Embark on a journey to craft the ultimate summer experience for your kids. Together, Melanie and Heidi peel back the layers of parenting during those sun-drenched days, drawing inspiration from Mark 12:30 to fill our children's time with intention. Whether you love the slower pace or grapple with guilt as a working parent, our conversation is brimming with actionable strategies to help you plan a summer.
Discover how to strike that perfect balance between nurturing your child's academic and spiritual progress and embracing the carefree spirit of the season. Tune in and transform those fleeting summer moments into lasting memories and lessons for your little ones.
Embark on a journey to craft the ultimate summer experience for your kids. Together, Melanie and Heidi peel back the layers of parenting during those sun-drenched days, drawing inspiration from Mark 12:30 to fill our children's time with intention. Whether you love the slower pace or grapple with guilt as a working parent, our conversation is brimming with actionable strategies to help you plan a summer.
Discover how to strike that perfect balance between nurturing your child's academic and spiritual progress and embracing the carefree spirit of the season. Tune in and transform those fleeting summer moments into lasting memories and lessons for your little ones.
A few years ago, the Holy Spirit led me to what has become my summer Bible verse. It says in Mark 12 30, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. We're going to return to the archives for our next two podcasts talking about summer. In two weeks, we will be discussing how to have a successful family vacation. Two weeks, we will be discussing how to have a successful family vacation. Melanie and I will be sharing practical advice that we learned in our multiple years of family vacations. But this week we're going to be discussing how to create purpose in the summer, with the desire that, when we come to September, we're not living with regret of why did we waste this precious time? So let's join a conversation between Melanie and I as we discuss our favorite parts of summer and then dive into the tips. Hey.
Melanie:
Heidi, I have a question for you. Okay, what is your favorite part of summertime?
Heidi:
Oh, my favorite part of summertime is the fact that my alarm does not go off every morning, for sure, yes, the fact that my alarm does not go off every morning, for sure, yes. No, that is true. That is very, very true, because I despise the alarms in the morning. But you know, my favorite part of summer is having my kiddos home, being intentional, having that time with them, that slowed pace. Welcome back to Parenting to Impress your go-to podcast, to learn practical ways to love God and love others and to impress this on the hearts of your children. I am your host, heidi Franz, and I am joined by my dear friend, melanie Simpson, two moms who have made a lot of mistakes but have found grace and truth along the way. You know, while I am super excited about summer, I know that not every mom shares my excitement. What is it that causes the fear, the dread, the anxiety about summers for some moms?
Melanie:
So for the mom that you know maybe doesn't have to work outside the home, there's a little bit of the what am I going to do to fill my days all day with these kids? Do to fill my days all day with these kids. And then for the working mom, I think sometimes there's just a sense of guilt and even grief, like I want to be home with my kids while they're out for summer vacation, but I can't. They've got to be in care someplace.
Heidi:
Right. Well, in that anxiety of trying to find a place that is going to be a good situation for your kids, that alone adds a lot of stress to moms. Yep.
Melanie:
But let's kind of break this up then into a couple of pieces. Let's start first with for the mom who is able to be home with her kiddos and we talk about this all the time how do you start with the end in mind? So how do you not start next school year looking back at your summer going what the heck did we do all?
Heidi:
summer, right, right, and I just feel like I wasted three months of our lives in just going, going, going or just dread of having my kids home all the time, and I think how that happens. So that you have purpose oh, there's my favorite word so that you have purpose in your summer, I think you have to have a little bit of a mental plan and it could be that you need to have a very detailed plan or not have something loose, but just have specifically. But there's lots of options.
Melanie:
And it's just a tool to help you think through how do I want to use my time and with the kids this summer. So let's go ahead and look at that blog post specifically and it's addressing summer goals and a schedule.
Heidi:
Yeah, and this is something that I wrote six years ago, and so at that time let's see how old my kids have been. Six years ago we would have been five, seven, nine and 11. And so those are different times than what I'm in right now with teenagers. But I wanted a purpose and I love how, every time I go to God and say what is our purpose supposed to be, he leads me to that truth. And he led me to the verse of Mark 12, verse 30. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And it was that verse that gave me the purpose.
Heidi:
So let me kind of explain a little bit what we did. First of all, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart. Those were the character and heart issues that I wanted to focus on for the summer, and I used Ephesians 4, 31 through 32 as my guide. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind. And so I wanted to work on those heart issues.
Heidi:
The second part love the Lord, your God, with all your soul. That was the relationship with God. How was I going to help our kiddos, through the summer, grow in their relationship with God, reading their Bibles, praying. The third one was their mind, and that was the academics. What were the different areas that I felt like just needed more focus than we gave during the school year. And then the last one was, with all your strength, taking care of our bodies. God did not make us to be couch potatoes, and so what were we going to do all summer that would strengthen our bodies, because when we strengthen our bodies it strengthens the rest of us For sure.
