Seven Tips For A Balanced Summer For Your Teen
You’re worried about your teen.
They’ve spent the last year of their lives shuffled around through countless changes to their schooling, suffered canceled plans, and became more familiar with the word “no” than ever before.
Sure, it’s no different than what the rest of us have faced, but they’re only a teen. You can’t help but worry about the lasting effects of the pandemic on their lives.
As parents, we’re learning to let go, to trust their inner resiliency, and to believe that they’re going to be okay. Despite ourselves, we can’t help but wonder what kind of toll this past year is going to have on them? How will they be different, and how can we help them find their way back to normal?
What Can We Do As Parents To Help Our Teens This Summer?
As a parent, it might be the most challenging thing to stand by and watch life unfold for our young ones, and feel helpless to do anything about it.
Together we’ll explore seven things you can do to help your teen make the most of this summer and build their confidence for years to come.
1. Get them involved with a sport or group activity
Being involved in an activity will help your teen find built-in friends, get them away from the couch and the lure of their gaming systems, and provide them with the opportunity for a regular release of endorphins, which can help boost their self-esteem.
Even if team sports aren’t their thing, regular exercise offered by an activity can also increase the way they see and take care of their bodies and is a good habit to get started. As a major influence on their life, make sure that you’re modeling a healthy lifestyle as well. Joining a gym as a family could be a great way to spend some quality time together as well as create an arena of life for them to draw self-esteem.
2. Require them to participate in some volunteer work over the summer
For your teen, volunteering will not only be something that translates to resumes and college applications; doing good helps them to feel good. Beyond building community connections, working outside the home can also help build self-esteem. Often, the tasks involved in community service work are small and easily accomplished, but the sense of how it will make them feel is long-lasting.
3. Spend quality time as a family
Depending on the age of your teen, this may be a far reach, but family time is important, insist on it. Family time—whether with those who live in the house, or the larger system of grandparents, uncles, and cousins—can be formative and memory-making moments for your teens. Of course, a balance between them enjoying their friends with having some family time is preferred. Their friends are a vital part of them acquiring their maturity and independent skills.
4. Limit social media
The goal is to get back to real-life relationships, not solely the ones they’ve developed online. While there is a time and a place for virtual friendships, encourage them to meet their friends in person, or ask them to join you on the family trip to the beach. Making certain hours of the day “technology-free” and modeling this yourself for your teen can be helpful as they take a more significant role in learning to create balance in their life.
5. Stay strong
In general, what teens need most—even over the summer—is a sense of stability and structure. You may want to ease up on some of the rules that govern the school year, however you’ll want to avoid paving the way for difficult habits to form. Staying up all night? Don’t allow it. Moving the gaming system to the bedroom? Not a good idea. When you’re calm and in control, it sends a powerful message to your teens that they can be too. Amid all the changes of the past year, they need that from you.
6. Encourage them to focus on one good friendship
For the more socially anxious, encourage your teen to focus on one good friendship to invest in. If your teen is without a license, this may require some heavy lifting aka driving on your part. You may want to help them think through good questions to ask when they run into people they know, or may need your help as they brainstorm what they might do with their friend. Offer your suggestions only after their own well of ideas has run dry.
7. Help them build self-confidence
All of the steps outlined above are going to be helpful in this final one: building self-confidence. Your teens need to hear from you that you believe in their abilities and that you trust that they have solutions for their own problems. For example, instead of telling them what to do to solve their problems, ask “How do you think you should handle the situation?” Don’t buy into their helplessness, and let them know what you expect and know they’re capable of. For those parents that tend to overprotect, please know that this is the time for them to test things and make some mistakes. They need some freedom. It is important that parents don't pass their own fears to their teens. Let's remember that we all learn from mistakes and better now when they have the guidance of their parents, then when they are on their own in the world.
Benefits Of Continued Therapy Over The Summer
Many parents bring their teens to therapy because of concerns with academics, their defiant behavior towards you and school personnel, and other school-related concerns. Summer is right around the corner, and you may be thinking that it would be good to give your teen a break from it all—school, responsibility, therapy. However, just because the pressure’s off, doesn’t mean that your teen’s underlying problems are over.
When they return to school in the fall, all of the same challenges will be waiting for them again. Why not make the most of the summer, implementing some of the suggestions above, and work with a therapist who can help pinpoint the areas of needed change?
Sure, you may not be worried about the interim report card that’s just around the corner, but the challenges you have in your relationship will not let up just because the school year does.
Reach out to me if you’re interested in helping your teen really heal from their inner struggles.
