The upcoming summer vacation should serve as a blank canvas that an artist is about to fill in artfully. What a child or adolescent did and accomplished during an extended vacation says so much about who he or she is and whom she or he is becoming. Consequently, serious thought and planning should be dedicated to making that canvas as meaningful as possible. Like a great painting, a worthwhile summer is one in which just the right balances are achieved. What are these balances?

The first is a balance between entertainment and mind growth - not always derived from the same activities! A child is entitled to some hearty and frivolous rest and recreation (brain refueling and rejuvenation) during the summer months. He should have much to say in selecting such pleasure-deriving activities. Yet it would be a wasteful shame if summer fun sidetracked and stifled the ongoing intellectual growth of a mind being formed. Educational experiences, challenges to a child or adolescent’s mind (including ongoing discussion of basic values) must be part of the balance. So it is that family vacations need to include a range of expeditions, missions, and brain nurturing encounters a child can directly experience, read about, and plan for. Incidentally, in part to build time management strategies, a child should be heavily involved in working out vacation itineraries.

Second, there is the needed balance between peer-saturated activities and individual pursuits. Kids should savor the social side of life, perhaps in a summer camp or through a range of athletic activities. But, as well, they ought to be engaging in activities in which they are largely “soloists,” person’s doing their own special things. Entertaining oneself, building on one’s personal affinities through collecting things, constructing models, exercising creativity, taking care of animals, etc. comprise crucial sources of personal development, one that is readily cultivated during the summer months. Vacations should help a child experience the ways in which she is unique in what she does, how she is in fact enticingly different from her classmates. There should be opportunities for adult-supervised activities (such as in sports) but also periods of freedom from the need to comply with adult expectations (such as when engaging in imaginary play). We have to be careful not to over program our kids, especially during those critical summer months.

Third, one should seek a balance between work and play. Children acquire and enhance social skills, conflict resolution capabilities, and problem solving tactics through play. While these are essential, every child should have a chance to gain experience as a worker. Volunteering and/or assuming responsibilities at home or in a parent’s workplace represent effective ways to build usable work habits, while studying the complexities of the adult world. Paid jobs during the teenage years exert a potent and durable influence upon developing minds.

Fourth, there should be a balance between self-centered and altruistic activities. Beginning by age 10, children should have the experience of helping others. Communities offer a range of such opportunities (such as in hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities or agencies). One day a week, or perhaps one entire week of such outreach to people in need, can nurture a sense of reality and charity in a young child or adolescent.

Next September, when that summer canvas has materialized as a finished painting, a child and his parents should be able to glance back with feelings of fulfillment, along with a sense that an attractive pattern of experiences will have some durable influence and will be talked about and thought about for years to come.