It already feels like summer, although the evenings are still chilly. For parents, that means it’s time to plan how the children will spend the long school break.

My mother used to say, “An idle mind is the workshop of the devil.” She took that seriously. Every summer, she had a list of activities for her children. Later, she did the same for her grandchildren, who now fondly remember taking swimming, ballet, cooking, and even play production lessons during summers in Bacolod with their grandmother.

Looking back, I see the wisdom in keeping us busy with structured leisure activities that developed skills beyond academics. My typing skills — which have proven invaluable in my life as a journalist — came from a summer class my mother insisted I take at a vocational school that had just opened near our house. For weeks, my best friend Agnes (whom I convinced to enroll with me) and I struggled to train our fingers to strike the right keys without looking, eyes fixed on the sheet we were copying. It is a skill that has served me well all my life.

The cooking, painting, and swimming lessons my own children took also led to meaningful pursuits. My eldest daughter became a good cook. My second daughter went on to competitive swimming, earned a Fine Arts degree, and continues to paint as a hobby. Only my son — whom I pushed into football classes not just during summer but year-round — chose a different path. Though he lost interest in the sport, he inherited my love for the outdoors and is now involved in a company organizing mountain bike tours in New Zealand.

Not all summer lessons translate into mastery, and that is perfectly fine. Aside from typing, my own classes did not produce professional-level skills. I took guitar lessons and managed to master just one song for my recital. My watercolor classes, which my mother enthusiastically supported, did not make me an artist. But they nurtured a deep appreciation for art. To this day, I make it a point to visit at least one art museum wherever I travel — even in small towns.

My children’s love for stage productions may also have begun with a summer project my mother organized. She asked the cousins to write a script and stage a performance in her garden. A particularly creative cousin assigned delightfully odd roles to my daughters, who still laugh about them today. The only member of the audience was my mother — attentive and proud. Years later, my children became regular theatergoers, watching productions at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Repertory Philippines, and the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA).

While I grew up with art, music, and typing lessons, my brothers were enrolled in martial arts. On weekends, they received private farming lessons from my father, who taught them how to plant sugarcane. None became martial arts masters, but they learned discipline and respect for the land.

Naturally, I enrolled my own children in summer classes, and they have done the same for theirs. All my grandchildren can swim because they started lessons at a young age — a life skill more important than we sometimes realize.

I used to think my mother enrolled us in these activities simply to keep us out of the house during summer. I now understand it was part of something much bigger: building character, culture, curiosity — and perhaps a skill that might one day prove useful.

Today, there are even more options. In Metro Manila, summer offerings range from sports clinics in basketball, football, and swimming to cooking classes, ballet and K-pop dance workshops, and art and music programs. Many are conveniently held within residential villages, making them accessible without long drives.

Check them out. A summer class may not always lead to a career. But it can spark a passion, instill discipline, and shape character. And that, as my mother knew, is reason enough.

And every summer, when a grandchild is enrolled in lessons, I hear my mother’s voice — still planning, still teaching, still shaping us. (Email: [email protected])