The Parent Compass

When Grace was nine years old, her parents took her to the circus for her birthday. That was the day that she fell in love with the flying trapeze. Every day that followed, Grace begged and pleaded for lessons so that she could learn to fly. Her parents had absolutely no idea how to expose their daughter to this foreign hobby. But Grace couldn’t stop dreaming about flying just like the performers; she pored over every trapeze YouTube video she could find and even enlisted her brother to help her construct a makeshift swing in the backyard. Grace’s parents considered it their duty to try to provide an experience for Grace’s obsession, despite their fear that she wouldn’t like it once she tried it. To their surprise, after hours of research, they found some summer camps that offered circus components; the day Grace hooked up to her harness was the beginning of her long trapeze career. She attended circus camp every summer, watched Cirque du Soleil shows live and on YouTube, and even located a vacation destination for her family that offered trapeze lessons. She applied to colleges with her “pointy” interest, making sure that her college choices were located near to a gym where she could continue to hone her craft.

Parents, one of your primary goals in following your parent compass should be to truly see your child— the child you have, not the child you want to inauthentically create. We concede that it sure sounds simple, but in reality takes a great deal of time, patience, observation, tinkering, and humility alongside good partnering with your spouse (or other single parents and extended family) along the way. It involves listening and genuinely hearing what your child is telling you, whether explicit or not. Professor of Psychiatry Daniel J. Siegel and psychotherapist Tina Payne Bryson, authors of The Power of Showing Up and The Whole-Brain Child, write:

You know the clichés of the dad who pushes his disinterested son to be an athlete, or the mom who rides her child to make straight A’s, regardless of the child’s inclinations. These are parents failing to see who their kids really are. If they happen occasionally over the course of a childhood, they won’t make a huge difference—no one can truly see a child 100 percent of the time. But over time the child’s sense of not being seen can not only harm the child, but the parent and the relationship.

That sets up a heartbreaking reality: there are kids who live a majority of their childhoods not being seen. Never feeling understood. Rarely having the experience that someone feels their feelings, takes on their perspective, knows their likes and dislikes. Imagine how these children feel—invisible and alone. When they think about their teachers, their peers, even their parents, one thought can run through their minds: “They don’t get me at all.”¹

Recently, I met with a young student whose mother confided in me on the phone before the meeting. She had been expressly concerned that her son, Matthew, was “lazy” (her words, not mine). Trish complained to me that her sophomore wasn’t interested in any activities outside of the classroom, and she was deeply frustrated when it came to helping him identify ways to “appropriately” spend his free time. Armed with this background information, I was really interested in getting to know Matthew and trying to identify what truly made him “tick”—it’s my experience that typically something is there. During our session, admittedly Matthew did have some difficulty identifying what got him excited about his classes at school. But that’s when we moved on to goal setting (see Chapter 7 for our unabashed support for goal setting). While goals one and two came a bit slowly, when it came time to set goal number three, Matthew knew immediately that goal three should be dedicated to the improvement of his cooking skills. While he had been somewhat reserved during our session up until that point, all of a sudden Matthew came alive, gushing about the recipes he had tried (and failed), those he had nailed, and those he planned to test out before the approaching Thanksgiving holiday. He told me about the cooking class he had researched online that he planned to take with his mom (which she obviously conveniently forgot about when she told me he was lazy). I realized that all Matthew needed was the freedom to talk about what really got him excited. Parents, here is a tip: if your child’s interest isn’t strictly “academic,” indulge him anyway. The benefits could be immense— and even unexpected. He will learn not only to listen to his gut, but also that you hear him—that you trust his instinct. What’s more, you never know where his interest will lead. Maybe a cursory interest in cooking will lead him to explore the delectable and scientific world of molecular gastronomy (true story—I’ve seen it happen). Or maybe it will lead to an audition on a junior chef reality television show (true story, too). And won’t you want to be sitting—and tasting—in that delicious test kitchen?

The first step to facilitating your child’s interests is to expose her to as much as you can, whether thoughtful ideas, academic pursuits, or extracurricular activities such as sports, art, community service, or religion. If we really challenge ourselves to listen, our kids start to indicate the things they most enjoy and generally show some enthusiasm and passion for certain areas. Once you see these interests emerge—even if their natural skills don’t seem to be too strong in these areas—fuel and facilitate more of them. If the activities seem to genuinely excite them, run with it.

