End of Summer Blues

Just two weeks ago, summer felt stale. The air was muggy, thick, and a slight haze was present all the time. Here in western Washington, we’re not really used to that kind of weather. Our humidity is normally low, the skies are typically clear blue, and the air is exhilaratingly fresh. This year though, I found myself hanging on to the last threads of summer tightly. I do this every year to some extent, but this year it was especially so. It’s not just the equal blessings and hardships that the rigors of routine bring. I think it’s my hesitancy to fully commit to the fuller, more challenging realities that I know the school year brings.

This year our family vacation bumped right up to the edge of the first week of school. Let’s just say I don’t recommend that practice if you’re going to go dry camping next to a freeway… and yes, that’s exactly what happened to us, though it wasn’t what we thought we had planned. Our dreams of relaxing near a campfire in a quiet, serene forest near Truckee, California and languishing the days away on the pristine beaches of Lake Tahoe came crashing to a burning heap almost the moment we arrived at the campground… actually they began to fade very quickly before we even left our house.

Both our oldest daughter and our high school girl were going to be coming home the night before we left from weeks away. Both would be exhausted, have little energy, and be full of stories and memories from work/camp to share. Flipping the suitcases in less than twelve hours would be no problem though. I, mom, had a mostly open week, available to pre-pack all the family items, which would leave me free to help my girls and spend the evening catching up. <Will need to insert new plan here.> While I often struggle with migraines, I didn’t count on being completely out of commission the two days before we were trying to leave… envision me wandering zombie-like around my house, convincing myself that I was indeed helping and not totally ruining the beginning of our trip. Our plans to leave by six in the morning immediately following their evening returns came fully and completely to a grinding halt when I went to bed the night before we left without even having packed my own clothes… <insert face palm>.

Our family all pitched in fairly well the next morning to help us get out the door, and despite us being some very exhausted would-be campers, we were hitching up to get on the road just shy of seven hours after we had planned. There are many frustrating details to this story that cued face palm after face palm for us, but in the interest of getting to the point, I’ll just highlight them here:

• A missing trailer adapter plug that required a hunt for an auto parts store with the correct part before we even left town, further delaying our first-day departure by multiple extra hours

• An unplanned hotel cost on the first night because, despite our best efforts to rally, we were not going to make a fourteen-hour drive in one day when we weren’t leaving town until nearly 2pm

• Arriving a day late to the campground only to realize that the two reviewers who had mentioned a bit of “road noise” at this campground had NOT been exaggerating; in fact, they may have been generous with their reviews… the road noise felt akin to sleeping under an overpass. Not even the cheery river twenty feet away could really drown it out completely. Who knew that the country highway was actually a main trucking thoroughfare that was busy with transport all night long??

• We found one, singular, tiny beach on Lake Tahoe that allowed dogs, and after our hasty, last-minute decision to bring our pooch this year due to lack of other practical options for his overly energetic puppy misdeeds, that turned out to greatly affect our ability to actually spend time just enjoying the Lake… cue the face palm that comes with the echo of why did we even try to come this far WITH a dog on a shorter vacation anyway?

• Just as we began to pick the first items up to leave the campground and travel to our final destination of the road trip – the theme park part, Robert tweaked his back, rendering him unable to help with any lifting or packing… big impact on the rest of the trip and the planned roller-coaster activity at Silverwood as he already has one fused disc in his back

• About halfway through the drive, we realized the rear differential on our SUV had been leaking everywhere, and since the fill plug was stripped out and siezed shut, there was no way to refill it without a lengthy stop brainstorming with helpful Good Samaritan truckers, helpful hardware store managers, and eventually us hard core diy-ers forking over the dollars to the kind folks at Valley Auto in the tiny mountain town of McCall, Idaho (shout out to Sean, the Manager), who squeezed us into their already very busy schedule to get us back on the road again, a short six hours and a few hundred dollars later…

