Why It’s Time to Relax About the Dreaded “Summer Slide”
When your kids got their report cards on the last day of school, did you breathe a sigh of relief that you were done worrying about their scholastic achievement until September? Did you skip down the halls singing, “no more pencils, no more books…”? Studies have shown that children will lose about a month of overall academic progress during the summer and most will lose approximately two months in math skills. “So many parents have come to me, freaked out about [summer slide] and wanting to make sure it doesn’t happen,” said Dr. Angelina Morales, a clinical psychologist who specializes in children and adolescents. “But it really all depends on your child.”
For example, if your child struggles with writing, you may want to set aside a few times a week for him or her to write in a journal. But if they’re doing well in most subjects or taking part in a camp or program with an academic component, you may not need to do much extra at home. This goes for moms as well as kids. Instead, we sign our kids up for an endless gauntlet of camps and classes, trying to cram educational and enriching activities into every minute of the day. “We’ve created a society where women are always feeling less than, in general. We feel like we need to have everything perfect all the time: to have it all and raise our kids and go to work and still serve a hot meal every night. We see a license plate and then maybe we’ll look up a fun fact about the state or talk about what it might be like to visit.”
So the next time you start to get worked up about the fact that your child isn’t spending their break learning Mandarin/mastering chess/testing out of high school calculus – take a deep breath and remember these words of wisdom:
“The only thing kids need over the summer is the freedom to play outside and look at bugs and rocks and learn and grow and explore in the sunshine.”
To help you create more organic educational moments, we’ve put together Babble’s Ultimate Summer Bucket List:
Over the next few weeks, we’ll share tons of great ideas for family-friendly activities, crafts, recipes and more. Just look for the hashtag #SummerBucketList to join in the fun!
