You Don't Need to Do Anything Extraordinary This Summer

In my last post, we explored the five invisible skills categories, the non-academic areas that determine whether a child has the foundation necessary to access learning.

In part 2 of this blog series we will be focusing on how to actually build and support those areas.

The school year is fast-paced by design. There is almost never enough time to let a child do something slowly, imperfectly, and repeatedly without the pressure of getting out the door or getting to the next thing. The summer gives parents an opportunity to slow down the pace and lower the stakes. It’s genuinely the best time to build the skills we talked about in the last post.

This season offers families the space and time to learn how to do ordinary things differently. 

What Teachers Actually Say

I recently reached out to teachers across grade levels  to ask what they wished children worked on over the summer and the responses were remarkably consistent. For teachers of the youngest children, it was self-help skills, opening containers, zipping coats, and physical skills like pencil grip and core strength. For teachers of older children, it was executive functioning. And for teachers of every age, without exception, it was emotional regulation and frustration tolerance.

Not one teacher mentioned reading or math facts, instead they focused on the invisible skills.

These are the things that are genuinely hard to build during a school year, when time is short and the demands are constant. Summer offers families a unique opportunity to let a child practice something slowly, imperfectly, and repeatedly, without the pressure of the school year.

Three Principles for Building Invisible Skills

For these skills to actually take hold, three things matter the most.

Skills are built through doing, not knowing

These skills cannot be taught the way you teach multiplication. Skills like emotional regulation, executive functioning, social skills to mention a few, are not the kind of skills you can lecture or explain a child into. They are capacities that develop through real “doing” and repeated, real-world, emotionally alive experiences. A child builds frustration tolerance by being frustrated and moving through it and they build executive functioning by managing real tasks with real stakes.

Model your invisible skills out loud

The most powerful teaching available to you is not a lesson or a consequence. It’s letting your child watch you use these skills, and narrate what you’re doing while you’re doing it. "I feel really frustrated so I’m taking a breath before I respond." "I’m doing the hard thing first so I don’t avoid it all day." It’s thinking out loud and sharing your experience.

Use the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model

This is how teachers think about building any skill, and it’s worth borrowing. Teachers call it scaffolding: temporary, structured support that gets gradually removed as a child gains confidence and competence. The goal is never to do it for them, and never to throw them in the deep end alone. The sweet spot is just beyond what a child can do independently, with just enough support to bridge the gap.

In the classroom it looks like this:

I do, you watch. I do, you help. We do it together. You do, I help. You do, I watch. You do it on your own.

Or more simply: I Do, We Do, You Do.

Every day skills can follow this routine like tying shoes, managing a homework routine, tolerating losing a board game, or cooking a meal. The question to ask along the way is where are we in this progression right now? And am I staying one step ahead of where my child actually is, or am I still doing it for them when they’re ready to do it themselves?

The two most common mistakes both come from love. The first is staying on step one too long, doing things for your kids because it’s faster, easier, or because watching them struggle is genuinely hard. But staying too long on step one is borrowing against your child's future capacity. The second mistake is the complete opposite like handing something over completely before a child has enough time to practice. Completing a skill once in a calm moment isn’t the same as a fully internalized skill. The question is can they do this consistently, without reminders, across different conditions?

Five Things Worth Doing This Summer

Each of these activities builds across all five invisible skill categories simultaneously: physical, emotional regulation, self-help and self-management, executive functioning, and social skills. They’re ordinary activities that, done with intention and the willingness to step back, can make a measurable developmental impact. Download our full guide to get a full breakdown of activities that can help your child build their invisible skills by age and difficulty level!

Cooking Together

Try assigning one specific task instead of asking them to help while you do everything else. Let it be their task from start to finish, with you narrating and then stepping back.

Ages 3 to 7: one step, fully theirs. Stirring the batter, spinning the salad spinner, kneading the dough, squeezing the citrus.

Ages 8 to 10: a full recipe with you nearby but not directing.

Ages 11 to 13: one dinner a week, from planning to cleanup. You eat it without commentary.

Turn-Taking Games

Try playing short, low strategy and high-luck games often. As children get older and games get more complex, the executive functioning demands grow significantly including holding rules in working memory, thinking ahead, inhibiting the impulse to act out of turn. It’s important to let them play honestly, and that means letting them lose and being a warm, steady presence when they feel disappointment.

Ages 3 to 7: Go Fish, Zingo, Uno, Spot It. High luck, low strategy. 

Ages 8 to 10: strategy games where thinking ahead matters. Ticket to Ride, Sleeping Queens, chess.

Ages 11 to 13: complex games with real depth. Pandemic, Catan, Codenames, cooperative games where the challenge is shared.

Planning an Outing

Let them plan an outing! This helps them practice with uncertainty, other people's needs, and the gap between a plan and reality. Adapting to change is usually where the most important learning happens so try scaling the experience to their level and plan to be there when something doesn’t go according to plan. It’s important to resist the urge to step in, instead try asking them how they might go about fixing the problem.

Ages 3 to 7: small and immediately achievable. A picnic in the backyard or local park. They own one meaningful part of the plan.

Ages 8 to 10: a full afternoon with real logistics and a small budget.

Ages 11 to 13: a full family day,with research, logistics, budget, and execution. Let them own every step.

Building and Making

Give them something to make. Sewing, woodworking, LEGO building, and detailed craft projects strengthen fine motor skills while giving children practice planning, solving problems, and adjusting when the result doesn’t match what they imagined. Offer open-ended materials and a loose prompt, then resist the urge to direct the outcome or fix what isn’t working. For older children, encourage a project that takes more than one sitting so they can also practice organizing materials, remembering their plan, and following it through.

Ages 3 to 7: open-ended materials always available and always theirs. Playdough, cardboard, scissors, tape. Set it up and leave them to it.

Ages 8 to 10: a project that spans multiple sessions. Sewing, a model kit, woodworking. Returning to it is as important as the making itself.

Ages 11 to 13: something entirely self-directed. They find the resource, learn the skill, execute the project. You get out of the way.

Caring for Something

Let them care for something living, whether that’s a plant they water each day or a pet they help feed. Showing up consistently helps children practice responsibility, follow-through, and noticing how their actions affect something beyond themselves. When they forget, give them a chance to notice and make it right rather than immediately stepping in, while still ensuring the living thing is safely cared for. If they eventually experience its loss, stay close, help them name what they’re feeling, and give them room to grieve. This teaches children that sadness is part of caring and that they don’t have to move through difficult feelings alone.

Ages 3 to 7: one plant, every day, entirely theirs.

Ages 8 to 10: primary responsibility for a family pet or garden across the full summer. Not helping. Owning.

Ages 11 to 13: a paid caring responsibility in the community. Someone outside the family is depending on them, and that changes how the responsibility feels.

One More Thing

There’s a unique difference between home and school and there’s a real reason to keep them separate. Your child needs an environment where they have more control, their needs are more centered, and they can be held by the people who love them most when they make mistakes. Invisible skills develop in real life, in the daily texture of ordinary days, every time a child is trusted with something real and given the space to figure it out.