Be careful here: it is easy to let our own biases and wishes for them creep in. I am certainly not immune to this misstep. One of my daughters begged for ballet lessons seemingly from the moment she could speak. When she encountered music that ever-so-remotely resembled “ballet music,” the urge to dance overtook her little body, and she’d sashay around the room. A swimmer and volleyball player myself, I stubbornly wanted her to turn toward similar sports—but you know what? That wasn’t her thing. Only after she implored my husband to build her a life-size ballet barre that she could keep in her room for daily practice did it dawn on me that I needed to practice what I preached, and we started to explore the unfamiliar (to me) world of dance. Parents, do you see yourself in this experience?

There is no right or wrong, no preconceived, rote profile in the eyes of colleges. Whatever makes a student tick is what schools want to know about. An entire class full of computer scientists wouldn’t make any sense. But a class comprised of computer scientists, trapeze artists, molecular gastronomists, tuba players, entrepreneurs, bioengineers, event planners, World War II aficionados, ballerinas, and gerontologists? Now that’s interesting. And that builds a diverse and intentional community—diverse in interests, ethnicities, socio-economic backgrounds and more—something that college admission officers try to achieve when building a class. Don’t get suckered into thinking that one way is the right way or the only way or what colleges are “looking for.” Pushing your kids into an interest or activity because you believe—or someone told you—it will “look good” for college is never a reason to force your teen into doing something. And frankly, that approach goes against everything that we are trying to teach in The Parent Compass. Honestly, how would you like to show up every day to a job at which you didn’t have the freedom to exercise your strengths or to have a career that your parents dreamed you would have (rather than the one you dreamed about)? Parents, take the time to expose your kids to different recreational and extracurricular or academic activities, and see what sticks. And remember: life’s goal does not need to be the Olympics, a college athletic scholarship, or a future professional sports endeavor. Help your teen pursue what she enjoys and you will by default be following your parent compass.

When supporting your teen’s extracurricular interests—which by now you should know may very well not line up with your own—realize that his interests may be just about anything: school sports teams or clubs, volunteer organizations, religious activities, performing or fine arts, or academic activities such as robotics, research, speech and debate, Model United Nations, mock trial, other academic endeavors, and even an off-the-beaten-path hobby (remember trapeze-loving Grace?). Tutoring, by the way, is not an extracurricular activity! When consulting with your teen as he participates in the activities that bring him pleasure, understand that they are done for your teen’s growth and enjoyment. This doesn’t mean that the activities have to be fun and engaging every step of the way (and we support teens doing hard or boring tasks because, hey, life is sometimes that way), and they may be rigorous and taxing at times, but overall these activities should be enjoyable.

I remember a session with parents who told me about their older son, Jack. Jack had pointed enthusiastically at airplanes before he could speak. His eyes would light up as he gestured toward the sky, squealing with delight, practically jumping from his mother’s arms upward every time he saw a plane. As the years progressed, Jack’s father took his son to watch airplanes take off from the airport; his mother toured airplane museums with him. They subscribed to aviation magazines, checked out library books about planes, and went to movies and watched TV shows with airplanes in them, and when he was old enough, his parents allowed him to get flying lessons. In college, Jack studied physics, and now, he—not surprisingly—has become a pilot.

Jack’s younger brother, Nate, was quite the opposite. He liked to try many things whether academic clubs, athletics, community service, or summer employment. He was more like a “Jack-of-all-trades” than a Nate. His parents were concerned that his interests were too varied and all over the place. But when I asked Nate about his full calendar of extracurricular activities, he told me that he couldn’t and wouldn’t give up any of them. “They each excite me. And they bring out different parts of me.” Unless these activities were somehow harming his classroom focus or putting a strain on his sleep or grades, I didn’t see any reason that he had to give any of them up. What did Nate go on to do in college? Two majors and a minor—and more activities, too! Nate was a kid who liked to juggle a lot. Two brothers. Same parents. Totally different sons with very different styles and interests. Jack and Nate’s parents allowed them both to pursue their independent interests.

