Doesn’t it get harder to keep them busy the older they get? It’s not that they need entertaining as such, but engaging them in meaningful activity is somewhat of a challenge! Some of you will already know that as well as the girls, I have a 16 year old boy. He’s not a bad lad by any stretch of the imagination but the thought of him spending nearly 3 months in his room playing ******* before he starts 6th Form fills me with dread. It doesn’t feel like productive time at all.
I was a little jealous when I read Kate’s post talking about her teens work experience. My boy needs something like that! But opportunities for young people seem so few and far between these days.
I have wanted him to try and find a job, and to date this has proved fruitless. Where have all the Saturday jobs gone that we used to do when we were kids? Or is he taking me for a bit of a ride! He’s being a bit picky I must admit, which won’t help him in adulthood that’s for sure.
Teaching teens life skills is a full time job in itself as they are a bit lazy, and do need several nudges in the right direction. My hands are a bit tied at the moment being busy looking after his little sisters and he does take advantage of this a bit, a lot! But he’s 16, and taking advantage isn’t a skill that pays the bills in the real world, especially when used to avoid some hard work!
He helps out at home when asked and he does have set jobs around the house, so he’s not left to his own devices all the time but he still needs adult guidance and a bit of carrot and stick action to keep him on track.
Luckily for us, my husband is a software engineer and teen is working on some coding for his website, MCSERVERLIST (it’s something to do with Minecraft & servers and that’s about all I know) but that in itself requires management as they get frustrated with each other. Progress is being made though, which is a step in the right direction and teen is gaining skills in an area he wants to pursue as a career, so this I’m happy about, but is it enough?
Do you have teens? Do they do any kind of paid work? Should I be pushing for him to get some part time job or am I flogging a dead horse in today’s job market?