Lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer can be amazing!

Fifty years or so ago the late, great Nat King Cole had a hit song that began, “Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” With the summer heat beating down upon us, perhaps now is a good time to look at how we might make this summer a truly special time for ourselves and our families.

Many parents take advantage of the summer break in their children’s school schedules to do more things with them. Since nothing we have is more important than our faith, one possible activity for Catholic school parents with younger children would be to go through their child’s religion book, completing any previously uncompleted activities with them. In addition to aiding in the comprehension and absorption of content, this affords an opportunity for parent and child to bond more deeply around a common relationship with God, nurturing the gift of faith.

Family bonding time
Summer vacation trips also provide opportunities for families to bond through shared experiences. Vacation photos and videos can furnish fodder for a lifetime of fond reminiscences, so trip planning should include locating the nearest Catholic church and its Sunday Mass schedule (information generally accessible via the website, www.masstimes.org). Thus, those picture-aided reminiscences can include sharing Eucharist in new and different places. Children need to see that God wants to be included in our recreation, and they need to grasp that Sunday Mass is an opportunity as well as an obligation. When feasible, this “opportunity” mindset can be further cultivated through family participation in daily Mass, while on vacation or at home.

Academic skills can atrophy through disuse if children are not given opportunities and motivation to practice them during the summer, and the same applies to their “spiritual muscles.” Parish- or school-sponsored summer camps and Vacation Bible Schools provide a wealth of spiritual, academic and recreational activities for children. These are especially valuable to parents whose work schedules or finances are not conducive to family vacations, and evening “debriefing” sessions can help children unpack the day’s events. Most importantly, parents’ questions about when and how they experienced God’s presence during the day can help children learn to discern the spiritual dimension of their lives.

Don’t forget Sunday Mass
Again, family participation in Sunday Mass (or, if preferable, the Saturday vigil) must be non-negotiable. If parents have lost touch with why that is so, then they owe it to themselves and to the welfare of their children’s immortal souls to re-establish – or perhaps to establish for the first time – a personal relationship with Christ and his church.

Speaking of personal relationships, if one or both parents can take time off from work during the summer, how better to invest it than in getting to know their children – and each other – better? Since adults normally set the agenda, why not ask the kids what they would like to do, given the blank canvas of an entire day? Possibilities might include a brief outing to a place where nature can be observed firsthand. Creation is full of wonders, and encounters with them can easily catapult us into conversations about our still-more-wondrous Creator.

Spend time with your kids
My daughter just finished her freshman year of college, a thousand miles from home, but due to her involvement in various school-related projects she will be home for only a few days this summer. In her absence I fondly recall leisurely strolls around the block with her, stopping to observe the activities of ants or the stars in the sky, or simply indulging in the kind of conversation that flows naturally from a 3- or 4-year-old’s observations and fertile imagination. Summer is a great time for that sort of thing, and parents who fail to take advantage of it are missing a golden opportunity. In retrospect, it will seem to have passed in the blink of an eye.

There is no substitute for time shared between parents and children, especially engaging in activities that are at least somewhat enjoyable. However, the more time our children spend around computers, the greater our stake in making sure they are adequately supervised.

The Internet provides easy access to a tide of morally corrosive pornography and other evils, but there are also websites dedicated to sharing the Catholic faith with young people in lively, thought-provoking ways. For instance, on http://reallifecatholic.com Chris Stefanick – a Catholic husband and father of six – has posted a goodly number of upbeat videos that zero in on the kinds of challenging questions that often occur to adolescents whose parents might not be equipped to respond as powerfully and engagingly as Stefanick does. Watching videos like these – alone, with friends or with parents – would be a marvelously positive use of teens’ summer leisure.

Summer might not be (and probably never was) quite the carefree season portrayed by Nat King Cole, but it can still be a magical time if families approach it properly. Don’t dally, though: the “Back-to-School” sales will be upon us before you know it.

Walter Bonam is associate director of evangelization and catechumenate (RCIA) for the archdiocesan Office of Religious Education.