Melanie:
And so, thinking about young children, how would we implement? Let's just start with the heart. What would that look like? Thinking through okay, I've got three months yawning ahead of me on the calendar. How am I going to, practically speaking, handle these character issues, everybody's home? We have nothing planned today. What do we do?
Heidi:
Yeah, and so what I thought about was what was the issue? And again, looking back at that, ephesians 4, 31 through 32, you could also use the fruit of the Spirit Peace, love, joy, goodness, kindness, patience, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control found in Galatians. And so you can think through that. What are the areas that each one of the children are specifically needing some attention on? And so six years ago, bubz I was really focusing on him using loving words, being kind with his tone, sweet Pea, I was focusing on her having a teachable spirit and not responding with anger.
Heidi:
Little man reporting, which I have a whole, a whole blog post on what reporting means and we'll link that in. But then, first time, obedience. When I said something to him, he did not argue with me but immediately obeyed, and then peanut, his focus I was working on because he was younger was his eye contact, so that when I talked to him he was looking at me, so then he could obey. So those were the areas. Now they're somewhat very much the same that we're still working on now and some of them have drastically changed. But I think through what are the areas that God is wanting me to use teachable moments, to use positive reinforcement to help them grow spiritually in their character.
Melanie:
Right. So, Heidi, walk us through what that would look like practically in your home with your kids. The heart issue.
Heidi:
So I read in a blog about using the candy runts, their little fruit-shaped candy that you can put into a jar. And when you see your kiddos displaying the behavior, the characteristics that you are desiring, just pull them over and say, hey, I see what you're doing, I see that fruit in your life, and give them a little piece of candy. If you don't like using candy as a reward, give them a token. And then so many tokens allow them to buy something at a store or something, or it gives them extra time to do the things that they like to do. So it doesn't just have to be food as a reward, but where you start looking for those behaviors. And I will also add I think it's very easy as a mom to see all the negative and by having the positive reinforcement, it forces you to look for those positive behaviors.
Melanie:
That's a good word right there, yeah, okay. So the second category is soul. Walk us through. I mean, you gave a description just as relationship with God, but how are you fostering your kids' relationship with the Lord? I?
Heidi:
love that that looks so different now than what it did when my kids were little. When they were little, we would have family Bible time each morning after breakfast and I loved the devotional Our Daily Bread for Kids. It was a fantastic guide that I would read through with the kids. Now that they're older, it is making sure that they've used the time they have and then to have discussion about it. So maybe we have discussion at supper about hey, what'd you read in your quiet time today? What is God teaching you and so encouraging it through conversation?
Melanie:
Yeah, I have a quick question about the younger set, the preschool set. Yes, how much time would you spend in this quiet time, this Bible time, with them?
Heidi:
That's a great question. The younger they are, the less time you're going to spend. The younger they are, the more action, activity, involvement you're going to need to have with the kiddos. The Old and New Testament curriculum that I have written is perfect for the three to six year old kids and can be used with those older as well. But what's so great is that there is activity to involve those kids, so that's one option. Or when you are reading a Bible story to them, let's say after breakfast and, for example, the Our Daily Bread kids devotional. It took maybe four minutes, five minutes to read very short amount of time. But when you're talking about a character in the Bible was sad, have the kids make a sad face. When the character in the Bible was angry, have them make an angry face. When you're talking about birds, have them put their arms out and fly like a bird. When you're talking about waves, have them make the waves with their arms. Involve them in the Bible story and it will feel like just seconds.
Melanie:
Yeah, and then I know this is true. I mean, just as you and I have had these conversations, make it a part of your day. Bring it back up later at nap time or at play time, you know, act out the scene, or hey, remember what we read this morning when God talked about loving each other. So just make it part of your conversations.
Heidi:
Absolutely. Use those teachable moments as they come out Awesome.
Melanie:
So I can hear I know I was this way you really want us to do academics over the summer? Really, really I mean we have just spent, you know, slogged through nine months of, you know, toting kids back and forth to school, preschool, all the things. Really, we can't have a break from this.
Heidi:
Well, if I want to get all nerdy on the statistics here, there is a lot of learning that has lasted over the summer months. I do feel that kids need a break, Absolutely they need a break. But if you can just keep some of that learning fresh in their mind, it will greatly help them when they return. Those things are reading books, you know. Going to the library, joining the summer library program my kids love doing that we would collect about 20 books. I let them take any books that they wanted from the picture book department and we would come home and some of the books we would start reading and I would say we're done, because they were horrible, horrible plot, horrible illustrations. And then other books we found that we loved and ended up purchasing copies for our home library because we loved them so much.
