By Michaela Gordoni
If you want your teen to ditch the screen and be a little more active this summer, try these activities.
Bark has put together a collection of adventurous, creative, sporty, social and career-focused activities to get teens moving. There’s something everyone.
The adventurous teen can trade their screen for:
- A fun hike with photo challenges
- A day trip to a nearby place
- Outdoor or indoor obstacle courses
- Skateboarding, long boarding or mastering another vehicle, like the unicycle
- Geocaching
- Water activities like kayaking
The creative teen can:
- Learn a new instrument
- Master a new art project, like pottery or drawing
- Write — maybe start with a journal or short stories
- Try photography
- Give their room a makeover or upcycle a picture or furniture
- Start a vlog
The social teen could try:
- Hosting a game night
- Hosting a themed party
- Organizing a group trip to a nearby place
- Starting a volunteer project
- Hosting a club (books, movies
- Hosting movie nights with friends
Sporty teens might enjoy:
- Practicing a new sport
- Try a new fitness challenge
- Trying healthy recipes
- Dance class
- Signing up for a marathon
The career-oriented teen might want to try:
- Getting a part-time job
- Teaching skills to others or tutoring
- Starting a small business like lawn care or babysitting
- Shadowing professions
- Fundraising for a good cause, through bake sales, car washes, etc.
- Setting savings goals
- Having a garage sale
Many kids use screens in the summer because they are bored. Parenting author Joyce Maybe recommends making a list with your teen of things they can do. When they feel tempted to use a screen, you can point them to the list.
“The fact is that summers should be relaxing and fun, but ‘relaxing and fun’ doesn’t have to mean staying on the couch playing video games, watching movies, and turning into ‘vampires’ (staying up all night/sleeping all day),” she said. “It’s part of our job as parents to set limits, but when you get creative and include your teens in the discussion, the limits won’t feel so limiting and everyone wins.”
One mom was asked how she gets her teens off of their phones. She said, “The approach is simple…I had to show them that there were things worth doing that weren’t on their phones — even when I didn’t feel like it.”
There’s a lot your teen can do to keep busy — they just need a little nudge here and there.
Read Next: Is Screen Time Making Your Teen Depressed?
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