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Quality Time With Your Teen
Rachel Paxton
It's sometimes difficult to find ways to be involved with your
teen without totally intruding in his/her life. You want to talk
to them; they don't want to talk to you (most of the time
anyway). I've found the best way to connect with my teenage
daughter is to enter her world and do the things she likes to do.
There's a saying that if you want to understand your child's
world you have to play with them, no matter how old they are.
You don't always have to be even directly interacting with your
teen in order to be involved in their world. Just being around
the same influences they are, and taking an interest in their
activities, lets them know that you care and that you understand
what they deal with from day to day. Then later, at home, you can
talk about the things you have experienced together. It's a great
way to connect. Here are some ways my teenage daughter and I have
spent time together:
My daughter was involved in a music group that did a lot of
fundraising that required a lot of involvement by the parents. At
first I was really resistant to the time involved, but I soon
realized how much fun it was to hang out with my daughter and the
other teens and their parents.
School activities are another great way to be involved in your
child's life, at any age. When they're younger there's field
trips, class parties, etc., you can be involved with, but when
they get older there are activities like school plays that
parents are a very important part of. I've helped sell tickets,
worked at the bake sale…where I didn't even spend time with my
daughter at all, but it meant a lot to her that I was there
supporting her.
Attending sporting events is also important to your child. When
they get older it seems like they don't really care if you're
there or not, but it is important to them even if they don't say
so. It makes them feel like you care about what they do.
Helping my daughter with school projects has been a great way for
us to spend time together. She gets to do the hard part of doing
all the research and writing, and then I do the fun part of
helping her put it all together in the end. Even with older
teens, most don't particularly enjoy doing all this work by
themselves, even if they're completely capable of it. I don't do
the work for her - just help her by giving her feedback on her
ideas and giving her a hand. Often beforehand I will go to the
library with her and help her sort through reference materials. I
know it means a lot to her, especially when she's doing a huge
project and is completely overwhelmed.
Another way I've been involved with my daughter is to be a youth
leader in her church youth group. Again, I am not actually
spending time with her there most of the time, but I am
experiencing the same things she's experiencing and it's giving
us something in common that we can both relate to and discuss.
Those times together have been very meaningful.
As you can see, not all of these activities involve me actually
talking to and hanging out with my daughter. You know as well as
I do that our teens don't always want us hanging around them. I'm
happy for the time I do get to spend with my daughter, for the
little time I have left with her. When we have things in common
my daughter is much more likely to talk to me and share her
feelings with me. When I don't know what she experiences, it is
very hard for me to relate to what she is going through. These
shared experiences have opened up many more opportunities for us
to share and connect that we wouldn't otherwise have.
Copyright 2002
Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author of
the Creative Homemaking Recipe of the Week Club Cookbook, a
cookbook containing more than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For
recipes, tips to organize your home, home decorating, crafts, and
frugal family fun, visit Creative Homemaking at
http://www.creativehomemaking.com
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