17 year old with no summer plans
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Anonymous
| I'd make some suggestions and tell her she has to do something. Maybe that is a community college class, or an art class, or a college essay writing workshop. Maybe she can travel by going to visit a family member or friend. or she can find a job or place to volunteer. |
Anonymous
Plus 1,000 She MUST handle this now, because if she goes to college, she will have a hard time staying focused and doing her homework - college, as you know, is very loose - you take 4 classes per semester which fills up some hours, but there is LOTS of time that the college student must design their own time - to study, sleep, hang out with friends, go to a party, eat, etc. She is at huge danger of ending up just staying on her device way too much when not in class and not getting her homework done, which means she will be on academic probation very quickly. Also, in my house we either worked or volunteered - no WAY were we allowed to "just be at home all day" in the summer. We certainly had downtime, and weren't working 8 hours a day, but a part time job is absolutely required. Now, if you are home, she gets 2 hours of screens per day. The rest of the day if she isn't working at a job/volunteering, she can clean the house from top to bottom weekly (dust, vacuum, wash the kitchen floor & bathrooms). On other days she will do projects - reorganize all closets, clean out the shed (or come to my house and get our shed cleaned out); cutting the grass 2x/week until mid summer, then 1x/week, and edging. And weeding - so much weeding! Hell, if you have silver she can polish the silver as a project. I bet she'd get a PT job if you told her all that (and meant it). NOW - if you work, I have no idea how you could enforce the above, so THEN I'd require a job. Yes, get a job shelving books at the library. Or volunteer somewhere - she can clean cages at an animal shelter without talking to many people. I don't know but GET OUT OF THE HOUSE AND WORK/VOLUNTEER! |
Anonymous
| Take a class, get a PT job, volunteer. She can pick one. |
Anonymous
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No kids in my house are allowed to not work in the summers. Jobs are required at age 16 and every summer afterwards. She should’ve been job searching months ago. It’s too late now.
I’d give her a daily list of chores. |
Anonymous
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Does she have any interests? She’ll need activities for her college apps anyway. Might as well do something.
If she likes online, there are tons of online classes—art/business/science…have her pick something related to something she might want to study in college. There are also tons of speciality overnight camps. My oldest did a couple of art business camps and my youngest is doing a guitar camp. Plus volunteering—does her school work with any places? In person classes—fitness, art, music, etc. SAT class? |
Anonymous
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Why is everyone afraid of their kids?
She can’t not do anything this summer. You’re in charge. You pay for her phone bill; you pay for WiFi. This is an easy fix. She works or volunteers or takes community college classes or you don’t pay for her phone bill. Stop letting her rule the roost. |
Anonymous
I wouldn't say it's an easy fix to try to convince a kid used to spending 12 hours a day on social media to do something else. But it is not hard to put time limits on phones for amount of use and to shut down specific devices off your wifi if your kid isn't doing what they need to do. |
Anonymous
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I don’t allow my teens to “just do nothing” in the summer. That does not mean they need to be constantly busy (some downtime in the summer is great!), but they must be doing SOMEthing structured. Volunteer work, a job, busy with an extracurricular or sport etc. Something. One of mine is similar to your daughter and I required him to get a summer job.
It might be challenging to find a summer job at this point, but I’m sure there are plenty of places she could volunteer. I would tell her it is required, & if she won’t find something, you will find it for her. |
Anonymous
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Temp work
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Anonymous
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Has she already studied for and taken the SAT? That and getting started on college essays are things that need to happen this summer.
I wouldn’t make my kid work (though my 16 yo does lifeguard in the summer), but I would make her do something— work, volunteer, etc. And I would cut her time on screens waaaaay down. |
Anonymous
| Is she on a sports team or band which starts up in August and consumes the whole month? Or is she totally off all summer? |
Anonymous
+1. I didn’t realize people let their kids not work. Unless you are a Kardashian or Hilton or something. |
Anonymous
| Yes, she’s already took her SAT, so she’s finished with that. She will be starting her college apps. If she’s interested, she could do an online class or camp. She’s just quite introverted, so I didn’t know whether to actually make her do things outside of the house or not. OP |
Anonymous
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Well OP her college apps should be a breeze. The hardest part was framing the activities/experiences/interests so that the colleges can get a picture of what your kid is like. If she really has none of those things, there’s not much to do other than writing a common app essay on her screen addiction.
Pick colleges that don’t require supplemental essays. It’s sad that this is her life and you’re just like “oh well.” |
Anonymous
Introverted or anxious? If it’s anxiety then you DO need to push. As the parent of two kids with different types of anxiety, I can assure you that it doesn’t just resolve itself. And allowing the anxious kid to let their worries drive their actions is the very thing that worsens anxiety. I think you have a lot of layers of problems here. |