Surviving a Lockdown with Tweens and Teens at Home
By: Jennifer Butterfoss
Tags: Teenagers, Homeschooling, Coronaviruses, Social Media, Parenting Advice

Surviving a Lockdown with Tweens and Teens at Home

If your child is already on top of her school work, no need to finger wag.

When I was a senior in high school my friends and I decided to paint our official school-sanctioned “graffiti wall.” We were the misfits, the non-athletes, and decided it was our turn to make our presence known. I can’t remember what exactly we painted, because we didn’t exactly “color inside the lines.” Instead, we painted over street signs and throughout our school parking lot, foolishly vandalizing hundreds of dollars in school property. Aside from being made to clean it up before anyone official found out (we were not the slickest with our rebellion) my parents ended up grounding me for several weeks during what was supposed to be the final hoorah of my high school career. No car, no outings, no gathering with friends of any kind. It was torture.

Sound familiar?

Well, folks…we’ve all been grounded. Not sure what it is we did globally to earn this consequence (well, I can think of a few things) but here we are. No outings, no gathering with friends, no social fun for the next few weeks, maybe months. As a former middle school teacher and site leader, I have worked with tweens and teens for many years. I came up with the 6 essential things unique to this age group to keep in mind while navigating our lock down with teenagers in the house, along with my best tips for getting through your family COVID-19 “grounding” together.

Autonomy

Some teens are neat as a pin. Others are complete slobs. Some teens are incredibly on top of their schoolwork. Others are completely over it. Before you start finger wagging to make beds each morning or complete virtual work, have a conversation with your kid. Brainstorm a list of the things you hope will get done around the house in the coming weeks, whether it’s chores, schoolwork, exercise or limiting screens. Figure out together which ones he has a grip on and areas where he’s going to need some assistance. Ask him what he thinks is fair to accomplish in order to be able to do some of the past times he wants to do, like screen time. The phrase “First ____, then ____” comes in particularly handy for any age group. As in, “First you complete your virtual learning for the day, then you can hop on the X-Box.” For some help on a system to get this going, check out my article on setting up systems to get organized for homeschool success. You will also want to come up with some ground rules together about how you want to get along in the coming weeks, what some reasonable limits on screens might look like and post these for all to see. Include everyone in the house, let him take the lead and have him write them out.

Space

Teens crave space and solitude, something even harder with COVID-19 forcing more togetherness.

For those of us living in the city, space is at a premium. However, most of my memories of my angsty teenage years are of being holed up in my room, blasting Kurt Cobain and cherishing my closed door. Teens. Need. Space. If they don’t have their own room to retreat to, brainstorm together how you can get this to them and honor it. Maybe it’s carving out a blocked off corner in a small apartment. Maybe it’s taking over a garage. Maybe it’s simply deciding together on a schedule when the grown ups will go on a long, socially distant walk and give the teens an hour or so of having the house to themselves. But find out what their space needs are and come up with a solution together.

Identity Shaping

The teenage years are all about carving out that unique identity. It’s a time for fashion experiments, labels, and anti-labels, cliques and anti-cliques, culture and counter-culture. Our teens’ dependence on social media to define who they are and how they show up in the world is something we didn’t have during our own teenage years. Whether you’re a fan of social media for adolescents or not, it’s here. I recall a controversial plea from parenting experts who gave a workshop at my former middle school: Read your teenager’s diary. But never, never, never let them know you are reading their diary. They don’t keep diaries anymore, they keep blogs, Snapchats, Instas and even “Finstas” (For all you old fogies out there like me, I just learned those are fake Instagram accounts to divert adult attention from the real scary stuff they are posting to a select few of their peers).

Use this time to get more attuned to your child’s social media accounts.

There are plenty of resources and expert advice online and from tech executives with teenagers themselves about monitoring your child’s social media account. It’s a sensitive topic and many parents believe that giving teens space should translate to cyberland as well. I wholeheartedly disagree. I’m not even sure as adults we have mastered all the Do’s and Don’ts of over-sharing and cyber faux pax’s to properly model for our own kids. We need to be in this together. Get a bit more hands on with your teen’s social media accounts, especially now that this will be one of their only means to stay in touch with friends.

