Spending Time With Your Teen

Posted by Susan Carney Jun 29, 2007

In my work as a school counselor, I obviously spend a lot of time talking to kids. One of the things I am most curious about are teen’s relationships with their parents. What goes into making a good relationship versus a poor one? What makes the difference between the student who can’t say enough positive things about their parents, and those who have nothing positive to say? I’ve spoken to both kinds of kids.

I’m always looking for that special ingredient that allows a parents to still remain “cool” in the eyes of their teen, during a time when many teens wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with their parents in public. At one time, I thought that the “cool” parents were the lenient ones, the ones that remembered what it was like to be a kid and as a result, cut their kid a lot of slack. I know now that kids need limits to feel secure, and in fact, many kids view lenient parents as clueless pushovers.

A key piece of a strong relationship between parents and child is, I think, spending time together. It seems like such a simple thing, yet I am always astounded by the number of kids who tell me that their parents don’t have time to hang out with them. Not to eat dinner, not to play a hand of cards, not to sit and talk about how their day was. What are the parents doing that is taking up all of their time? The answers vary: talking to their friends on the phone, playing video games, hanging out in chat rooms, watching TV, hanging out at bars. Kids are starving for our attention, and we have to find time in our lives to give it to them. It has to be a priority.

Check out Activities for Parents and Teens for some ideas on how to reconnect with your teen this summer.