Jack’s trajectory is what we call “pointy,” certain of a passion and almost monomaniacal in pursuing it. But it isn’t always that clear and often takes time to see how interests evolve. Nate, on the other hand, is more well-rounded. Some kids like to try on a lot of activities and never decide upon just one. But as parents following a compass, we need to be in tune with what does excite and enthuse our kids, even if it is a very different interest from our own. Pushing kids to do what we want them to do doesn’t always work out, as we have seen over and over again in our years working with teens and families; in fact, doing so almost inevitably leads to burnout and, worse, resentment and discord in your relationship with your teen.

When your teen starts to explore her interests, you may want to start having conversations about values. Ask her what she values and, more importantly, help her put names to those values. Indeed, we’ve found that most junior high and high school students haven’t had the opportunity to explicitly identify their own personal values (and they are different for every one of us!), yet values should be the driving force behind everything from time management and prioritization to activities selection and even classroom learning. Does she value integrity? Achievement? Loyalty? Commitment? Perhaps she values adventure or family. Talk to her often about purpose. Our core values should drive the choices that we make, and when they don’t, we feel unfulfilled. So parents: show restraint. Remember, you had your turn to pursue your middle and high school purpose. Now, you are just along for the ride, facilitating when appropriate and helping to navigate the ups and downs along the way.

Fellow parents, you should be seated in the back seat as opposed to maneuvering the steering wheel when it comes to how your teen spends time outside of school. Ask yourself how many of your child’s activities you have selected or pushed versus the number that he wanted to explore. If your answer is that you have orchestrated your teen’s extracurricular activities, then please get back on track in understanding your role.

Do you remember your teen son wearing his tiny soccer jersey that hung below his thighs playing three-on-three soccer—and all six little players swarming around the ball like bumble bees? Or your daughter in her much-too-big tae kwon do outfit collecting taped stripes or a stamp on her belt for each class she attended? How about the first time he wore a much-too-big and wobbly football helmet or she swung a tee-ball bat and hit the rubber neck of the tee? Whether you exposed your teen to many or just a few sports in his or her childhood, chances are that eventually societal pressures and a packed schedule dictated the necessity to specialize in just one or two sports for what seems to be an exorbitant amount of time. A generation ago we played multiple sports for our local communities and schools. And sports were not year-round and did not limit kids from participating in multiple sports, even when they overlapped seasons. Now, as we know, youth sports are much different.

Don’t get us wrong. We believe that athletics teach invaluable life lessons and that physical fitness, in some form, should indeed be a part of every teen’s routine. No one can deny that sports engender hustle and leadership, sportsmanship and respect—all things that translate to experiences beyond the field and, indeed, beyond the teenage years. But we have also witnessed how out of hand teen sports can become. We are not advocating that your teen quit sports or, worse, not try them at all. Instead, in this section, our intention is to challenge you to think realistically about the role competitive athletics have in your teen’s life, and we are asking you to reflect on the impact that you have on your teen’s experience.

Have you heard about author Malcolm Gladwell’s pronouncement of the magic 10,000 hours required to excel in a sport? Perhaps a better question is, have you pushed your child into racking up those 10,000 hours—even when it isn’t his dream, but yours? How many of you have gently (or not so gently) pushed your child into a sport that is a college admission strategic sport (whether the more obscure fencing or discus throwing, the popular and rather elite crew or sailing, or a soccer club as opposed to a recreational team)? And at what cost has this come, both literally in terms of dollars and in terms of time committed and injuries sustained?

We feel compelled to address the fine line here. We believe that parents must support their kids in the endeavors that the kids have selected and enjoy. Additionally, parenting with a compass does not support pushing children to the point of emotional or physical exhaustion. Yes, there will be pressure-filled days, and yes, there will be weeks of exhausting practices—and we are firm believers in urging kids to stick firmly to their commitments and to push through challenging situations. It is in those very low times that parents have to read between the lines to ensure that their teen’s mental health is intact and that their teen is still glad she is doing the activity—despite these hard days and weeks. During those trying times, practice parent etiquette; offer a shoulder to cry on, be a sounding board, cheerlead, and listen. Restrain yourself from being a “fixer”; instead listen to your teen as she navigates how to fix her own problems.

