Parenting Teens

Is your teen one of those who likes to participate in every activity coming and going? My daughter doesn’t really participate in that many extracurricular activities, but the ones she does like are very time-consuming. With school back in session, all those activities make our schedules a lot more hectic!

To handle all those activities, and mesh them with your own schedule, you’ll need a good calendar-probably more than one! Keep And Share offers a wide variety of calendars-many of which you can print out. But the best part is that they offer free online calendars, which you can share with others and keep private via the use of passwords. These online sharing calendars are great!

If your teen finds an activity in which he/she would like to participate, they can first check your schedule on the calendar to find out if you have any conflicts. Likewise, you can easily check your schedule from work or home-or anywhere else, if you carry a PDA-to check your child’s schedule if you need to do so.

These calendars are great for keeping up with your whole family’s schedule at once, since they can be changed easily on your computer, without doing a lot of erasing or marking out, and they let anyone in the family see what’s going on, helping prevent scheduling conflicts. Great, especially, for moms, dads and busy teens! Try one!

teens, teenagers, calendars, online calendars, family calendars, planning calendars, schedules, scheduling, parenting teens, parenting teenagers

Living in small spaces (like dorm rooms or small apartments) can be challenging for college-age teens, or anyone else for that matter! Today, I’m posting some tips for making that small space feel bigger and more organized. Some are my own tips, and some come from professional organizer, Marcia Ramsland, author of the book Simplify Your Space.

These tips work for college students, other teens still living in their own room at home, and anyone else who needs to make a small space more usable and comfortable.

1. Minimize the clutter. This is just good, common sense. The more clutter lying around (clothes, notebooks, beer kegs, etc.), the more cluttered a room feels. Instead of spending a Saturday or Sunday picking up the entire house, try taking two minutes to put away as many items as you can every time you leave a room.

2. Clutter can also include frequently used items. If you will have a roommate, make sure you communicate with each other about who will be bringing a toaster, a coffee maker, etc., so you don’t end up with two of everything to go in a postage-stamp sized kitchen! Keep in mind that keeping two-thirds of every flat surface, such as tables and countertops, clear will make your space appear bigger.

3. Create storage wherever you can-under the bed, over the door, and on the walls. There are over-the-door organizers for everything now! If your bed is a little too low, you can get bed lifts at stores such as Bed, Bath, & Beyond or Home Depot, which will give you several extra inches to stash things.

4. Hang shelves above your desk for textbooks and small items. You don’t have to find a place to put a bookcase!

More tips after the break!

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Over at MotheringDotCommune (which is another great place to hang out and discuss kids and other family issues) one of the discussions currently going on involves teens and their chores-i.e. whether they should have them, whether they should be mandated to do them at a certain time or have the freedom to decide when themselves, whether they should be paid to do them, etc.

These questions always make for interesting discussion. Apparently, one mom has a teenage son who says that his friends either don’t have chores at all, or they get paid to do them, while she expects him to do chores for (gasp!) free! Now, I’d tend to take a report like this, from a teen who doesn’t want to do chores, with a grain of salt. Most of the teens I know have parents who expect them to do at least a few things around the house.

Now, some people do pay their kids for chores. One parent I know makes the argument that, since she doesn’t get paid for all the housework she does, she doesn’t see any reason why her teenager should. I’m sure many people consider that a valid argument. Personally, I’ve always been in favor of paying my daughter for doing chores. For one thing, it provides a good lesson in the consequences of not doing things for which you are responsible. No chores, no money. It also makes her responsible for earning her money, rather than having it simply given to her, as an allowance does. I know parents don’t get paid for doing housework (believe me, I know!), but then, unless teens are old enough and working at jobs, they don’t have any other way of earning money.

Another issue raised was whether teens should have a say in when they do the chores, or should those rules be set by the parents. Apparently, one mom’s son wants to do his chores after he goes out with his friends, and when he’s not tired from other things like school, sports and friends. Personally, I think this is best handled (at least for me) by having it both ways.

I usually tell my daughter in the morning that her chores have to be done by a certain time-say dinnertime, or 8:00 pm. Then, it’s up to her when, during that span of time she wants to do them. This is the same on weekdays and weekends, so that on weekends, she might have around a 12-hour or so window during which she can do those chores. She can get them done right away, wait until the last minute, or any time she feels like it. This gives her a feeling of some control. It’s not all entirely up to mom when she does something.

A lot of the issues surrounding chores make for good parenting discussions. Does your teen have chores? Is he/she paid for doing them? Do they decide when or do you? I’d really like to hear from some of you out there!

[tags]parents, parenting, parenting teens, parenting teenagers, teens, teenagers, chores, allowance, responsibilities[/tags[