Teenagers, that rough year of adolescence where your child no longer thinks heading to the local zoo is a fun pass time. With the arrival of the teen years comes a new challenge of parenthood. It’s challenging to keep teens entertained. Most parents want to make sure they have a teenager who is making good decisions and not wanting to go hang on the streets all hours of the nights. How do parents work to ensure that their teen continues on the path of making good decisions?
Keep Teens Entertained
- Create a Teen Entertainment Room – this doesn’t have to be super fancy or all out expensive of a feat. Setup one area of your home to be teen friendly, maybe have a TV with a blu-ray player and a game console, a foosball table and a mini fridge that is stocked with teen drinks & snacks.
- Welcome Friends in Your Home – your teenager will have friends that you don’t always approve of, so if you make your home a welcome place for your teen’s friends to visit then you are able to creatively allow freedom of friendship choices will maintaining a watchful eye on the crowd.
- Do Not Embarrass Your Teen – part of the joys of parenthood may be to do silly things or say goofy jokes around your teen, stop doing that when friends are in sight. This could push your teen away and in turn diminish all hope of having your teen hang at your home with friends.
- Allow Some Freedom – give your teen some money and drop them off at a local mall or movie theater with friends, allowing them some freedom & space apart from you while you are still doing the drop off and pickup will encourage less rebellious moments.
- Get Your Teen a Job – as a work from home parent, you could easily assign tasks that you pay your teen to complete for you, or have them search for jobs they can do in your local town. This helps give your teen a sense of individuality and responsibility.
- Teen Friendly Family Night – have one night a week designated to hang out as a family doing fun activities that your teen enjoys; such as ordering a buffet sized meal from your local pizza or Chinese restaurant, binge watch teen friendly movies or play board games together.
When you work to incorporate all of these ideas into your daily life or parenting a teenager you will surely increase the likelihood that your teen will be less rebellious. We also want them to learn to make good decisions during their challenging teen years.