Statistics prove that “overall a little over 7 percent of high school athletes (about 1 in 14) [go] on to play a varsity sport in college and less than 2 percent of high school athletes (1 in 54) [go] on to play at NCAA Division I schools.”² (And for those very curious parents who simply need a good dose of reality, this note will lead you to a chart that divides up these odds by sport.)³ Overall, for the time (and financial resources) put into sports teams, coaches, and games, and the weekends, vacations, and celebrations sacrificed due to sports conflicts, the numbers are pretty low to become college capable or viable athletes. And what’s more, what happens when your teen has early burn-out, no longer likes the sport even though he shows a talent or skill, or experiences an injury such as a concussion or surgery that prevents him from continuing? Turn off the outside noise, put in your literal or proverbial earplugs (more on those in Chapter 9), and get in touch with your teen about whether his sport is really worth all of the physical, emotional, and financial sacrifice.

In the HBO Real Sports segments hosted by Bryant Gumbel, one particular episode looks at the huge increase in youth sports injuries that have escalated over the last ten years as a result of the current generation of kids specializing in one sport, year round, for too many hours per week. Orthopedic surgeons communicate concerns about a trend in the “professionalization in youth sports that is now upwards of a 19 billion dollar a year industry in the United States.” Orthopedic “research has shown that the number of ACL [knee ligament] reconstructions on children and adolescents had spiked nearly five times in just a decade.”⁴ The overuse of growing bones and muscles from required year-round sports participation has turned the mostly adult patient base of many orthopedic doctors into a client stream of tween and teen patients. This series interviews teens and their parents in a poignant segment that we believe every parent of an adolescent competitive athlete should be required to watch. What has happened to the youth recreational sports teams in our country, or even many school sports teams? They have lost so many of their athletes to pay-to-play clubs; private coaches; and elite, specialized athletic training centers. And it has come at a cost—physically, mentally, and financially.

It’s a fact that athletics consume a lot of time. Most in-school and outside-of-school coaches demand students to show up to all practices and often take away playing time for those who don’t. This puts teens in a tough position if they have a doctor’s appointment after school, a huge test the day after a practice, or a mild injury that they try to play through so that they don’t lose their coveted team spot or playing time. This is where parents following their compasses can greatly help their teens, but not in the way that you might expect. Do not pick up the phone to call, email, or speak face-to-face with a coach before or after practice. That is not your job. Instead, help equip your teen to self-advocate. If there is an issue of concern about time, mental or physical health, or grades slipping due to participation on a sports team, have your teen speak with the coach directly and sincerely. There really should not be a reason beyond middle school that a parent speaks to a coach. High school students must learn to self-advocate.

And parents, please be realistic. If your child is not being recruited to play in college or doesn’t show Olympic-level promise (which is the case for the majority of kids), don’t expect that with hundreds of hours of extra coaching your teen will “break through.” Allow her to enjoy the fun and learn the life lessons that come with those athletic experiences: teamwork, resilience, showing respect (to teammates, coaches, the other team, and referees), and hustle. Youth sports are meant to be fun and recreational and are not meant to fuel (mostly) false hopes of becoming a college athlete.

• Do have fun enjoying the privilege of watching your kid play and learn great life lessons on the field.

• Do cheer positively when good things happen or encourage when your teen needs a lift.

• Do pitch in on a coach gift at the end of each season for every sport your kid plays.

• Do allow the coaches to do their job and coach. Remember that you are not the coach (unless you want to become one!).

• Do thank the coach and the referees and encourage your child to do the same after every game.

• Do clap for both teams at the end of the game, the team that wins and the team that loses, no matter which team your teen is on.

• Don’t yell at the referee, coach, or other players or attempt to coach from the sidelines. If you know you have a problem with this directive, ask a trusted other to keep you in check.

• Don’t get kicked out of a game for having bad sideline behavior (we have seen it happen and have heard about it more times than you might realize).

• Don’t be the parent who embarrasses your kid, team, or community by acting with improper etiquette.

• Don’t offer criticism of any player on your teen’s team or the other team, including your own teen.

We love the reminder signs posted on the sidelines of sports fields that read, “Before you complain, have you volunteered yet?” or, “Please remember: these are kids. This is a game. The coaches are volunteers. The umpires are human. This is not professional base-ball.”⁵ Many sports teams now have parent conduct codes that parents must sign before a child can participate, and we support these valuable pledges. Some middle and high schools even have a twenty-four-hour rule whereby parents cannot contact a coach within twenty-four hours before or after any game. It offers a buffer before games to dissuade attempts to influence (or threaten) a coach and also allows a cool-off period after what may or may not have happened during a game. There is a progressing general awareness to practice good behavior before, during, and after sporting events, so please, contribute to helping this movement grow in the right direction.

