The Longest Day, Together: A Family Activity Kids Can Be Part Of

The Longest Day — the summer solstice, the day with the most light — is one of the loveliest ways for a whole family, children included, to honor someone they love who's living with dementia. The idea is simple and hopeful: on the brightest day of the year, you do something you love, together, to shine a little light against a hard disease. There's no wrong way to take part, no minimum age, and no need for it to be big. A sunrise walk, a bake sale, a purple craft on the porch — anything warm that includes the kids counts beautifully.

What is The Longest Day, in kid-friendly terms?

The Longest Day is a worldwide day, organized each year by the Alzheimer's Association around the summer solstice (June 20 or 21), when people everywhere do an activity they love to support families touched by Alzheimer's and other dementias. (Our friends at Brain Meets Bytes tell the fuller story in The Longest Day: Why the Solstice Became a Symbol.)

For children, you can keep the explanation simple and warm: "Today is the longest, sunniest day of the year. All around the world, people are doing things they love to send light and love to families like ours, and to people whose brains have trouble remembering. We're going to join in — together." That's enough. The doing is what carries the meaning.

Simple ways to involve your kids

Pick one small thing and let your child help shape it. A few ideas that work beautifully with children:

• Greet the sunrise (or sunset). On the longest day, watching the sun come up or go down — with cocoa, a blanket, a few quiet minutes — is a lovely, simple ritual. You might say a few words about the person you're honoring.
• Do "what you love," together. The heart of the day is doing something you enjoy. Bake Grandma's favorite cookies, take the walk Grandpa always took, plant a few flowers, play the music he loved. Let the activity be one that connects to your loved one.
• Make something purple. Purple is the color of the Alzheimer's movement. A purple craft, painted rocks, a paper-flower garland, purple-frosted cupcakes — easy, joyful, and a natural way for a child to ask questions.
• Hold a tiny "do what you love" fundraiser. Older kids might love a lemonade stand, a read-a-thon, or a small bake sale, with anything raised going to the cause. A sense of doing something that helps turns worry into purpose. (You can set one up at alz.org/thelongestday.)
• Make a light for someone. Draw a sun, write a loving note, or make a little lantern "for Grandpa," and bring it to him or display it at home.

The goal isn't a big event. It's a shared, hopeful hour that a child can be part of and remember.

Why doing it together matters

For children, The Longest Day quietly teaches something precious: that when someone we love is facing something hard, we don't look away — we gather, we make light, we keep loving. Marking it as a family turns a difficult subject into a shared act of warmth, and gives children a sense of agency in a situation that can otherwise feel confusing or sad.

It's good for the grown-ups too. Honoring a loved one through an activity you enjoy — especially one tied to a happy memory of them — can hold grief and love at the same time, gently. And doing it alongside your children reminds everyone that connection and meaning carry on, even as memory changes.

However you mark it — a sunrise, a song, a batch of purple cookies, a few dollars raised — The Longest Day is a chance to show your children, by doing rather than telling, that love is something you can turn into light. On the brightest day of the year, that's a beautiful thing to share.

For tender ideas any day of the year, see our guide on visiting a grandparent in memory care.

Rosemary Rabbit helps families talk about memory, dementia, and love with warmth and honesty. Join our community.