What Should Your Child Actually Be Doing This Summer?

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My neighbour's daughters are back and their mother has known no peace since then. Last week, she pulled me to a corner and said, "The children are home o. What do I even do with them for one month?"

I asked her the same question I always ask, "what do you want these children to walk back into school with in September?"

She went quiet for a while.

At first she suggested enrolling them in extra lesson classes. But if I were to go back to my childhood, that would be my last option.

Summer is one of the few times when a young person can develop talents that the conventional school year does not teach.

So what should that time actually go toward? Here are a few things worth considering.

1. Public speaking and debate

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If I could teach kids only ONE skill, this would be it. Public speaking softly teaches four skills at once:

• clear thinking
• confidence
• the capacity to organise an argument, and
• the courage to be heard.

A child who learns to stand up and articulate an idea today grows into an adult who can negotiate, advocate, and hold their ground in a room full of people, professionally and personally.

2. Basic coding or digital creation

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The goal isn't to turn every child into a programmer. Rather, it's about teaching them how to build things. A child who builds a small app, a simple game, or a short animation is more likely to develop a creator's mindset. It breaks the jinx of just consuming content to actually creating them.

3. Swimming

This one is non-negotiable, honestly. Every child should know how to swim. This activity is more like a survival skill, than a sporting or extracurricular activity. With near-drowning stories I hear at pool parties, it's best to be on guard. Swimming is one of those skills you hope you never need and are grateful for the one time you do.

4. Sports and structured discipline-based activity

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I remember registering for taekwondo classes at 12. There were times I thought of quitting, especially when I lost a round, but somehow stuck around to the end.

From the outside, these tasks (karate, scrabble, gymnastics, chess, and other sporting activities) look like it's all physical and strategic. But what if I told you that they actually build self-control, patience and resilience in a child?

These activities shaped me into being a person who can sit in frustration without falling apart. I can lose a round, fail at something and still get back up. This kind of emotional muscle wasn't acquired in school, but it has served me in several aspects of my life.

A child who learns to sit through frustration in a dojo or at a chessboard is developing emotional skills that will serve them in every area of life.

5. Creativity

This involves drawing, music, drama, photography, journaling, whatever form it takes. Creative expression gives children a language for emotions they don't yet have words for, and it teaches them to look at a problem and imagine more than one way through it. Most true invention begins in the mind, before it ever becomes a plan.

For older kids, real responsibility

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This involves participating in internships, volunteer services or working in a family business. My cousin once spent two weeks helping out at a family friend's small business. She was assigned to mostly answer calls and organise invoices. She came back complaining about how early she had to wake up and how her boss corrected her twice for a filing mistake. Looking back now, that complaint was the whole lesson.

No classroom assignment teaches a teenager what it feels like to answer to someone, show up on time, and recover from a small professional embarrassment quite like an actual, if small, job does.

Holidays aren't meant for extra classes, and they are definitely not for 8 hours of Tiktok. Holiday is a season for building something in a child. Dear parents, give your child experiences, a little responsibility, and room to stretch, and you'd be grateful you did by September.

Do you agree? Are there other activities your children engage in during the holidays?