Our family met Chris while on vacation. He was an only child and a high school junior, traveling with his parents. We happened to be on the same small tour, and over lunch, we got to know the family. We asked Chris about himself and what activities he liked to do outside of school. “That’s a touchy topic right now,” he answered, concerned. Clearly, we had struck a sensitive nerve, and his parents—whom we had met just moments before—launched into a tirade to explain that Chris attended a selective private school and had recently informed his parents that he no longer wanted to be a competitive diver. They went on to claim that he had been diving since he was three years old, traveled around the world, and had even competed on the United States Junior Diving Team. His parents recalled with great consternation how they had sacrificed everything for Chris’s diving career, only to see him quit. How would he earn a coveted scholarship, and why on earth couldn’t he at least wait until after diving for a year in college to make this decision? (All the while, I was quickly coming to the conclusion that his parents were failing miserably with their parenting skills!) Chris sat red-faced, uncomfortably wedged between them. He rebutted, “I’m tired of diving. I’m burnt out. It’s all I have done since I was three years old. I want a break. I don’t want to compete in college, and I just want to enjoy my senior year. And I have a plan: I’m going to fill my time with yearbook and other school-related activities.”

Poor Chris. His parents didn’t want to—couldn’t—accept his decision, but Chris also reminded them (as we observed) that they were both working doctors and couldn’t he also possibly attend a college without a diving scholarship? And that’s when the conversation turned very US-News-&-World-Report focused. Chris’s parents didn’t want him to attend a “sub par” school. We finished lunch, and the conversation ended. We gave Chris a “be strong” fist bump and wished him luck.

Unfortunately, we don’t know how the rest of Chris’s high school or college experience turned out, but we surely felt that Chris’s parents could benefit from practicing some lessons taught in The Parent Compass. Their behavior broke so many of the etiquette suggestions that this book tries to teach, and Chris’s parents were not the kind of parents any kid would hope to have, publicly humiliating and berating him in front of absolute strangers. Perhaps too much togetherness had triggered this explosion, but Chris was a young adult who deserved to make his own choice and have his voice and opinion heard.

In contrast, Quinn’s experience allows us to witness good parenting at work. A water polo player for most of her life, Quinn and her family had always assumed that her athletic skill coupled with her stellar grades would make her admissible to some of the most highly selective schools in the country—and she nearly was. But as her junior year came to a close, Quinn began to do some deep soul searching. One particular day, she sat across my desk from me in tears. A little background: From the moment I had met Quinn a couple years prior, both she and her parents emphatically characterized her as someone who naturally didn’t express much emotion. She was deep in thought—always—but she wasn’t especially emotive. But on this day, Quinn was inconsolable as she confessed to me that she wanted to quit water polo. At once, I heard the fear reflected behind her tears alongside the relief at having confessed this secret to someone. She played at an elite level, and she was aware that this decision would factor into her college process. As Quinn and I unpacked her thoughts, I learned of the incredible stress that had resulted from juggling her rigorous course load with her practices, tournaments, extra conditioning, and team commitments. While Quinn knew unequivocally that she no longer wanted to play water polo, no matter the impact it had on college admission, Quinn’s biggest concern was disappointing her coach, her teammates, and her parents. But she agreed to let her parents in on her plan during the coming week: she was going to quit.

When I saw her a few weeks later, her unwavering desire to focus on the other areas of her life had remained unchanged, and she had had the courage to approach her parents. To her surprise, they had noticed the effect that water polo had on her emotional health. While they, too, understood that this would impact her college admission process, they decided to focus instead on supporting their daughter and her well-being. Quinn’s parents saw how much their daughter had thought through this decision and recognized what a painful one it was to make. They heard her.

Quinn, now in college, went on to attend what her parents describe as the “best possible school for her.” Quitting water polo meant uncovering new interests, and on any given week, Quinn can be found hurrying over to the university research lab that has sparked a deep desire in her to pursue medicine. Her parents use one happy word to describe her: “thriving.”

