If you have a teenager home for the summer holidays then here are four ways to support them over the next few weeks.
The summer holidays can be tough for children, especially teenagers. While our children are used to seeing their friends at school every day and at their extracurricular activities, during the summer that’s all gone.
Times have changed since we were kids, when we played outside with our neighbours all summer long.
Now, kids playing out all day is a bit rarer; we are more cautious about keeping an eye on them and playdates are generally how kids socialise with pals. Plus we have to work, we don’t get time off just because our kids are off. So the summer is filled with camps and childcare which kids often like as they get to meet new people and make new friends.
But for teenagers things are a little different. They are usually old enough to stay home, especially if you are working from home, and while summer camps for teens do exist, they are a bit less popular.
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So teens are often more isolated than you realise during the summer – no matter how much time they spend online.
4 ways to support your lonely teenager during the summer break
Mum and author, Amanda Ashford, who gives support to parents of teenagers, has shared four ways that parents can support their teens over the summer and they are worth taking note of.
Taking to Instagram, she said:
1. Organise a low-pressure way to see people – ‘When school ends, so does the built-in social life, and a lonely teen can go weeks without seeing a single friend,’ says Amanda. ‘They won’t organise it themselves, the risk just feels too big. Quietly create the chances instead: drive them somewhere, host the thing, sign them up for the camp or the job. Proximity does what a pep talk never could’.
2. Try to help set them up with one anchor activity – This could be a summer job, volunteering, a class or starting a team, anything where they will be seeing the same people every day. ‘Summer’s wide-open space is genuinely hard on a lonely kid,’ said the mum. ‘One standing commitment gives the week a spine and a built-in, low-stakes shot at connection that doesn’t depend on them being brave enough to text first.’
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3. Be there for them without interrogating them – ‘Long empty days get heavy fast’ and asking them why they don’t just text a friend ‘only piles on the shame’. You just need to be around and do the simple things together such as cooking, running errands, getting coffee or just doing nothing in the same space. ‘A teen who feels companioned at home is far steadier than one who feels watched and quizzed about their lack of plans.’
4. Have the right words when they tell you they are lonely – At some point your child might tell you that they don’t have anyone to text or hang out with. You shouldn’t ‘rush to fix it or panic out loud’. Validate their feelings by saying: ‘That sounds really lonely’.
‘Feeling understood is the whole thing. Once they’re not carrying it completely alone, it gets survivable, and they’ll let you help with the rest,’ says Amanda.
‘Summer quietly magnifies loneliness, because suddenly the absence of plans is impossible to hide behind a school day,’ the mum concluded. ‘A teen who knows you see it, without you turning it into a crisis, gets through it so much better. Seen, not fixed, is what carries a lonely kid through July.’
