The parenting hack that anchors our summer

How a few whiteboards and the right prompts have become the backbone of our wild season

I shared one of my summer hacks in a Substack note and across my socials (a rare occurrence), and friends keep asking about it, so I thought I’d write a little post about it.

The hack at a high level

As soon as school’s done, out come the whiteboards. It’s the third year in a row, and I kind of love them. We use them Monday through Friday to give just a touch of structure to the wild summer, helping us organize ourselves each day and spark a little reflection and conversation. Here’s how they work.

Coordinating chaos

Each kid has a whiteboard that we use to agree on the main places they’ll give their time and attention for the day. The board is divided into two sections: a schedule of key activities (places to be, drop offs/pick ups, happenings) and a list of chores or tasks that they should aim to complete by day’s end (i.e. how will they contribute to keeping the family going). I prep the boards with them the night before. Then, when kids come down for breakfast, we review again and adjust as necessary.

I love several things about this. First, knowing what is going on each day helps maintain sanity in the midst of summer chaos without losing the joy of a more free and open schedule. The editability of the board means that I can suggest, but we can amend and co-create the schedule. And, when there are tradeoffs to consider (i.e. is time with this group going to fill your bucket? Did you build in enough time outside today?) or concessions to make (i.e. No, I can’t drive you, but can you walk, bike or take the bus?), we can have a conversation about them.

I also kind of love the analog nature of it. I watched a tech maven wire up a whole handful of AI agents to manage her family’s schedule and admired her for both her technical capacity and enthusiasm. But, I kind of love using our hands, looking at each other, and making calls and commitments together on our old school whiteboards. I can also hear my kids’ older selves joking about me and my whiteboards someday, but in a way that means those boards and I kind of broke through.

Daily provocation

We also allocate one of the whiteboards to being a daily provocation board. In the center of the board, I write a new quote that provokes thinking and, ideally, some discussion, including the name of the quote’s source. We each read the quote at breakfast, then we know we’ll talk about it at dinner that night.

Our 4 questions

On the bottom of the board, read the same four questions we use to frame our reflection and discussion:

#1 WHO said it?

My youngest likes to figure out who the source is, so I just write the name. Then, at dinner/whenever we regroup to discuss, we try to share more about who that person is/was, when and where they lived and what their contributions are/were to the world. Knowing the historical and cultural context as well as the identity of the source really impacts the meaning. Plus, we want our kids to ask, “Who made this?” of any media message they consume.

#2 WHAT do you think it means?

#3 WHY does it resonate?

#4 WHY does it NOT resonate?

That last question is the one I love most. It gives everyone, kids especially, permission to push back. Some of our best dinner conversations have started with someone saying, “honestly, I kind of don’t buy it.”

Even if the quote largely resonates, there are always people for whom or situations in which something isn’t true—at least not true in the same way. If we’re all in agreement, I’ll ask, “Okay, but when or for whom might this not resonate or feel true?” I love when we can explore those differences. We not only get some reps in for our perspective taking and empathy muscles, but we practice a totally different way of encountering compelling ideas in the wild. I hope my kids will be that much more ready to interrogate any meme, video or other bite sized message because they’ve had this practice.

On Fridays, someone besides me is on the hook to source a quote or provocation for the group. Saturdays and Sundays, we rest.

Quotes to date

Friends have been asking what quotes we’ve been using and which have sparked the most engagement and discussion. So, here are the quotes we’ve tried so far and a few teed up for next week.

• “In the Spring [or summer!], at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” —Margaret Atwood (Canadian author, poet, and essayist )

• “Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they want you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. So go ahead. —Kevin Kelly (writer, journalist, Founder, Wired Magazine)

• “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” —Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (French cultural critic in late 19th century) + Bon Jovi (rock band :)

• “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning. Deep curiosity burns longer and brighter.” –Monica Parker (author, The Power of Wonder)

• “There is no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There is no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers– at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.” –Octavia Butler (Science fiction writer and Afrofuturist)

• “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” —Søren Kierkegaard (17th century Danish philosopher)

• “If the world was perfect, it wouldn’t be.” —Yogi Berra (Baseball hall-of-famer)

• “You think that because you understand ‘one’ you must also understand ‘two’, because one and one make two. But you must also understand ‘and’.” ― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi (13th-century mystic, Islamic scholar, and poet who lived in what is now Afghanistan and Turkey)

• “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” —Niels Bohr (Nobel-prize winning physicist)

• “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou (American memoirist, essayist, poet, and civil rights activist)

• “I don’t know, Jessie. Toys are for play, but tech...is for everything.” —Woody, Disney’s Toy Story 5 (our 11 year old’s suggestion)

• “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.” –Oscar Wilde (Irish playwright and author) *This one sparked a lively discussion!

• “The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.” –Abraham Lincoln (16th US president)

• “I play to figure things out—play to learn something. Because I think if you play with a fear of failure, or you play with the will to win, it’s a weakness either way. If you find common ground at the center, you’re unfazed by either, and that enables you to stay in the moment.” —Kobe Bryant (NBA star)

• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” —Margaret Mead (American cultural anthropologist)

• “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity” —Simone Weil (French Philosopher) *This was my favorite to date

• “The worst kind of person is someone who makes someone feel bad, dumb, or stupid for, like, being excited about something. I don’t think you should ever have to apologize for your excitement.” —Taylor Swift (singer-songwriter, pop superstar) (our 13 year old’s suggestion)

• “What we choose to attend to is what we become.” –Nicholas Carr (Technology writer)

• “The number one thing people feel in the room over love and over fear is being authentic…You have to believe in yourself and have to know that [there’s] only one you.” —Kendrick Lamar (rapper, songwriter, and record producer, Pulitzer Prize winner)

• “What would happen if you approached everyone you met today with an, ‘I like you already’ mindset?” –a10d (see this post)

• “Laughter is the closest distance between two people.” — Victor Borge (actor, comedian, and pianist)

• “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” —Alice Walker (American novelist)

• “All these new things, these new inventions and new powers, come crowding along: every one is fraught with consequences, and yet it is only after something has hit us hard that we set about dealing with it.” –H.G. Wells (Science fiction writer & historian, 1866 - 1946)

• Instructions for a Life Worth Living

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

—Mary Oliver (celebrated poet)

Your turn

If you have a quote or quotes that you’ve found particularly interesting thought and/or conversation starters with the kids in your life, please comment to share!

Want to get your own boards?

Come join in. It’s easy and, perhaps, the most affordable hack I’ve found. White boards and a set of markers will cost you about $25 on Amazon. This is my third summer, so I figure it’s a run rate of about 10 cents per day. Not bad!