Tips for parenting teens (13-18 y/o)
Our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child. Instead, our job is to provide a protected space for love, safety, and stability in which children of many unpredictable kinds can flourish. Our job is not to shape our children’s minds; it’s to let those minds explore all the possibilities that the world allows. Our job is not to tell children how to play; it’s to give them the toys… We can’t make children learn, but we can let them learn. ―Alison Gopnik
👥 Serves: 1 person
🎚 Difficulty: Medium
⏳ Total time: Ongoing
🥣 Ingredients: “The Anxious Generation” book by Jonathan Haidt (if you’re curious to find out more about it!)
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Community, Digital Consciousness, Liberatory Learning
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Autonomy, Curiosity, Digital boundaries, Digital disconnection, Fun, Play, Relating to Others
Tips for parenting teens (13-18 y/o)
📝 Description
Supporting healthier teenagehood in the digital age.
In the book The Anxious Generation, author Jonathan Haidt claims that “two trends – overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world – are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation”.
Haidt calls for four foundational reforms to provide a foundation for healthier childhood in the digital age:
- No smartphones before high school.
- No social media before 16.
- Phone-free schools.
- Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence.
The following recipe offers some tips for parents of teens, aged 13 to 18 (both in terms of more and better experiences in the real world and less and better experiences on screens). If you have younger children, check out our additional recipes “Tips for parenting young children (0–5 y/o)” and “Tips for parenting children (6–13 y/o)”.
🌟 Steps
Step 1 – Increase their mobility
Let your teens choose the transportation modes that make sense for where you live: bicycles, buses, trains, etc. Also, let them hang out at a “third place”, e.g. the shopping mall, the park, etc.
Step 2 – Rely on them at home
Rely on your teens at home, e.g. for cooking, cleaning, running errands, etc. It is a helpful strategy to ward off the growing feeling among Gen Z teens that their lives are useless.
Step 3 – Encourage them to find a part-time job
Interacting with adults that are not the parents or teachers can be an important learning experience, even if your teens engage in occasional gigs. Even better if they take up a role that requires guiding or caring for younger children, e.g. babysitter, camp counselor, assistant coach, etc.
Step 4 – Consider a high-school exchange programme
Entertain the possibility of sending your teens on a high-school exchange programme, whether in your own country or abroad. These programmes support the nurturing of competencies such as autonomy and adaptability.
Step 5 – Bigger thrills in Nature
Let them go on bigger, longer adventures in Nature, e.g. backpacking, rock climbing, canoeing, hiking… Invite them to cultivate a sense of wonder and awe in the natural world.
Step 6 – Take a gap year after high-school
You may want to consider letting your teens take a gap year after high-school to discover more about their interests and the world. A gap year doesn’t postpone your teens’ transition into adulthood, but rather accelerates it because they build skills, responsibility, and independence.
Step 7 – Transition from basic phones to smartphones
When you decide to move from basic phones to smartphones for your teens, ensure you talk to them and monitor how the transition is going. It is important to set clear expectations about the degree of autonomy and when smartphones can or cannot be used. Whenever you let your teens open social media accounts, look out for signs of problematic or addictive use.