How to prevent the “spiritual summer slide”

When the school year ends and the kids are home for summer vacation, it can feel like your whole schedule has gone out the window! But there are lots of things we can do to prevent the "spiritual summer slide" and keep our faith central to family life.

How can you keep up with your family’s faith life when your usual routines aren’t in place? Here are 7 ideas. (Want the Cliff Notes? Here's a printable checklist to inspire you!)

If you’re planning any summer travel, make a plan for getting to Mass on vacation. The website (and app!) MassTimes.org is absolute gold for planning Mass ahead of time. 

Encourage your kids to change their mindset from “We have to go to Mass on vacation” to “We get to see Jesus at Mass and check out a cool new church in a place we’ve never been to before!” Then grab a local treat after Mass to make the Sunday outing even more fun. We usually go for doughnuts!

Audiobooks are a lifesaver on road trips with kids, and you can include them in daily quiet time at home or on shorter drives closer to home.

Picking a faith-related listen is an easy and fun way to bring your faith with you throughout the summer.

Check out these options from Hallow, Merry Beggars, JuiceBox Catholic Bedtime Stories, the Catholic Sprouts podcast, or the Saints Alive stories.

If you’re planning for the kids to go to summer camp, check out what your local churches have to offer. Catholic camp is a great way to nurture your kids’ faith with friends in a fun atmosphere.

Vacation Bible School or Totus Tuus are great options for the younger crowd, and there are lots of great Catholic sleepaway camps for older kids, too.

Summer is super busy for some families, so this might not make sense for you. But if your family has some down time this summer, see if you can participate in a local service project. 

You might volunteer at a food pantry or with a local religious order, pick up litter, water the community garden, or donate to a food drive. Check out more kid-friendly ways to volunteer here.

Our favorite way to volunteer is to take dinner to someone through a meal train. The kids love helping make and deliver food, especially if there's a cute new baby to see!

Seeing a post on social media or getting a newsletter in your email inbox can be a helpful source of inspiration. Follow or subscribe to Catholic media accounts for a little faith boost through the summer months.

Here are a few suggestions:

There are countless other great accounts to follow, too!

When you’re on the way to the splash pad or playground, what about swinging by your local Adoration chapel to say hello to Jesus for a minute or two? 

Weaving a visit with Jesus into the everyday fabric of family life is a powerful witness to our children that God is the most important part of life and connected to everything we do.

It can be hard to remember to pray when you don’t even know what time it is most days! 

I’ve found it helpful to anchor our family’s prayer routine to other daily habits. For example, we always pray the St. Michael prayer when our kids are going in bed. Anchoring nightly prayer to our kids’ bedtimes helps me remember to make it happen every day … even when bedtime is much later than usual!

You might anchor prayer to mealtimes, or getting up in the morning, or getting in the car. Finding something you do every day and anchoring prayer to that is a great way to keep your family prayer going through the unstructured summer months.

Which of these will you try first? We would love to hear what YOUR family is doing to practice your faith this summer!