This Is Your Brain on Summertime

Several years ago, there was an anti-drug commercial "Fried Eggs" that featured a frying pan with sizzling butter and an egg. The tag line stated, "This is drugs. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs." Although summertime is not a drug, the effects on the brain might be similar. "This is summertime. (Imagine your kids for hour upon hour playing Guitar Hero, watching reruns of the Brady Bunch and networking on MySpace.) This is your brain. (Hour upon hour of classroom instruction and homework from kindergarten through 12th grade locked in an inaccessible compartment of the brain.) This is your brain on summertime." Get the picture?

Research from the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University illustrates the following:

• All young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer.


• On average, students lose approximately 2.6 months of grade level equivalency in mathematical computation skills over the summer months.


• Children from low-income families lose over 2 months of reading achievement during the summer. Children from higher-income families make slight gains in reading achievement during the summer.


• Children's health habits are less healthy during the summer.


• Out-of-school time is a dangerous time for unsupervised children and teens. They are more likely to use alcohol, drugs and tobacco; engage in criminal and other high-risk behaviors; receive poor grades; and drop out of school than those who have the opportunity to benefit from constructive activities supervised by responsible adults.

So how can we stop the summer brain leak and help our students grow some brain cells?

1. Limit television, video games and computer time. A 1999 media study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, Kids & Media @ The New Millennium, indicates that all kids, ages 2-18, spend an average of 5:29 hours using media, including television, computers, video games and music. Track your family's media use for a day or two and then discuss it in a family council. Let your children make recommendations for the better use of media, selecting better quality media and spending less time with media. If they help develop the plan, it is more likely they will follow the plan with less nagging and frustration on your part.

2. Incorporate learning activities into your summertime plans. For example,

• My friend Lori would select a different Shakespearean play to study each summer. As a family, they would read it, watch it and act it out. At first there were many moans of complaint and protest, but after the first couple of years, the kids were asking what play they would study and actually looked forward to it.


• Another friend, Wendy, remembers that her mother posted three new vocabulary words on the refrigerator each day and at dinnertime Wendy was expected to spell and use the new words correctly in a sentence.


• Join the summer reading program at your local library or bookstore.


• Plan your summer vacation or a portion of it with an educational focus. Visit a historical site or museum. Keep a journal of the vacation with drawings, photos, entries and a list of "Things We Learned." Play alphabet games and sing songs as you travel.


• Purchase old textbooks from your local school and let your kids teach each other, the neighbor kids, and even you. When I was in 3rd grade, I made my parents attend the local school book sale and buy me a student and teacher edition of math, reading and history books and then I made my younger siblings play school all summer. Both of my sisters are better in math than I am because I made them solve the problems but I checked their work using the answers in the teacher's edition!


• Get some physical exercise every day. I usually go to the gym in the morning, but occasionally I exercise to a tape at home. My daughter loves to exercise with mommy and recently reminded me that it had been a long time since we had exercised together. Go outside-hike a trail, play tag, go for a bike ride, go swimming.


• Incorporate math into everyday activities. Make cookies and change the recipe to teach fractions-triple the recipe or cut it in half. Keep a notebook and pencil in your purse and in the car and practice addition, subtraction, multiplication tables and division. Build something together and teach (or in my case-learn) geometry.


• Enroll in local summer classes. Public schools and universities have extension programs with amazing summer courses for fun or academic credit.

This is summertime. This is your brain. This is your brain on summertime. New picture!

One By One

President Monson’s concluding remarks in General Conference included this statement, “My dear brothers and sisters, I love you, and I pray for you.” I testify that President Monson does love and pray for us.

A couple of years ago, our stake planned and prepared for a change of ward boundaries to accommodate an additional ward. The approval of the changes was received with a letter attached from President Monson. He wrote that he was concerned for Amy, a Mia Maid, because she would be the only Mia Maid remaining in that ward after the split. Although the boundary changes were approved, he stipulated that the two wards should participate together for Mutual activities until the youth program had increased in sufficient membership. As leaders we were touched and taught by this prophet, seer and revelator.

As an apostle, President Monson witnesses to the world of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he also witnesses one by one that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ know us, care about us and know our needs. Although we may not be mentioned by name in a letter, I believe that he does know us and indeed, prays for us.

He ministered that day to Amy one by one, following the example of our Savior who, when he appeared to the Nephites, invited each one to “come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel and the God of the whole earth…and this they did do, going forth one by one until all had gone forth.” (3 Nephi 11:14, 15) Jesus Christ also “took their little children, one by one, and blessed them and prayed unto the Father for them.” (3 Nephi 17:21)

Do we feel that love, care and concern from our prophet? Do we feel his prayers to the Father in our behalf?

If so, how has that knowledge and feeling changed you?

If not, “seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (D&C 88:63) It will be opened unto you as you look for “the tender mercies of the Lord that are over all those whom he hath chosen.” (1 Nephi 1:20)

In Matthew 10:41 it says, "He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward." How can the love we feel from our Savior and our prophet, President Monson, bless us?

• Do we take time to be with each family member one-on-one?
• Do husbands and wives have a date night?
• Do dads have a time set aside for personal interviews with their children?
• Do both moms and dads have time with each child, separately and individually?
• Is there regular time together as a family to “work” and enjoy “wholesome family recreation?”
• Do we pray individually, as parents and as a family for one another?

If we believe and feel the “pure love of Christ” that emanates from our prophet and allow that love to work in us and change us, “there will be no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.” (4 Nephi 1:15)

The next phrase uttered by President Monson was "Please pray for me." Let us pray for him as he prays for us. Elder Loren C. Dunn tells this story,

"When I was growing up, Heber J. Grant was the President of the Church. My father always prayed for President Grant. And he had great personal feeling for him because President Grant at one time was president of the Tooele Stake, and my father at that time was president of the Tooele Stake. President Grant became ill and passed away, and I can remember after the funeral kneeling in family prayer as a young boy and hearing my father praying with the same love and devotion and feeling for the next prophet, the next President of the Church, George Albert Smith.

