In some states, kids are already out of school and starting summer activities. In other states, the countdown is on! Summer break! Swimming pools, camps, vacations and NO SCHOOL! But for parents, summer break can be a real stressor: work doesn’t take a summer break, and kids and tweens need a carefully planned calendar of events. What to do?

Summer’s pleasure is also its danger. While summer offers a chance to slow the sometimes too-hectic pace of the school year, it also brings the sort of idleness that gets kids into trouble.

With no classes, kids are more likely to sit around, staring at screens and snacking. Besides contributing to the learning loss teachers call the “summer slide,” these habits are unhealthy.

Increased social media use can magnify worries such cyber bullying, fear of missing out, and poor self-esteem. When older kids do get out of the house, they are more likely to be unsupervised and susceptible to negative peer pressure to make risky choices.

It does not have to be this way. Summer can be an opportunity to engage and grow without over-scheduling or pricey camps.

So, how can a family relax without falling apart over the summer?

If I have one golden piece of parenting advice, it’s the Erma Bombeck quip to not have more kids than you have windows in your car. If I had a second piece of parenting advice, it would be that car trips are the best time to have deep conversations with your children.

Spring Break is a distant, happy memory and we are now in the home stretch of the school year.  Yet there are still important things to learn, tests to take, and field trips to experience. It may be tempting to put ourselves on cruise control and start counting down the days until summer break, but this is a great time to start conversations with students about preparing for their time away from school.

And even though April has come and gone, we will continue to celebrate this movement. We want to discuss the parental role in helping our kids take action to be responsible, safe, and productive human beings. More specifically, we want to tackle the fear that many parents have that discussing important issues like alcohol responsibility with their kids is helicopter parenting, not so affectionately known as “helicoptering.”