Heidi:
But that reading is so important. The math is so important. Doing the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division facts those were things that we always worked on with the kids and we. Multiplication, division facts those were things that we always worked on with the kids, and we did it in fun ways. These weren't drudgery by any stretch. And then, for whatever reason, I've got two kiddos that are really struggling in spelling, and so I've pulled the All About Spelling curriculum and using that with them every day, the All About Spelling curriculum and using that with them every day. We spend depends upon the child's age, but last year we spent about 15, 20 minutes every day doing spelling and trying to figure out where the breakdown is happening.
Melanie:
Okay. So what I hear you saying is younger kids. You're just continuing to do the things you've been doing reading out loud, talking about the books you're reading, finding creative and fun ways to count, add, subtract your grapes, your strawberries, whatever that is and then, as your children grow and mature, just being really intentional, think about where am I seeing a weakness academically and how can I come alongside them and support them so that we don't lose Exactly? Very well said, okay. Lastly, we are going to talk about taking care of our bodies, and you're going to have the families that are like, hey, we are already doing swimming and we've got t-ball and all the things, and then you've got the other families that say, no, we're finally taking a break from all of those sports. How do we find a good balance of just continuing to be good stewards of our bodies over the summer, regardless of where you fall on that spectrum Exactly?
Heidi:
And I think there's a difference between organized sports and taking care of your body and being active. Kids need activity, not organized activity, all the time. They need to be playing, they need to be playing in the dirt and I know that makes them dirty, but it's nothing that a bath won't fix. So they need to get sweaty, they need to play, they need to run, they need to tumble. They need to do these different things for so many reasons beyond just the fact that they need the exercise.
Heidi:
This is no surprise to you, melanie. You know I say this all the time, but I just want to greatly encourage you not to turn summer into three months of electronics. If you want to do 30 minutes electronics each day, that is great. That is a family choice. But I want to encourage you not to spend the summer on the couch with an electronic. There's too much learning, there's too much fun, there's too much I keep saying that much word but there's too much available if we get off the couch. This is a surprise to some. This won't be a surprise to others who follow the Parenting to Impress blog, but my kids will spend, oh goodness, maybe an hour the entire week on electronic and I don't know, that's maybe even too high. We don't do video games and we don't do iPads, and I have never once regretted it.
Melanie:
Let's just kind of encourage the folks listening. There are lots of things, lots of ways to be active this summer regardless of your financial status. You don't have to be a member of a particular swim club, tennis club, anything like that, you know. And if you live in the city, live in the country. There are lots of ways still to, you know, move your body. There are lots of free, like kids, workout videos. I mean fun things like that, just taking a walk, you know. So just ask, invite the Lord into that process, pray about how he can creatively show you ways to engage your kids in that, especially, so that's not a drudgery, like you said. It's not, you know, and it's also not hyper focused on restriction or control, right, I mean, we're trying to nourish and nurture our kids to have healthy views of their bodies. Yeah, absolutely.
Heidi:
And a play, and of their time with God and of their, their character across the board. We want this to be healthy. This is not a stand over your child in this authoritarian way that we are looking to stomp on them. Instead, we're coming alongside them going. You know what You're struggling with. Self-control, mommy is too, because I just ate half a pan of brownies instead of having a small brownie. That was what I should have done for my body, but I felt like I deserved it. That's a whole nother podcast on itself.
Melanie:
Seriously, yes, yes, it is, yes, it is. So can we quickly touch on the working mom? Or the working parent, because summer doesn't look a lot different for them in terms of their work schedules. I know sometimes we're fortunate to get a vacation over the course of that summertime with our kiddos, but our kiddos are, like you said, in someone else's care, and can we kind of let ourselves off the hook then with?
Heidi:
this summertime goal?
Heidi:
Wow, that's a great question. And, man, my heart goes out to those women, who, those moms and dads who are coming home from work and they're exhausted. They're tired, just like they are during the winter, but yet the days are so much longer, and so kids are wanting to stay out longer. There's activities in the evenings. The one thing that I would say, whether you have two hours in the evening, whether you have 12 hours during the day, we are all called to mold our children. Whether it's just on the weekends and a few hours in the evenings, we are still called to mold our children, and I believe that God will give us the ability and the strength to do that. However it looks, and this verse in Mark of love, the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, I think that's a verse for every single parent, no matter what your situation is.
Melanie:
Yeah, you offer kind of a sample daily schedule on that blog post as well and we'll link to that. But as I'm looking at it, I'm thinking you know I could still do this even though I'm working outside the home. You know I could wake and have a very abbreviated quiet time with my kiddos as we're getting breakfast we all still have to have breakfast or even in the car, exactly and then when we get home, just kind of reviewing a potential learning and academic thing and obviously if you have more than one child in your house, those heart issues are going to be ongoing. So there's always a moment to speak into that and then maybe just saying twice a week we're going to focus on just two nights a week we're going to go for a walk together. This doesn't have to be an insurmountable goal here. It's just meant to be a guide for you to be intentional with your time this summer.
Heidi:
So hope you found these tips helpful and be sure to check out the show notes so that you can print off your free schedule and give purpose to your summer.
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