Starting cues for summer

A simple way to encourage deep play

We’ve reached the midpoint of summer and with it, a tipping point: our neighborhood swim team season has ended. While there are benefits — it’s easier to make evening plans with friends, and we can actually eat dinner at home! — I’d count this transition as bittersweet for our family. Unlike other extracurriculars, not a kid in our family complained about going to practice once this season — even though it’s five days a week. They love seeing their friends, they love their coaches, they love eating a picnic dinner poolside, and they love getting to play in the shallows while their siblings swim laps.

There are other signs that we’ve been at this summer thing for awhile: the kids can be more resistant to heading out to play in the heat, and their patience with each other sometimes wears thin. A few weeks ago, after a day when they could never quite seem to settle on a mutually-agreeable activity, I flashed back to a concept in Erin Loechner’s book The Opt-Out Family: starting cues.

Erin’s book is wonderful, and I highly recommend it. In it, she calls out eleven strategies from Big Tech’s playbook and turns them on their head, offering families ideas for creating a home life that’s more enticing than the algorithm. (Yes!)