Just one month later, with the vacation fading quickly from the rear-view mirror of life, I can find a bit of humor in the situation and recognize the many ways that we grew and learned from the situation together as a family. Mostly, I was repeatedly reminded that I am capable of resilience and that in every situation that life throws at me, I can despair or choose to persevere in love. Ultimately, we still had our time together at Silverwood, and the bad parts tend to fade as the good memories surface. Did I learn anything? Yes. That being said, it wasn’t at all what I had pictured and envisioned as ideal. I recognize that these events don’t stand alone in my life as examples where things did not go my way; in fact, these are some of the lighter moments comparatively. Life is full of opportunities to give in to emotion or choose to grow in perseverance, determination, and the ability to overcome. There are many situations and times in life, however, where I resent these opportunities to grow, and our kids are certainly no different.

Whether I like it or not, the mornings in our neck of the woods have now turned crisp and the rhythms of fall are decidedly upon us (I still have refused to put out pumpkins and fall décor), and it’s an excellent time to remember that EVERY season, transition, and change is an opportunity for growth when we view it as such. Problems and challenges that come across the paths of our children do not require our panic, an immediate fix, or the magical ability to make them go away. These events in our children’s lives are an opportunity for us as parents to call our kids to the hard, difficult lessons of life and remind them that they are loved, capable, and qualified to meet the circumstances head-on and come through them more wise and more equipped for life than they were before.

It's our privilege as parents to stay connected to our kids – to observe when they are young the challenges they will face through the developmental stage they are in, to recognize their waves of emotions and teach them to handle them appropriately when they encounter hard things. Whether it be in friendships, within classrooms, or on the court, we can choose to be present during times our families are together and stay tuned in enough with their behaviors to recognize when they need to be encouraged, challenged, and redirected.

Life in the world lately has been hard – the difficult things seem to just keep right on coming in the news. We must take the opportunity to examine ourselves, recognize the opportunities we have to grow, and choose to respond in ways that are healthy and constructive for our own sakes and for our children’s as well. We must refuse to be consumed by or despairing of our challenges. No matter the ages of our children, they are learning from us. Tiny ones all the way up to adult children look to their parents to learn how to respond to challenges and hardships – even when they don’t appear to be doing so. They learn because of their innate love for their parents and their proximity to us, and it might never be truer than in these difficulties of life that much more is caught than taught.

This is your friendly reminder from the coach in your corner to meet the challenges in your life with an eye towards growth and to be intentional about teaching your children to do the same. What challenges will they face this fall? Is your four-year-old headed into a stage of selfishness that needs to be met head-on with self-control? Is your fifth grader overwhelmed with spelling and would benefit from the encouragement to remember that perseverance is necessary for hard things? Is your teen struggling to find friends and needs reassurance that they are incredibly worthy, perfectly unique, and immensely valuable? See the new stage, teach them to understand it, help equip them with the knowledge and tools they need, and be present with them as they navigate through it. Be actively working on these patterns of growth in your own life also as you encounter this new season and proactively teach your children and walk alongside them as they encounter life.

It is certainly not best to be the parent who tries to clear every obstacle from the path and smooth the way before your children so that their life is full of peace and ease. That’s not the way that humans grow, and it’s ultimately not best for your kids. Teach them the important lessons in life. Teach them to recognize obstacles and meet them with the required discipline, perseverance, long-suffering, and determination that each one requires so that they will grow in their wisdom, gain confidence, and come through their trials stronger than before. Get re-connected with your children and start fresh today.

We have a simple guide to help get you in-tune with the pulse in your home. We believe that taking fifteen minutes to reset as a family will help you tune into the areas of need in your family so that you can learn to recognize the big issues that your children are facing. Set aside the heaviness of adult life and use this guide to dive into your home life and the lives of your kiddos today. Follow the link below to get signed up, and we’ll send it to you today!

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"As we stand here together at the end of one season, and the starting edge of the next, it can be tempting to race ahead without pausing to consider what you might be running into. Today is for the pause."

-Emily Freeman The Next Right Thing Ep. 349

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September 29th, 2025 | Katrina Eaton