Spending Time With Your Teen This Summer

Summer is here, and it’s time for teenagers to get a break from school! They might be more excited about their holiday than you are, but summer is also perfect for spending time with your teen. Even though they’ll want to hang out with their friends and sleep more than usual, there’s still plenty of space for some parent and child hangout time.

Depending on your child’s interests, you might need to get creative when finding ways to hang out with your teen this summer. If you already have some family routines to fall back on, that makes things a little easier. If the school year is typically too hectic for extracurricular family fun, here are some ideas.

Ideas for spending time with your teen this summer

You don’t have to set up big, extravagant plans to spend time with your teen this summer. If you have family vacations planned, that’s great. However, don’t feel like you have to plan a big vacation to have some worthwhile moments with your kids. You can utilize small moments and stay-at-home activities to bond with your teen.

Tourists in your own town

Rather than planning a big trip that requires hotels and rental cars, play tourist in your town for a day. Most people neglect some of the activities that their city has to offer. Take time to explore your city as if you were new to town.

Give your kid some say in the activities as well. Maybe there’s something they’ve always wanted to do, and this could be an excellent time for you to do it together. When setting the parameters for your tourist day, you could also include a budget and make that part of the challenge.

Nature time

Summer can be the perfect time to enjoy the great outdoors. If you live in an area with natural resources for hiking or swimming, spend time with your teen enjoying the scenery. If you live in an urban environment, look for greenspaces or parks that can be used for activities like biking, picnicking, or flying kites.

Movie time

If you live in an area of the country where summer temperatures soar, you might want more indoor activities. Many local movie theaters offer matinee pricing for daytime movies during the week. The summer season is the typical time for blockbuster movies to hit theaters. Find some movies that you and your teen might enjoy.

Play games

No matter your kid’s interests, there’s some kind of game that they like. It might be on a video game console or cell phone or a card game or sport. Find out what game they like and give it a shot. Even if you don’t love the game, your kid will be happy that you showed an interest in something they like.

Alternatively, you could try to teach your kid a game that you like. They might be hesitant at first, but they might get into it. If it’s fun and you’re having a good time together, you’ll both enjoy it.

Play with water

Summer is the right time for water-based activities. If you have a local pool, you can probably spend time with your teen and their friends at the pool. If not, try to set up some water games outside with things like squirt guns or a hose. Teenagers might act like they’re too cool for those sorts of activities, but they tend to have fun with it once they get going.

Arts and crafts

If your kid likes art, you can probably get them on board for some craft ideas. Fortunately, there are a million things that count as “arts and crafts” that teens tend to like, even if they aren’t very craft-minded. Here are a few examples:

Buy an old piece of furniture at a yard sale and redo it
Tie-dye some clothes (bonus points if it has their favorite band, cartoon, etc. on it)
Paint something together
Create a comic together
Dye your hair in fun colors
Make a sticker collage on something they like (Ex: water bottle, bike, their bedroom door, etc.)
Collect remarkable rocks throughout the summer and make something out of them
Take pictures and edit them together

Finding time to connect with your teen

There are many things that you can do to spend time with your teen this summer. It’s vital that you have some fun together, create memories, and stay connected. Life moves so fast these days, it’s easy to lose connection in the chaos.

Carve out time to spend with your kid this summer, and make sure they know about it. Teenagers like to have things to do, but they also want to have a lot of downtimes. It can be tough to convince them to get out of bed or stop watching videos for a little while, but they have fun once they do. Make sure they know that family interaction will be happening throughout the summer.

If your teen refuses to interact or participate in any family activities, you might have cause for concern. Teens are often hesitant to hang out with their family, but they usually come around and start to have a little fun. Teenagers who refuse to leave their room or who will only be social around their friends could be struggling with mental health problems.