Apodaca: Filling a child’s summer schedule can be a challenge

It’s mid-summer and I’m still being inundated with email pitches for summer camps. Never mind that my sons are years past summer camp age, and are even beyond the stage of working as camp counselors.

But the appeal of these summer programs still strikes a chord with me. I remember well the gnawing feeling beginning each year around February that would prompt me into supermom mode trying to “figure out” how my kids would spend their summer vacation.

I often write about the need for balance in parenting. That need is starkly apparent when summertime rolls around and children’s schedules become empty chasms in need of filling.

For modern American parents, this presents a predicament. They want their kids to have fun, but not forget how to work hard and stay focused. They see summer as a time of experimentation and broadening experiences, but also as a chance to catch up or leap forward academically. They want their kids to de-stress from the school year, but many students have summer homework assignments and test preparation to tackle.

This makes finding that appropriate balance difficult. Choices must be made between organized activities and unstructured down time, between kids relaxing and having fun vs. engaging in programs designed to make them smarter, better athletes, more engaged citizens or appealing to colleges.

Today’s expectations about summer enrichment are so great it almost makes one long for the days when summer breaks were used for the originally intended purpose: for farm folk to put kids to work, for rich folk to spend family time at their summer homes, and for the rest of the young’uns to run wild in the streets. You know, the “good ol’ days.”

There’s also no escaping the fact that for many families with just one parent at home, or with both parents working, summer presents an even greater challenge, particularly if money is tight. What to do with kids while parents are working becomes not just a question of what’s best for a child’s development, but what is realistic given a family’s circumstances.

Unfortunately, in many ways schools aren’t making it any easier. These days students are urged to work on their “skills” during the long summer holiday, lest they forget what they learned the previous year.

When I was a kid my mom always signed me up for our local library’s summer reading program, which I loved. But there were no rigid requirements or expectations for reaching certain achievement markers. It was just reading for fun, and at the end of the summer we had a party. That was it.

These days we can’t escape those lofty expectations. We feel pressure for our kids to continually progress toward becoming better at something, anything, that will make them stand out, fit in, figure out what they’re passionate about, or whatever ever else we think is necessary for them to be happy and successful in a competitive world.

Those unfortunate summer homework assignments add to that pressure. For many years now, high school students enrolled in Advanced Placement classes have been assigned substantial amounts of work over the summer holiday, particularly here in California, where most schools start their academic years later than in the east.

But those AP homework assignments have increasingly migrated to other classes, and to lower grades, as students are warned that they must be prepared to go full bore immediately upon their return to school. Many even schedule tests in the first few days, some of which are only intended for teachers to gauge what they have to work with, but which nevertheless create the impression for kids that they dare not risk any letdown in the summer.

This has all transpired despite confusion over whether summer homework assignments are beneficial. Research findings have been contradictory and unclear, leaving many parents feeling frustrated and students resentful. There’s a growing backlash against what many view as too much homework generally, and summer assignments are adding fuel to the movement to lighten the workload.

We all know that it’s not just homework, however, that causes consternation over how to handle kids in the summer. In many ways, the homework debate is merely reflective of the prevailing mindset in child-rearing, which leads even the best-intentioned among us to succumb to treating our children as unformed blobs that we must mold into exceptional, accomplished trophy kids.

A promotional email I received recently played right into that outlook. It touted one outfit’s public speaking camps, summer college admissions prep programs, science camps, summer acting camp, creative writing camp, computer camp, video production camp and East Coast college tours.

“The bonds and relationships that I formed with fellow students are going to be everlasting,” according to a glowing student testimonial. “I felt like all of the instructors were passionate about what they taught and showed great care and compassion. I would definitely recommend this camp because this whole experience was one of the most beneficial and rewarding things in my life.”

I remembered signing up my son for one of these programs several years ago, thinking the expense would be worth it given the fabulous experience he’d undoubtedly have.

His review at the end of the camp would have been a little different than the one mentioned above. In one word, it would have been something like this: “Meh.”

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PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.