set to work in our substantial vegetable gardens— planting, weeding, watering, harvesting. We learned the salty taste of dirt mixed with sweat and the sweet taste of our own canned carrots in the middle of winter.

Not only did these manual labor jobs teach us how to work hard with our bodies, they afforded our minds a much-needed respite from the rigors of academic work. Attending an academically rigorous college, I began to look forward with anticipation to summers painting with my dad. I needed the break. But priceless are the hours of conversations I shared with my wise parents as I worked alongside them. Conversations on ladders and while peeling tomatoes. Conversation I might not have had without the space and time and relational capital.

Maybe you don’t have a garden or own a business. Maybe your kids are too young to be of much help even if you did. I would encourage you to take some time to consider what opportunities for work—work you can do alongside your children—the summer might bring. Maybe it’s as simple as picking up sticks around the yard together or teaching your kids how to mow the lawn. Maybe teach your kids one of your favorite hobbies and try to sell the product. Maybe wash the car together. Brainstorm. Be creative. Use your gifts. Training our kids to work is not always enjoyable or easy, but the fruit is worth the effort. As a bonus, teaching our kids to work is also a way of teaching them to serve.

Serve

Let’s say you finish picking up sticks in your own yard and decide to pick up sticks for your handicapped neighbor. You are serving. Or, let’s say your son becomes quite adept at mowing lawn and so it is easy for him to mow Grandma’s lawn. He is serving. There are countless examples of this natural combination of work and service, but there are also many ways to combine service and fun.

I regularly take my young kids to the local old folks’ home to sing, recite poetry, and play games with them. It is a small thing, but the residents love it—and so do my kids. It also leads to natural conversations on the why and how of service. We often discuss the fact that we are going to serve and love these people who are lonely and stuck inside. We talk about how to consider others as we play games and how to show deference for elders. Winning the game with your elderly teammate is an added bonus.

What things do you enjoy? What is fun for your kids? Do you like cooking together? Involve the kids in preparing a meal for a sick church member or neighbor. Maybe they can write a cheerful note to go along with it. Do you enjoy playing music together as a family? Why not play at your local assisted living center? Are you a sports family? Are there any ways your kids can serve: assistant coaching, making sure everyone has water, bringing snacks? Do you like to take road trips? What about keeping a picture journal for a grandparent? Or take turns entertaining the family on the long car ride with original stories.

Like work, the possibilities for service are endless. And, as a perk, nearly everything you do related to work or service will have an element of education. Working with my dad, we got an education in how to run a small business and economics. My kids are memorizing poems and learning how to deliver them with plenty of volume. Traveling to other places broadens the mind and gives flesh and flowers to places only read of in stories. I could go on. But most importantly, the elements of work and service help your children learn how to model Christ.

Christ, the Working Servant (Who Rested)

Christ, the all-knowing God, humbled Himself to do the work of a carpenter. He knew the feel of aching muscles and drooping eyes after a day of working in the shop. He worked hard teaching the disciples and crowds of followers. He came to serve others—even to lay down His life in service to them (Matt. 20:28). That is the kind of person we want our children to be: people who are seeking to work hard and serve others, and who do it out of deep gratitude for Christ’s work and service for them. We know there is no formula that will guarantee that our children will become the hard-working, selfless, lovers of learning that we hope. The Holy Spirit has to work in the hearts of our kids to make the things we are modelling take root. It is not our job to worry about the outcome.

Yet Jesus did not only work and serve. Jesus also rested. He often went away to pray with the Father (Luke 5:16). He slept deeply during a storm (Mark 4:38). He stopped at a well to rest, letting the disciples go on to get the meal (John 4:6). He taught this rest as well. He declared that His yoke was easy and burden light (Matt. 11:30). He showed that the Sabbath was made to rest in the Lord, and help others do so (Matt. 12:7–8).

In our fast-paced American culture, we may be tempted to read the above and pack the summer with work and service. Then we enter the school year spent and crabby. God invites us to rest. To rest in Him first and foremost. To spend time with Him in prayer and His Word (with our kids and on our own). To continue observing the quiet and restful rhythms of sabbath rest throughout the summer. To take chunks of time to slow down. To take long strolls with the kids, nap in the sun, or read a book on the beach. So, as we are planning out our summer with our kids, let’s remember to plan in margin for rest. God gives it as a good gift—a reminder that in all we do, we must rest in and on Him.

Sometimes we forget that we don’t get off the hook for parenting just because it is summer. Thankfully, because of God’s good fathering of us, we are enabled and given the motivation to continue parenting our kids. Summer is an excellent time to model hard work and service while having fun and taking time to rest. Summer is coming; let’s embrace it with joy.

1. Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education, vol. 6 of Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series (Simply Charlotte Mason, LLC, 2017), 94.

2. “Fostering a Grace-Filled Educational Balance Through Work, Study, and Service,” March 18, 2016, in Homeschool Made Simple, Carole Joy Seid, podcast, 30:00, MP3 audio, https:// homeschoolmadesimple.net/fostering-a -grace-filled-educational-balance-through -work-study-and-service-episode-308/

Mrs. Elisabeth Bloechl is a pastor’s wife and homeschooling mom living in Minnesota.