Asha Pemberton
This weekend ushers in the end of the academic term and the start of the yuletide holiday season.
Traditionally a busy time of year, full of social engagements, shopping sprees and vigorous home renovations, the next few weeks can also serve as an important inflection point for families. For adolescents, it is easy, and quite typical for the time to evaporate between catching up on sleep, avoiding chores or walking through mall corridors meeting friends.
While these are quite reasonable and age-appropriate holiday activities, it is suggested that parents make active efforts to engage their young people in family focussed endeavours. These are supportive of the parent-teen relationship, increase the opportunities for quality communication and also serve to create traditions and core memories that they will take forward.
Young people will crave and demand independence. This is a natural and expected aspect of adolescent development. They do, however, still enjoy participating in family gatherings and activities.
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Parents can attest that when young people begrudgingly join in to cake baking, re-arranging furniture or listening to festive music, they become almost childlike in their excitement and glee. Engaging in family traditions elicits a sense of belonging that all adolescents desire.
Despite what appears to be protest, young people generally enjoy such festivities. Parents are encouraged to create the opportunities and gently insist that their adolescents participate.
In juxtaposition, young people will also want to spend time with peers, attending the many and expanding opportunities for social connection out of the home, during the season.
Most shopping districts, restaurants and sites of leisure will host events surrounding food, music, artisanal shopping and displays targeted to youth. For those interested, there should be some opportunity afforded for them to safely engage. Other young people will show no interest whatsoever.
They should be encouraged to spend time out of the home, especially if their preference is to remain totally isolated in their room and on devices. The balance must be struck, depending on the social development of the young person; to support some autonomy and some engagement in safe and age-related social activity.
Excessive screen time can detract from face-to-face interaction. While parents can anticipate that youth will want to spend some time connected to the virtual space, there should be boundaries for device usage during family gatherings and overall throughout the holiday time.
While the commercial influences of the holiday season cannot be ignored, parents are encouraged to take the time to support young people in acts of giving and charity.
After the entire overhaul of bedrooms and closets, most families can find barely used or even new items that can be donated to charities.
In addition, there are opportunities for young people to engage in acts of service, which allow the two-fold benefit of the service itself and the sense of contribution that is fostered in the young person. This paves the way for future community engagement and resilience building.
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Overall, parents are reminded that young people will require some much needed downtime to simply rest and recover from their hectic in-term routines.
Some will remain engaged in extra lessons and supportive learning, but it is recommended that parents reassess whether their children have the capability to actively engage in further learning or whether some respite is more advantageous to their overall wellbeing.
Although high-stakes examinations loom ahead in 2025, every young person has a different requirement. For some, time spent with family may be more advantageous than excessive academic time to which they are minimally engaged.
For others, the holiday period is most productively spent with time allotted to supportive learning balanced with family based activities.
Most important, is that parents take a moment to think and plan ahead. Time moves forward, even when we are standing still. Make best use of this weekend to create at least framework of the upcoming holiday season, so that young people can benefit from time invested with their family, in addition to the many other activities around them.
