Headmaster's News

May/June 2010

A Message from the Headmaster

Don't Fill Every Minute

As this is the May/June mailing, summer must be just around the corner.

There is so much structure associated with the school year. Yet fast-approaching summer, with its warmer days and change of pace can provide a valuable period of time for our boys and their parents to enjoy life in a different and more relaxed mode.

It seems to me that the key to a successful summer is maintaining that fine balance between allowing our boys more down time than they would normally enjoy during the school year on the one hand (no one benefits if you “over program” them during the summer months), against providing too much unstructured time (idle hands are the Devil’s workshop) on the other.

Below are a few suggestions for filling the time ahead and some thoughts for using the free time between activities in the most supportive and productive manner possible for our sons:

Before summer starts, regardless of the age of your son, outline a weekly schedule and a set of expectations for the months ahead.
Outline daily expectations and chores.
a) Every member of the family, regardless of age, should have some assigned task(s) for which they are responsible as a measure of their personal contribution to the greater good of the family as a whole.
Even though it’s summer, it’s still a good idea to establish regular rising and bedtimes. It is one thing to relax during the summer, it is another thing entirely to allow a boy to sleep until noon or stay up every night long after his parents are asleep.
Again, regardless of age, it is important for every child in the family to have substantial periods of time during the summer where they have a particular place to be or thing to do.

a. For younger boys, this might be some sort of camp or regularly scheduled athletic activity.

b. For Upper School boys, there is simply no better experience than having them hold down some sort of job for a significant chunk of the summer.

i. Honestly, the more menial the better at this stage.

ii. High school is not necessarily the time to pursue internships; rather it is the time to appreciate all the seemingly less significant jobs that need doing on a regular basis.

iii. Work teaches responsibility and commitment.

iv. Work makes adolescents feel a sense of self-worth and reward.

v. Work makes them better appreciate how hard their parents work to provide for them on a daily basis.

Even with all of the above, however, summer should and no doubt will provide ample periods of down time and I urge all parents not to feel compelled to fill every free moment with some activity or other. Children, and most especially boys, benefit greatly from periods of time without anything planned.

The key is not to allow our boys to fill those open spaces with excessive “screen-time.” If all of a boy’s free time this summer is filled with TV, video games, internet surfing or computer chatting, his summer will be wasted without any significant growth or family involvement. “Screen time” tends to induce boys to withdraw into themselves as opposed to interacting more with others. Free time with TV and computers off limits, however, can induce a boy to get outdoors, seek out neighbors for a game of catch and/or encourage more carefree interaction with other family members and friends.

During the school year and most especially in these last hectic weeks of spring, it often feels like everyone in the family is on their own schedule and so rarely does everyone in the family have the chance to gather, relax and enjoy one another’s company.

That, more than anything is what summer is for. Get outside, get away from the screen and get together!

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