Middle and high schools offer clubs in a variety of themes and levels of commitment. Some clubs meet weekly. Others monthly or even less. Some clubs meet at lunch, or before or after school. Others meet on the weekends or evenings. There are school-sponsored clubs, led by teachers, and there are student-directed ones. Some clubs are academic and require “homework” or project planning such as a debate or Model United Nations club, while others are purely social or common-interest themed such as a Game of Thrones or Harry Potter club. Whatever the case may be, if your teen joins a club, he should enjoy it, but he should also be able to discuss why he is in it and what he does with his time participating in meetings or club-sponsored events.

A particular club also can be invented or started by your teen if it doesn’t exist at her school. For example, one of our students started a food-centered barbecue club where members met monthly, barbecued, and took turns planning the menu and sharing recipes. Another student founded her school’s Scrabble Club since she liked to play the game competitively (with a chess clock and using two-letter words that are allowed in the Scrabble Dictionary). The club members attended tournaments, but they also welcomed members who preferred just to play socially.

As a parent, the same rules apply to your teen’s club interests: support the clubs your teen decides to join. While the club choices should be made in light of his values and priorities, sometimes clubs can simply be for pleasure or for giving back to the community or learning something new. Don’t encourage him to join a club just because you think it will “look good” for college. This is your teen’s school experience, and he should be the one who chooses where and how he spends his ever-decreasing amount of free and recreational time. On the other hand, if your teen describes membership in a club as “boring” or a “waste of time,” then by all means encourage him to join another instead, start one of his own, or spend his time productively elsewhere.

Whether playing a solo instrument or in a band or orchestra, participating in theater crew, tech, or as an actor, dancer, painter, photographer, sculptor, or singer (or any other form imaginable), the arts are an excellent outlet for your teen. The arts can also be therapeutic, relaxing, and soothing, as they open up and exercise other parts of your teen’s brain in creative ways. Reading and writing music, interpreting dance moves, or blocking theater scenes can challenge a student’s critical thinking and analytical skills. Parents, whether you think the arts are a worthwhile way to spend time or not, if your teen derives pleasure pursuing any of the arts, your job in practicing good behavior is to encourage, facilitate, and share in their interest—even if it is just by asking questions, attending performances and presentations, or playing chauffeur. And another bonus to exercising the right brain is that it fosters the “skills that will help promote and create a smarter and more productive adult better suited for the future workplace.”⁶

Yvonne was a high school freshman and a varsity basketball player when I met her. She shared with me that every Friday after school— when she didn’t have basketball practice or a game—she shot hoops in her driveway, which was located on a neighborhood cul-de-sac. A few Fridays in a row she noticed some younger neighbors coming over to watch her practice. Her audience grew with each passing week. Word must have traveled around the playground and neighborhood. Sometimes the neighbor kids clapped when she scored a basket or held their breath when she attempted a layup. She often practiced free throws, and this small group of fans cheered and counted the number of baskets she could make in a row. Yvonne knew their names and sometimes allowed them to try some shots. The moms, dads, or babysitters would usually call the kids in for dinner or to wash up, and their time together would come to an end.

After a few weeks of pseudo-babysitting and coaching these pee-wees, a lightbulb went off for Yvonne. The following day, she went to her school community service advisor and proposed that she offer free basketball lessons to neighborhood kids. She posited that she could lead these informal clinics and help neighbor families while they prepared dinner or needed help with a child or two. The advisor directed her to write up a formal proposal and asked her to get the parents of the neighbor kids to agree to sign a card each time Yvonne held her clinic. And just like that, Yvonne formed her own community service opportunity, helping her neighbors occupy their kids for a scheduled chunk of time and teaching them some sports skills to go with it. The added bonus: Yvonne completed her community service hours easily and in a fun way, and she even continued her program into some summer weeks, enlisting the help of a few of her teammates.

If your teen’s middle or high school has an annual community service requirement, sure, she needs to do it. But really, the most valuable service experiences are those that serve others and are fulfilling, springing from a student’s related interest (like Yvonne’s love for basketball) and identifying a need in the community. Consider encouraging your teen to go beyond simply amassing a certain number of hours just to meet a requirement and come up with a service opportunity that truly means something to her.

