Raising teenagers is wild. They want their independence and privacy until they need a snack. They don’t want mom’s help until they can’t find their other shoe. It’s this constant push and pull of do-all-the-things-for-me and oh-my-god-i-know-lay-off.
As a parent, my goal is to make sure my children grow into self-sufficient, happy, healthy adults. To meet this goal, I’ve gotta get them some life experience while still under my roof. Which is to say while the stakes are low enough that when they make a mistake, the consequence is me repeating myself for the 492th time and not, you know, jail.
Image Credit.
Life Skills
One of the best things any parent can teach their children is how to look after themselves. This means adding responsibility to their daily lives. The educator in me begs: give your kids chores. This doesn’t mean they need to do everything around the house, but for the love of all that is holy and not entitled, please make sure kids contribute something, ANYTHING. Cleaning or cooking, weekly garbage responsibilities, walking and feeding the dog. Teenagers need to understand the world does not, in fact, revolve around them. Contributing to the greater good is not only helpful, but fosters confidence, reliance, and maturity. I’m told our children will thank us for these life skills later, but have noticed we’ll endure a lot of whining in the meantime.
Other skills, such as managing money, is also important for kids to learn. Depending on their age and maturity, there are a few ways to do this. When younger, an allowance can be a great way to help children understand the value of money, especially if they have things to spend it on or save up for.
As they get older, explain household expenses so kids understand what it takes to fund their lavish lifestyles. It’s incredible watching a 14-year-old’s eyes widen over the actual cost of alllll those streaming apps they just have to have or they’ll, like, totally die.
Enrichment and Adventures
Allow me to nerd out for a second: a great way to improve a child’s education is to make sure they learn about history, culture, language, and art. Education doesn’t have to be boring or in a classroom setting, and it doesn’t just have to support exams or a future career.
Teach kids early that there is such a thing as the joy of learning. Once they realize part of the joy is taking trips, vacationing at interesting locales, and experiencing different places and different people, teenagers are all in, bruh.
Supported Learning
Speaking of how learning can be fun, here’s something that’s not so fun: teaching our children to take control of their learning and studying. When my son made the varsity golf team as a high school freshman, it meant missing a ton of class in the beginning of the year for matches and tournaments. While he was all too happy to miss, he began realizing the avalanche of schoolwork would bury him if he didn’t come correct with his study habits. On top of the newness and overwhelm of being a freshman, he had to make up missed lessons, labs, and work.
Taking inspiration from the wise words of Kevin Hart, I explained to my son: “You gonna learn today.” This 15-year-old boy had to do many scary things, like communicate his needs by scheduling time with his teachers. He learned that cramming for a test the night before results in anxiety, not good grades. He also learned it’s better to look ahead and map out what’s coming, rather than fly by the seat of his pants. Of course, this meant me all up in his biz for the first month of his high school career, but eventually he became more self-sufficient and a calmer demeanor and high grades were the fruits of his (our) labor.
My son isn’t alone in his struggle to balance schoolwork with chores, extracurriculars, and down time. A well-rounded person is just that because they are involved in various activities; however, down time is very important for all of us. Imparting that lesson to our children can help them avoid burning out or becoming overwhelmed to the point of wanting to quit everything.
Furthering Education
Eventually, these teens of ours will need to further their education. That might look like a college education, trade school, an apprenticeship, or joining the workforce. All of those options are great ways to further their education and not live in our basement.
It’s important to consider the costs of furthering education. For Canadian parents, a RESP (registered education savings plan) can be very helpful with this. If you fall behind on your installments, you can look into RESP catch up to reach your lifetime limit by paying more in later years. This is because there is no annual limit, although there is a lifetime limit for payments.
Fellow parents, I’m tired. Raising these babies is not for the faint of heart. When they say it takes a village, that’s the realest thing out there. But let’s keep doing the hard work. May we continue teaching (and reteaching) the teens to spray the pan before frying the eggs. Let’s keep on them about the perils of procrastination. And let us remind them to be good humans and to chase joy and to look a person in the eye when speaking. Let’s keep doing the hard work because our payoff is amazing adults who will one day rule the world, and probably change our diapers. And the people say Amen.
This is a collaborative post.
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