posted by Jessica Lynette on 12 Habits, Family

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Hot, glorious summer is upon us! My very favorite time of year – mainly for good memories of summers past spent at camp, the enveloping heat and the juicy fruit that is in abundance throughout summer.

While working out our summer schedule and activities, I thought I would ask the boys what they wanted to do to serve others this summer. I was impressed with their list of ideas and will be collecting all needed supplies so we can do at least one of these per week throughout the summer months.

When looking for activities to do with your children you can’t go wrong looking for ways to turn it into service related activities.

To borrow a quote a dear sweet friend of mine used as her graduation speech, “When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and I could say; ‘I used everything you gave me’.” -Erma Bombeck

Ideas for Kids to Serve Others This Summer:

1. Ice cold water for the mailman – add a pack of Crystal Lite (or similar) and a cheerful note with a rubber band tied around it all. We did this many times last summer and the mailman always stopped outside our box and wrote a thank you note to us! I was amazed that he did that, but he always took the time to express his thanks for the cool relief we provided with the simple ice cold water.

If you know what time the mailman arrives at each day pull the water out of the fridge and take it out a few minutes before he shows up. If you’re unsure or if it changes each day put it in a fabric cooler with an ice pack with a note requesting he only take the water bottle so you can do this again throughout the summer. To make sure we faithfully do this throughout the summer I am going to buy a few cases of water next time I am at the grocery store and keep several bottles chilled in the fridge ready to run out on the pre-determined date. {I’m thinking Monday for Mailman! Easy to remember!}

2. Car Wash – possibly one of the boys favorite things to do ever! They’ll do our two cars and possibly the neighbors as a practical and fun way to serve.

3. Bake something special for the neighbors – this is another favorite thing the boys enjoy doing. We’re surrounded by older folks and they are all so good to our family. When the boys take baked goods over they’re always invited in and treated to undivided attention and elaborate praise for their skills in adding just the right amount of chocolate chips to the cookies or in drawing such perfect likeness of themselves in the marshmallow art. We seriously have the most awesome neighbors and we are very thankful for them.

4. Send mail to people – We live far away from all of our family and the boys thought it would be good to send cheerful notes to them. They will probably think it’s a good idea too! I am going to stock up on stamps as that is usually the biggest deterrent in mailing letters.

5. Take friends out for ice cream or have them over for homemade ice cream – After Wesley tried handing out ice cream to strangers last year we learned our lesson … ice cream treats are for friends. {It was a good lesson, but strangers just don’t care for ice cream from, well, other strangers!} I love when the boys take ownership of ideas for having people over and we will try to have people over regularly for ice cream and will give the boys the freedom to plan the evening as they’d like.

6. Invite people over to play – the boys thought that sharing their toys with others would be a good way to serve others, and I can’t argue with that! This will probably be combined with idea #5.

That’s it – our simple list of things to do this summer to encourage and serve others. With a little bit of preparation {keeping supplies on hand!} almost all are things we can do easily without much work and are easy to repeat and continue throughout the summer months, which is exactly what I need to ensure we continue doing things faithfully.

 

Tags: activity, children, family, intentional habit building for kids, May - Pay Attention to Others' Needs