Peer Approval

Teenagers are constantly seeking guidance and approval from their peer group, not the adults in their lives. The messaging they are getting from their friends about how seriously to take COVID-19, whether to push the boundaries on any shelter-in-place orders or how to tackle homeschooling will play a significant role in their own attitudes during this crisis. If you haven’t already reached out or connected with the parents of your child’s peer group, now might be the perfect excuse to connect and swap ideas. If your child is on a positive trajectory and showing signs of rising to the occasion either with her homeschool work or cheerful attitude during this time, talk to her about what she can do to influence her peers. Pay attention to which peers are on the right track and steer some greater connection in this direction.

Peers more than ever are going to influence how your child responds to this crisis. Pay attention to who is positively or negatively influencing your kid during this time. Reach out to other parents.

Tune in to Facetime chats if you can overhear a bit and observe the influence your teen’s peers might be having. Are your child’s friends understandably anxious, stressed, depressed during this time and venting continuously to others? There is a point when it may be too much and this friend should be seeking professional help instead. Your child understandably wants to be there for her friends, but help your teen set appropriate boundaries. Limit contact with others who may be spiraling beyond a teenager’s capacity to take on. You can’t forbid your child from communicating with others (this will only make them want to do it more) but offer your services as “bad cop” if she needs an easy out. You can take all the blame for limiting contact and help her save face with the relationship. Reach out to other parents if you are concerned about their kid’s mental health.

Rebelling

Teenagers are meant to rebel. It’s in their genetic composition. Lock down, shmock down. The Fear of Missing Out (or FOMO) is a teenager’s worst nightmare and COVID-19 is wailing at every teenage right of passage right now, like driver’s ed, spring break and senior prom. They’re going to experiment with identities and try on the opposite of how they think you see them. Is your family fairly studious? Maybe this will be when they decide to blow off school work. Are you a slob? Maybe they’ll amp up their neat streak. I don’t mean to make you paranoid, but even the best behaved teenagers are going to rebel in some form of another as a means for testing the boundaries with everything going on. Lots of social media posts joke about alcohol and controlled substances as a sure fire method to get through these tough times. You may want to keep a closer pulse on your liquor cabinet or medicines.

Nothing short of the National Guard can stop teenage passion.

If your teen is in a romantic relationship, nothing short of the National Guard is going to keep him away from his true love. Think about the things you got away with as a teenager under your own parents’ roof. Now add webcams and Facetime and COVID-19 into the mix. They’re getting much more creative. My best advice is to wake up, heighten your suspicions a bit and address it proactively. Talk to your child about drugs and alcohol. Talk to them about sexting and child pornography laws. Talk about Coronavirus and why we are being asked to make the sacrifices that we are. Avoid outright forbidding or commanding them to do this and that. Instead, talk seriously about repercussions and life choices. Stress how much you care about them and love them and emphasize the repercussions for those they care deeply about as well, like elderly grandparents or those with weakened immune systems.

Being Seen

Teenagers want to be seen and heard, plain and simple. They have lots of opinions and ideas for what’s going on right now. They are full of creative solutions for what they need, how they can contribute and what they can do to get through the next few weeks or months. Teenagers have a funny way of opening up. They don’t do it often, but when they do, jump on it. Be ready to put your laptop down, look them in the eye and listen to their ideas. Say yes as much as humanly possible to each and every request that’s within reason and doesn’t pose a danger or violation of shelter-in-place orders. This will make the increasing number of no’s that much more palatable as they continue to come in.

Finally, count your blessings. COVID-19 is undoubtedly going to be hard on everyone and will have lasting effects we haven’t quite come to grips with yet. But during a phase in life when kids want to distance themselves and get away from their parents more than ever, the universe has made it (mostly) impossible for them to do so. Be compassionate, strategic and lean in to these times with your teen. Social distancing from the rest of the world might spare you the heartbreak of typical teenage distancing at home.