Getting the most out of summer depends on who you are, child, parent, grandparent, and what your expectations are. What no one should lose sight of is that a vacation is time off from regular routine.
It is, in one sense a refresher course. It is tedious to get up each morning and go to school, to work, doing essentially the same thing. And the stress of life in these days makes vacation time, or summer time, welcomed. This should be a stress free time for hardworking students. It does not mean, however, that they can squander their time away, but hopefully, it should be balanced out with chores, work of some kind and lots of free time.

How students from kindergarten to eight spend their summer time will help build a firmer foundation for them later on in life. Sad, indeed, are those individuals indeed who discover later in life that they were cheated out of their childhood. It may have happened because they were needed to do adult work and they had no choice but to grow up before they were got to have idling time as children. These carefree summer days are what later dreams are built on. They are the stuff of poets.

Most healthy children in this time frame from kindergarten to the eight grades will have no problem knowing how to have fun in the summer. The less rigid schedule will appeal to them. They will be allowed to sleep later in the mornings and to be up a little later in the evenings. They do not need to be loaded down with assignments, etc. unless it is their choice. What they welcome and look forward to is a trip to the beach with friends, a summer of ball games, birthday parties and just fun things. Library yes, but not to the exclusion of every thing else.

Children need their childhood time. If they aren't allowed to be children when they are children, there will be gaps in their emotional development and a good part, if not all, of their life will be shattered trying to find their lost childhood. Of course today's youth will be different from that of that parents or their grandparents, but in their own way, they will find the time to while a few hours here and there and build castles in the air.

Too much adult interference is a bad thing. Although adult guidance is good and necessary, it is vitally important that adulthood and childhood remain separate entities. Children who are respected for their differences will in turn be respectful to parents who allow them certain freedoms of expression apart from them. The rules must be firm and well understood and safety and good common sense must always be enforced, but summertime will always be the time when children will be free to be themselves.

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