Parent Teen Night
Did you know that 77% of teens want to spend more time with their parents?
While teens do start gravitating toward spending time with their peers and it can feel like they no longer want to spend time with you, it’s not true. We still have a massive influence on who are teens are becoming!
Plus, there are just SO MANY THINGS they need to know before they move out. Enter Parent Teen Night (PTN for short). Habits and routines are powerful and it’s important that we teach our teens deliberately and not wait for moments to magically appear.
One night a week, set aside time to actively teach and connect with your teen. When we started our parent teen nights, I realized the hardest part was coming up with what to do with them. So, I created a fantastic PDF with a more than a year’s worth of ideas for you! It is organized into 12 topics, one for each month of the year. Each topic includes:
Ted Talks
YouTube videos
PDFs
Conversation starters
Interactive videos I have made specifically for PTN
Activities
Things to watch out for as parents
The twelve topics are:
Goals and Habits
Healthy Relationships
Organization
Physical Health
Motivation and Procrastination
Mental Health
Communication
Back to School/Studying
Identity and Purpose
Managing Emotions
Body Image and Self-Esteem
Just for Fun (for December)
If you held a twenty minute Parent Teen Night once a week 50 weeks a year during the teen years, you would spend a whopping 6,000 minutes deliberately teaching and interacting with your teenager. That is a LOT of time!
Here are a few tips for starting a successful PTN:
Choose a time each week so that it becomes a habit. If you skip too many weeks in a row it gets harder to continue the tradition.
Let your teen choose the topics. You can read a few options from the website and then let them choose what sounds the most interesting to them.
Occasionally surprise them with a special treat. You can purchase it ahead of time or take them out for something last minute.
Mix fun with educational. Resist the urge to lecture! They will start to dread it if you lecture too often.
Make it non-negotiable. If it is creating a lot of contention don’t keep going, but don’t allow your teen’s moods to keep you from doing what you know is important.
J.P Sartre said simply, “We are our choices.” While there are a lot of things we can’t choose during these busy years, we can choose to set aside a few minutes each week to deliberately teach and connect with our teens. Let me know if you have any questions. I am here to help!