What a great group of parents who attended a March 13 presentation on “Summer’s almost here: How to keep your sanity and your kids’ grades.” Thanks to the Harman PTO, which is a grades 1-6 school in the Oakwood City Schools district, for inviting me to speak.

The. summer is an important time for families because many schools are closed or offer only limited summer classes. The other thing we know about summer is that

• Students suffer a learning loss without educational activities during the summer months
  • In math computation skills, students lose on average 2.6 months of learning

• There are more temptations for risky behavior when students are unsupervised. And there are many more unsupervised hours during the summer months!

During the talk, everyone had a chance to share a memorable summer experience from their childhood. I opened the discussion with those reflections because all of us may remember a summer of our youth whether it was completely free or structured. In sharing my own summer experiences, I mentioned that at age 5, I started spending my summers in Los Angeles. My siblings were teenagers then so we would get into all kinds of mischief for 8 weeks. As I got older into my teen years, I would work summer jobs then later in high school, I participated in more structured academic programs.

What’s so remarkable about these experiences is that they have shaped my college and career decisions in important ways. They’ve left such an indelible mark that my research today is informed by those summer experiences of my youth.

Now you know why I’m so passionate about the importance of a quality summer experience for all youth. As a parent who talks and writes to other parents every day, I’m also intimately familiar with this “summer anxiety”!

If you were unable to attend, please send me your email address to get the slides and our popular tip sheet “10 things college-bound students can do this summer.”

What are you doing this spring to plan for a productive summer?