As a youth, I was surprised because I had never heard anybody pray for any prophet other than Heber J. Grant. And I felt almost cheated—like my father was turning away from a good friend. But as the time went on, through that experience and other experiences, he taught me a very valuable lesson—you see, he had great love and appreciation for President Grant, and that would never change, but in his heart I realized that he had saved his greatest love and his greatest loyalty for his God, and whomever God would send he would sustain and uphold and pray for and embrace." (Ensign, May 1983, 29)

Our stake is changing boundaries again to accommodate more growth and another division just occurred. I am leaving a ward I love to become a part of a new ward. Although I am surprised and a bit sad, I know that a prophet knows of this change and prays for me and all of us.

Keep a Cow

Earlier this week when I reminded my four year-old daughter to do one of her chores-put the clean utensils away-she opened the dishwasher, sighed an enormous sigh and said, "I wish I didn't have to do all the work." Whether four or fourteen, all parents have heard similar things. Often the preparation and effort that it takes to teach children to work is more difficult than doing it ourselves. At those times my husband reminds me of this story from Elder Loren C. Dunn:

"While we were growing up in a small community, my father saw the need for my brother and me to learn the principle of work. As a result, he put us to work on a small farm on the edge of town where he had been raised. He ran the local newspaper, so he could not spend much time with us except early in the morning and in the evening. That was quite a responsibility for two young teenagers, and sometimes we made mistakes.

Our small farm was surrounded by other farms, and one of the farmers went in to see my father one day to tell him the things he thought we were doing wrong. My father listened to him carefully and then said, 'Jim, you don't understand. You see, I'm raising boys not cows." (Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood Part B, "Lesson 15: Sharing in Family Work," p. 131)

So I'm raising a daughter not emptying the dishwasher, but in the end does it matter if she empties the dishwasher?

"Two elderly neighbors one day were talking about their lives and those of their children. John's oldest boy was just finishing college and had been on the honor roll through all of his studies. Jim's boy had just been convicted of a serious crime and sent to the state prison. Jim and John had lived side by side and been good neighbors during their sons' growing up period. Their boys had played together and had gone to school together. Jim, in discussing what had happened, stated, "The whole difference between our sons' lives was that you kept a cow, John. I recall that when the boys were playing, your boy would leave early so that he could milk and feed the cow. By keeping that cow you taught your boy responsibility." (Duties and Blessings of the Priesthood, Part B, "Lesson 11: The Father as Patriarch," p. 96)

Yes it does matter, now and in the eternities. Work is a gospel principle. Elder Neal A. Maxell said, "The gospel of work is a very important teaching of the church. If we learn to work early in life we will be better individuals, better members of families, better neighbors, and better disciples of Jesus Christ, who Himself learned to work as a carpenter." (The Friend, June 1975, p. 7)

Our task as parents is to find the "cow"! Most of us live in urban and suburban communities without the ability to keep a real cow, but we must find work, responsibilities and inner personal strength equal to that of raising a cow, especially as the summer vacation looms ahead with cries of "I'm bored!", "What can we do?" and "I don't want to do that!" Are there any "cows" out there?

School-School should be a child's first responsibility--doing homework, studying for tests, reading for assignment and pleasure. In the summer, many secondary schools offer a summer enrichment school where teens can take required courses toward graduation or elective classes. Many universities offer independent study or online classes to high school students.

Chores-Each child needs to have personal and family responsibilities. Brainstorm chores for each child based on their abilities and let them choose their own chores, selecting new ones every month or so.

Garden-Pres. Kimball taught, "We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your own property...If there are children in your home, involve them in the process with assigned responsibilities." Plant a garden or if you don't have space for garden, try container gardening.

Family Work Projects-From cleaning out the garage to restoring a vintage automobile, the possibilities are endless. My father-in-law would buy vehicles in need of fixing-up. My husband would work on it and when it was finished, his dad would sell it and buy another. Before the time my husband could drive he had restored a '57 Chevrolet Apache and '65 Mustang. When he turned 16, dad did buy him another car--a Pinto stationwagon with wood paneling!

Start a Business- Help your teens start their own business, especially those who are not old enough to have a job. A neighbor boy wanted to earn money to save for a mission and started his own lawn mowing business. He had no lawn mowing equipment but that did not stop him. He advertised that he would mow lawns using each family's own equipment, charging a lesser fee than other lawn mowing services. We hired him and he did such an excellent job that soon he had more than 20 neighbors who hired him. What does your teen like to do? How could he earn money doing it? What about:

• Teens teaching a summer activity camp for preschool and elementary age kids.
• Young women offering their scrapbooking services to busy moms with a price-per-page or entire album pricing.
• Help with household work such as a cleaning service, window washing, car detailing, pet grooming, etc.

Jobs in the Real World-Encourage your teens to find a job in the real world. Help them write a resume, role-play an interview and look for a job. Beware of jobs requiring work on Sundays. Nothing is more important than our children attending their meetings with us. Our first priority is our relationship with our Savior and teaching our children to draw near to Him. Anything that takes us or our children away from partaking of the sacrament is non-negotiable.

Pres. David O. McKay said, "Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that the power to work is a blessing, that love of work is success."

Good luck in finding and keeping "cows".

For ideas on children, household chores and fun, see http://www.housefairy.org/

For entrepreneurial teens, see Junior Achievement at http://studentcenter.ja.org/aspx/PlanBusiness/

For garden helps, see http://www.kidsgardening.com/family.asp