Up until the teenage years, children generally are
pretty happy if they’re told when they have to do things. But with a
growing sense of independence, your teenager may quickly decide that
such time-dependent scheduling is being “treated like a child.” What can
you do to alleviate the stress this situation causes without having
your family’s schedule fall apart? The following sections answer this
question and offer information to help you decide when and how to adapt
your scheduling to accommodate your family’s teenagers.
Reviewing Assigned Chores
You can begin by
looking at the chores that you’ve assigned to your child. Do a lot of
them have to be done at specific times? If so, you may want to start to
reassign these chores to someone else, especially a younger member of
the family. Instead of these chores, delegate tasks to your teenager
that require more responsibility. Frequently, these tasks are not as
time-dependent. Get buy-in from your adolescent by allowing her to have
some input into which family responsibilities she’ll take on. Explain
that she’ll still have to contribute the same amount of effort—or maybe
even more—to the family, but that she’ll have more autonomy in
determining when she’ll make the time to do it. Table 1 shows you some trades that can be made between time-dependent chores and time-flexible chores.
Of course, sometimes
there’s just no one else available to undertake a time-dependent chore.
For example, if you and your teenager are the only people in your family
who are old enough to take the dog for an afternoon walk, and you have
to be at work at that time of day, then the chore cannot be reassigned
to another family member.
Don’t just insist that your
teenager conform to a schedule that accommodates this task. Instead, ask
him if he can propose a workable alternative. Perhaps he’d like to pay
the next-door neighbor to walk the dog. Perhaps he’d like to undertake a
household project you would have paid someone else to do in exchange
for your hiring someone to walk the dog. Or perhaps he’d like to start a
dog-walking service and get paid to walk other people’s dogs along with
yours. The solution to which you agree is not nearly as important as
the dialogue that gets you there. When your teenager has some ownership
of the outcome, he’ll have a more cooperative attitude about
implementing it.
Unfortunately, sometimes
there simply is no alternative to your teenager having to do a chore at a
certain time. You can use these situations as opportunities to
reinforce your adolescent’s sense of maturity by explaining that having
these sorts of responsibilities is a part of growing up and becoming an
adult.
Balancing Leisure Time
Sometimes it seems—at
least to the adults—that all teenagers do is sit in front of the
computer, play video games, and watch television. So, naturally, if the
family’s schedule is becoming hectic, it’s easy to place the blame on
these seemingly lazy members of the family. But don’t forget that all
family members need leisure time in their schedules . If you think your teenager is wasting too
much time, have an open discussion with her and come to an agreement
about how much time she should be spending in front of a video monitor.
You can set up parameters in a number of ways:
-
A single total of
time allowed per week or per day for recreational computer, video
games, and television. For example, 16 hours a week spent among these
activities in any combination. -
A total time per week for these activities with a daily maximum. For example, 16 hours a week, but no more than 3 hours a day.
-
A
time limit per week or per day for these activities collectively with
specified caps on individual activities. For example, 16 hours a week on
these activities, with a maximum of 5 hours of TV watching. -
A
time limit per week or per day for each of these activities
individually. For example, a maximum of 2 hours of recreational
computer, 1 hour of video game playing, and 1 hour of television
watching per day. -
A
trade-off against time spent doing something “more productive.” For
example, each hour of recreational computer, video games, and television
must be balanced against a certain amount of time spent doing homework,
studying, and reading.
Whatever the system you
work out with your teenager, you can indicate your trust in her ability
to manage her life by letting her monitor her own time by filling out a
log similar to the one in Table 2.
If you’re using a trade-off system, you’ll want to add columns to keep
track of homework, studying, reading, and their totals, as well. Getting
your teenager accustomed to keeping a log will also promote her
understanding of the pace at which time passes.
| Week of ___________________________ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recreational Computer | Video Games | Television | Total | |
| Sunday | ||||
| Monday | ||||
| Tuesday | ||||
| Wednesday | ||||
| Thursday | ||||
| Friday | ||||
| Saturday | ||||
| Total | ||||
To make the use of a log as effortless as possible, try one of the following:
-
Compose the master log form on your computer and print out and post a new form each week.
-
Compose
the master log form on your computer and have your teenager fill out
the form on the computer and print—or electronically send—the report for
you each week. -
Create the master log on paper, photocopy several weeks’ supply, and post a new form each week.
-
Create
the master log on paper, laminate it, and have your teenager fill it in
each week with a dry-erase marker; then you check it and wipe it clean
for the start of each week. (Caution: Use this method only if you are
confident you’ll review and wipe the log clean before the start of each
week.)
Acknowledging Your Teenager’s Outside Responsibilities
Your teenagers will be seeking employment to earn money,
too. They may start with jobs such as babysitting, delivering
newspapers, and mowing lawns. Then they’ll probably progress to
employment with required hours. These jobs are very important to your
teen, so you should give them the same sort of precedence as your job in
your family’s schedule.
To complicate
your scheduling endeavors further, teenagers frequently find jobs with
early morning, late night, or irregular hours. So, here again, you are
presented with the opportunity to collaborate with your teen so that
neither you nor he is stuck with an unworkable schedule. Really, the
scheduling process is no different from what we’ve already discussed;
it’s just that now, in addition to the adults in the family, you have a
teenager on your scheduling team.