Take a moment to travel back in time. Close your eyes and imagine being 11 years old again.

School has just let out for what was then a true summer vacation. The sun blisters the skin. The humidity is so thick you could scoop it up with a spoon and drizzle it over an ice cream cone. It’s beautiful.

The last thing you want to do is stay inside, closed from the world. In my house, the 9 a.m. roll call ended with “get out of the house and don’t come back until dinner.”

We’d gather the neighborhood friends and just play. We’d play stickball for hours. We’d walk to the park and play hide-and-seek. We’d transform the football field in the backyard into a whiffle ball stadium complete with crooked rows of lime for the foul lines.

The last thing that crossed our mind was to stay home in front of the television.

So imagine the surprise when the talking head from one of the TV news programs teased the next story of the day: “Coming up next, tips on how to get your kids through the summer.”

Maybe it was just a slow news day — it did happen before Michael Jackson’s death — or maybe the culture of summer for children has undergone a sea change in less than a quarter-century.

Tips to get through summer? Even the notion is preposterous.

I have some tips:

• Out of the house, forthwith. Do laps around the garage, climb the oak tree in the back yard, go searching for frogs, but whatever you choose to do, don’t do it here.

• Drink water, while outside, of course. Toss the bottled water and sidle up to a running water hose. Under the hot sun even tepid, slightly discolored water from a hose tastes delicious.

• Work in the yard, mow some grass, dig a hole and fill it back up again.

No kid should need tips to get through the summer. Somewhere in the vast chasm between my childhood and today’s children’s childhoods, something went awry.

Children cannot function without this gadget, that game or a favorite DVD. Most of those activities take place inside with the hum of the air conditioning in the background.

The summer sun can be miserable, but playing in a park with your neighborhood cronies is so much more special than the latest version of Xbox.

So get out of the house. This is your last warning.