Squash Your Teen’s Summertime Boredom

Studies have shown that teens who are bored, stressed and/or have lots of spending money are more likely to smoke, drink, use illegal drugs and have sex. When school is in session it’s easier to keep their minds off the “bad” things and more on the “good” things. With school, homework and extracurricular activities teens stay busy and have less time to get bored and therefore in trouble. But during the summer break it only takes a couple of days before parents start to hear “I’m sooo booored.”

So what can we do to keep our teens busy? We’ve already given you some ideas to keep your teen busy this summer and each weekday Char gives you another project, activity or field trip from our Camp Weary Parent series. But we can never have too many ideas to keep our kids busy during the summer so here are few more.

• