Today’s post comes from a Q&A session from a recent webinar, Soul of Discipline for Teens and Tweens, with Kim John Payne.Two parents in the session asked thoughtful questions about busy-ness with teenagers. Do you have struggles or little victories in this area to share? Please do join in the discussion in the comments.
Q: My main challenge is busyness with my teens. There are so many ‘great opportunities’ for them to participate in. I’d appreciate guidance on how to help them make decisions about which activities to commit to so there is still time for ‘down time’
Q: I’ve been struggling with “filtering out the adult world,” in terms of what comes at my child whenshe’s not at home. How can we influence this as parents? Beyond soothing at home, asking whatshe’s thinking. It seems like the outside world is pouring in so fast, and sometimes setting myselfas a gatekeeper in every realm feels like it’s too controlling. How to work with outside forces,peers, schools, etc.?
Kim’s response:
This seems to have a few layers to it…
1. Home Base
Our kids are certainly moving further out into the world at these two stages in their lives and yet, because of this, they need an even more solid home base. It is easy to overlook the need for the acute need for home base at this time in their lives, as there is so much great stuff out there to participate in.
2. Enrichment Opportunity vs. Unfolding Experience
There seems to be almost a philosophical divide between the two ways of looking at these years
in our kid’s lives. Do we try and “get” as much as possible for our kids, or do we trust that life will unfold for them in rhythmical waves of development. When our children are young, it is perhaps a little easier to justify protecting them and giving them down time as we can see
how much they thrive on a calm, rhythmical environment. For example, we notice how they sleep
and eat better and without so much fussiness. The same is true for our older kids but now they are
more prone to emotional outbursts and “fever” as that is the place they are living in more strongly.
The “Enrichment Opportunity” way of living seems to be based on the “more is better”
principle where we do everything in case we miss out and deprive the young person of
something. It is like receiving a catalog in the mail and buying everything pictured in it
as it all looks nice and possibly useful in case we miss out on something. Can you
imagine what our home would look like if we did this? But this is what our lives feel
like when we adopt the “Enrichment Opportunity” way of living, emotionally cluttered, distracted, and hard to know what is truly important and of value.
3. What is rare is precious.
We often give way to our kid’s demands to do all these activities. They tell us
“everybody is doing it.” We may feel that unless they do all these activities that they
will not have friends and that we are denying them valuable social opportunities. My
experience over the years is that when a young person’s participation in
out-of-the-home activities is balanced, the kind of friends he makes in that activity are more
enduring and healthier. Because your son will tend to be calm and enter the activity
with his “cup half empty” because of the life space he has been given, he will…
- absorb more, draw other calm, balanced kids towards him
- be able to deflect negative or even antisocial behavior by naturally “putting on a social rain coat.”
- and be far less vulnerable and reactive to teasing or bullying
4. Entitlement
Most of us have experienced a spending spree in our lives. The rush of acquiring
something that leads to wanting to buy something else. By limiting our kid’s activities,
we prevent the same dynamic that can lead to a feeling whereby they feel entitled to
all these rather expensive and demanding activities. We all want to raise our kids so
that they have a wonderful sense of gratitude for what they receive in life and we can
help this by being very selective and careful about which activities they take part in.
One mother I knew insisted on their “serial activity” daughter beginning to pay for half
of all the cost of activities. This slowed down the number of requests and brought
much needed perspective.
5. Time Bandits.
Some parents have reduced the amount of activities simply because it was robbing
them of family time. They found that after they regained connection to their son or
daughter and that helped build stronger relationships that sure assisted them in being
able to work through some of the tougher times.
6. Aperture
If your son or daughter is being overwhelmed by too many outer activities or the kind
of toxic “stuff” that can happen, narrow the aperture of how much is flowing into her life
by either cutting back on the time or basing your selection of the activity more on the health
of the social dynamic.