The Corporation for National and Community Service published these statistics about youth volunteerism:⁷

• Approximately 15.5 million youth—or 55 percent of youth ages twelve to eighteen—participate in volunteer activities.

• Thirty-nine percent of teen volunteers are “regular” volunteers who volunteer at least twelve weeks per year.

Many parents also participate in community service with their teens in organizations such as National Charity League (NCL) or National League of Young Men (NLYM). While sharing service experiences with your teen can be a significant bonding experience, it is even more important that your teen find something that he enjoys doing on his own. In fact, while NCL and NLYM are certainly worthwhile organizations, why not consider foregoing the joint community service experience to guide your teen into finding an experience that he enjoys doing solo?

• Tutoring at a local Boys & Girls Club, church, or after-school assistance program

• Organizing a school or neighborhood collection of items to be donated, whether used sports equipment, books, school supplies, personal hygiene items, or clothing for those in need

• Creating or coordinating a class or workshop to teach others about an interest or a niche specialty

Some of these volunteer activities can also be performed online, so consider reaching out to organizations that need virtual volunteer assistance or propose your own. But remember: the key for your teen is to volunteer and enjoy it.

How many of you somewhat mindlessly hand your kids cash, a credit card, or Apple Pay on a Friday night to fund pizza with friends or a trip to the shopping mall? What would happen if, instead, your kids earned their own money to pay for these indulgences on their own? Encouraging your teen to work in order to earn spending or gas money is not a punishment; it is a life lesson and good parenting. Doling out cash is enabling, and encouraging work to earn one’s own money is just the opposite.

Indeed, it is a sad reality that not nearly enough of our students have held down a job before they graduate from high school. Interestingly enough, though, the maturity, responsibility, and lessons learned by the ones who have tend to set them apart from their peers. Some parents tell us that they don’t want their teens to work, citing that it can hurt their grades in school. But we encourage you to think more creatively; getting a job doesn’t have to happen during the school week, unless your teen has the time to add work to her schedule or if work is a necessary family priority. Teens can also schedule work on the weekends, in the summers, on school breaks, or even virtually, and in turn, they will learn to balance a part-time job with their other activities.

• Getting a neighbor’s mail, watering plants, or rolling in trash cans while they travel

• Running a neighborhood summer camp (craft, sports, games, cheer, cooking, academic, etc.)

• Working for a Jewish Community Center, YMCA, Boys & Girls Club, or any camp as a teen counselor or counselor in training

• Getting a job at a business that does something your teen is excited about (e.g., a photography studio if your teen is into photography)

• Working virtually as a tutor, dance teacher, paid intern, web designer, singing or music instructor, or social media consultant

A part-time job leads to valuable life lessons such as how to apply for a job, interview skills, people skills, showing up on time, taking responsibility for actions, and learning the real value of a dollar, among other things. So, the next time your teen asks you for money to go shopping, kindly use your best parenting skills and suggest that he find a way to earn and spend his own money. And then when he purchases an article of clothing or agrees to a pizza night out, he can quantify the purchase with the number of hours of work it took him to earn it.

When Sonia was in middle school, she and her two younger siblings really wanted to get a Ping-Pong table that they had seen on display at a local sporting goods store, but it was expensive. Envisioning family game nights and friendly after-school battles, Sonia and her siblings approached their parents, who wisely made their kids a deal: if Sonia and her siblings could work together to earn half of the money for it, they would match the earnings and pay for the other half. “But how can we earn that kind of money when we are just kids?” Sonia pointed out. And then the brainstorming began: lemonade stands; dog walking; odd jobs around the house; and offering to wash cars, roll out trash cans, get mail, or water plants while neighbors were away. Sonia and her siblings went to work. They even cleaned out their closets and organized a garage sale under their mom’s supervision. They collected cans and plastic water bottles from their home, neighbors, and at nearby youth sports fields and brought them in to their grocery store to collect money from recycling. The kids put out a plastic beach bucket on the kitchen counter as a collection spot for every coin and dollar bill that they had earned. By the end of the summer, Sonia and her siblings had miraculously reached their goal. Their parents upheld their end of the bargain, too, and with great pride, the new Ping-Pong table was purchased. When friends came over to use it, Sonia chided them to be careful not to drag their paddles or scratch it. The value of hard work to earn a reward was instilled in Sonia and her siblings at a young age, and this lesson has stayed with her. Sonia shared this story with me with such enthusiasm and joy, recalling the feeling of earning money and positive teamwork with her siblings. What she also described to me was great parenting in practice.

