There comes a time when your baby becomes a full-fledged teenager. During this stage, your child may longer wish to willingly participate in family activities. While this is quite common, the need for family engagement is still important during this stage in childhood.
Today we’re sharing some tips to help you get your teen to participate in family events, without huge arguments. These tips will encourage your teen to be a welcomed part of the family, while allowing them some choices to be independent of the family at times, too.
Make Family Time a Habit
If you didn’t make family time a habit during your teen’s younger years, then they may see this family event as a chore. Chores are something that no child wants to do! The best way to make sure your teen will participate in family events is to make them a consistent part of your family life.
Host a weekly family night, or do something every weekend together. This will help your teen see that family time is a fun event, plus one that helps strengthen the family. When family time is a habit, your teen will be less likely to argue about participating in these family events.
Make it Fun
This is an essential part of getting your teen to participate in family events. If you have younger and older children, then chances are it will be difficult to find something that every child can safely enjoy but it is possible.
Make sure your family events are enticing enough to get your moody teen to participate. This can be hosting an event with activities that your teen and their siblings will enjoy together, or just finding new fun ways to incorporate your teen into the family activities.
Give Two Choices
Another option to get your teen to participate in family events is giving them two choices. Your teen can choose between attending the family event and then hang with their friends the following weekend or missing the family event but be grounded for a week.
Allowing your teen to choose between two options may get some grumpy responses, but it will let them know that there’s always a choice in life, but choices have consequences. This two choice option will encourage your teen to start participating in family events, as they won’t want to be grounded often.
These are just a few of the simple hacks that parents used to get their teens to participate in family events. This stage in childhood is difficult enough without having to argue constantly with your teen about being an active part of the family. Use these tips to get your teen involved in family time more often so that you can enjoy these last few years of having them in your home.