Teenagers need a break these holidays - here's how you can help them make the most of their time off. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
Teenagers and holidays. Immediately these words may conjure up images of young people sleeping all day and gaming all night.
Depending on your own work ethic or gaming habits, this picture can be confronting, frustrating or disturbing. However, the sleeping teen is by no means a lost cause.
Here's some top tips on how to get through:
Our teens are tired. School is stressful, adolescence is challenging, 2020 has been a minefield. Even if we wound the clock back to the blissfully unaware and optimistic days of 2019, our teens would still be navigating a world of pressure.
School holidays are a great opportunity to pause and rest, so it's actually really healthy to let our young people take a break. This may involve us biting our tongue and lowering the bar, especially for the first week, so our teens can catch up on sleep and replenish their energy reserves.
However, don't chuck expectations out the window altogether. Especially when we hit week two, holidays are a great time to encourage our teens to rise. With a considered approach (which is a polite way of saying "without nagging"), we can encourage our teens to set some goals, challenge themselves, and achieve beyond "best in class" at online gaming or binging the whole of Netflix.
Let your teen know what you expect from them on any given day – whether it's the lawn mowed, a spring-cleaned bedroom, a chapter of textbook read, the dishwasher emptied or a hand with dinner - or all of the above? Go you!
Extend to your teen the responsibility of fitting the tasks into their day. Then leave them to it, without constant reminders, so they can experience the satisfaction of self-management or – on the flip side – the natural consequence of any failures to manage themselves (ie. dinner not ready when they're hungry, no clean clothes if they're all still in a heap under their desk).
Even though our teens may not be as responsive as they were when they were half the height and motivated by a sticker chart, they do still thrive in an environment of encouragement.
Our belief in our young people is profoundly empowering, so help them see their potential in whatever ways - subtle or otherwise - you can. Be that parent who is always suggesting ideas for how their young person could use their abilities – in sports teams, art competitions, TradeMe listings, and part-time or casual jobs.
Having regular age-appropriate responsibilities in the household chore department is really good for all our kids, and holidays are a great time to take some of those responsibilities to the next level.
Entrepreneurial teens might not need much encouragement in this regard, but others will require some gentle coaching to think outside the box when it comes to using their time.
Being the positive voice of encouragement in a teen's ear is actually invaluable. Supporting your teen to define realistic goals of what they could achieve in the holidays, and then cheering them on and expressing gratitude for their contribution, could do more than you'll ever now for their self-esteem.
Family time with teenagers may be harder to facilitate than in the old days - when the biggest challenge of an outing was getting your toddler's shoes on - but it is still worth pursuing. Family time will likely look different too. An annual spring trip to the zoo might not hold much appeal for your tweens and teens anymore, but you could still keep up traditions like heading to the same beach, climbing a local mountain or visiting a particular restaurant to mark the holidays.
Traditions can do wonderful things for family dynamics, enhancing a sense of identity and belonging – and our kids don't grow out of those needs, even if they start to drag their feet a little. For even greater buy-in, give your teens the opportunity to suggest activities for the family to do together. What they really feel like doing may surprise you.
My teenager, for example, actually does still want to go to the zoo – but she wants to take her little cousin with us and combine the trip with some babysitting experience.
Keep up the pursuit of family time and dedicate some of the holidays to simply being together, doing whatever it is your family enjoys.
Teenagers prefer the company of other teenagers, and that's okay. In fact, it's a healthy part of their development. If you have any concerns about what your teenager gets up to with other teenagers, that's normal. Try making your home "the" place to hang out. This will require a fridge full of food. A swimming pool would be ideal too, but even just a cleared-out garage with a dartboard and an old couch will suffice.
There's no way to sugar-coat this – the older our teens get, the harder it is to limit and monitor their screen time.
Just because it's hard to keep an eye on our teenagers' online activity, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. This is actually a huge topic and one deserving of its own article, but with regards to school holidays – be encouraged that 24/7 screen time need not be par for the course.
Our teens will thrive with increased time outside, playing a sport, walking on beaches, having conversations around a meal, reading books, playing music, dabbling in some art and craft and so will we. One of the best ways to reduce our teenagers' screen time is to reduce our own. Call a family meeting and ask your young people what they think would be a realistic way to reduce collective device time.
It could be that you have "family tech-free time" between 5pm and 7pm every evening. Rather it's time for things like meal prep, catching up on each other's day, getting some chores done, a walk around the block and having dinner together. Pressing pause on the tech in this way invites everyone to resist digital distraction together, to quiet the relentless ping of notifications, and to simply connect face-to-face with your real-life people.
In this fast-paced world of constant change, one thing stays the same – your teenager needs your help. They might not admit to it, and they might not ask for it. And they most likely won't express heartfelt gratitude for your tireless service, but that doesn't mean you're not needed.
At Parenting Place, we're often encouraging parents to "stay in the arena". If doors slam in your face, metaphorically or otherwise, find another way in. Stay in pursuit of your young person – showing them that you love them and are there for them, no matter what. You are their safe place to land, whatever they are going through. This looks like listening simply to listen, rather than to respond. It looks like extending invitations to connect – over a movie, a walk to the dairy, a drive to the mall.
It looks like enquiring into what your young person is doing on their device with genuine interest, not that naggy voice of interrogation that can be our default.
A meme tutorial has the potential to be a profound (albeit slightly humbling) moment of connection. Actually, that last point is probably a meme just waiting to happen, so probably best I sign off before my teenager reads this.
• Ellie Gwilliam is a passionate communicator, especially on topics relating to families. After 20 years in Auckland working mainly in publishing, Ellie now lives in Northland, with her husband and their three daughters, where she works from home as content editor for Parenting Place. Ellie writes with hope and humour, inspired by the goal of encouraging parents everywhere in the vital work they are doing raising our precious tamariki.
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