Many years ago, when my (now college-age) sons Justin and Jacob were in middle school, they co-founded and created a neighborhood Star Wars Summer Camp. The boys told me that they wanted to make money in the summer and have a “real” job, so they came up with an idea—a camp that they wished they could have had when they were younger. The first summer they enrolled about ten campers between the ages of five and ten years old. At camp, the kids played schoolyard games that Justin and Jacob had invented and modified: “Red Lightsaber/Green Lightsaber,” “What time is it, Darth Vader?,” and “Luke, Luke, Leia” (Duck, Duck, Goose). Campers “visited” Star Wars planets, which were in the form of small printed signs taped onto trees around the park. While at the planets, Justin, Jacob, and the campers discussed what happened on each one, who lived there, who fought there, and who won. The campers built Star Wars ships and inventions out of our loaned buckets of LEGO, filled in Star Wars coloring books and crossword puzzles, ate Star Wars gummy candies at snack time, and watched Star Wars movie clips on a laptop. The week ended with a Star Wars costume parade where campers dressed in everything from Obi-Wan Kenobi robes to Jango Fett masks to Star Wars pajamas and marched around the park to the tunes of the Star Wars movie soundtrack. I gently supervised at camp sign-in and sign-out and as the adult on-site chaperone in case any emergencies arose, but Justin and Jacob were fully in charge of running all of the activities and problem-solving as situations emerged. This was their job, not mine. As the years progressed and the summer camp grew, they even employed their younger siblings (who began as campers) to be Jedi Youngling “helpers.” By their fifth summer, the camp had sold out and tripled its enrollment; they even added an afternoon Star Wars Movie Camp where the films were screened, stopped, paused, discussed, and analyzed. Justin and Jacob had created a very popular and fun camp and a quite lucrative job for themselves.

The Star Wars Camp ran for several summers until the boys graduated and left for college. Taking an interest, creating a business out of thin air, and building this program was an achievement that both of them cherished and enjoyed. They were stimulated, and they were exhausted; they were proud of what they accomplished and of the campers that they had inspired. Half of Justin and Jacob’s earnings went into savings and the other half into a LEGO Star Wars purchase to which they treated themselves for a job well done. Life lessons, problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and personal pride were all skills that the boys gained through this rewarding and creative experience. And I tried hard to be well-intentioned and follow my compass rather than be a hands-on facilitator of their program.

Q: Is it better to participate in a lot of activities and have less involvement or partake in a few activities with a deeper commitment?

A: There is no right or wrong way to answer this question. Many colleges appreciate pointy students—those with a deep interest in one or two activities that permeate their extracurricular focus—but they also appreciate students who are well-rounded and are involved in a variety of activities. Colleges appreciate students with both depth and breadth. The best answer to this question would be to see what your teen enjoys doing coupled with how much she can handle while doing well in school. If activities add too much stress, take up too much time, and impact how your teen is performing in the classroom, then it is worth examining and refining the activity list to try to find the best point of balance. Some students thrive from having a lot of balls in the air and multi-tasking while others need to keep things evenly balanced to maintain their grades and their sanity. There is no right or wrong way to do this.

We would be remiss to neglect the topic of balance and downtime here, which we discuss more in depth in Chapter 5. But, you might wonder, is recreation even possible in the crazy busy world in which we live? And to that question, we emphatically answer, “Yes!” Recreation comes in all shapes and sizes. It is what helps us refill our tank; it is what we look forward to when a long project comes to a close or final examinations are finished. It is the reward for a day, week, or month spent working hard.

Downtime is important for every teen no matter how they choose to spend it. Whether it is meditating, tackling a Rubik’s Cube, binge-watching a show, going for a walk, challenging friends to a board game, visiting the beach, or taking a long drive while belting out a favorite song with the windows down, it just doesn’t matter. When built into your teen’s life, recreation adds breathing room into a hyper-connected and competitive academic landscape. Want to pull your kid out of school for a day for an unexpected trip to the beach or local amusement park—or maybe for a day of quiet and connection? We respond with a resounding yes (as long as it’s not too often).