Friday, July 5, 2019

The time we have together

My son and I were talking about his summer. What I meant as a mid-summer check in, became a much larger conversation about time. You see, my son thought his summer was amazing, but it was all moving too fast for him. We talked about the adage of "time flies when you're having fun" being very true. My son wished that summer could be stretched out longer.

Laura Vanderkam, an author of several time management and productivity books, often points out that when people ask for more time, what they are really asking for is more memories. My son and I sometimes listen to her podcast together, so I challenged him to think about what memories from his summer he wanted to hold onto. 

In typical nine-year-old fashion, he immediately replied with "everything." But when pressed, he came up with a few really specific memories. We talked about his feelings for each of them, and why he picked them and ways we could capture them forever. We also looked ahead at his schedule for the rest of the summer and anticipated the events that were still to come.

I think parents are unconsciously good at cementing happy memories in our children's minds. We help them anticipate excitement, we make them relive the experience at the dinner table, and we help remind them of the event long after it is over. Of course, we could do this with the more ordinary events as well, but somehow that seems harder to remember to do.

Of course, this conversation prompted my own thoughts about time this summer. And over many previous summers. I am way behind on my scrapbooking, and need to look at my schedule to find when I can fit that in. Looking at the photos and journaling of previous adventures are one of the ways we hold onto our memories - memories of the big days and the smaller events in between.

What does your family do to share and capture memories long-term? Tell me in the comments.

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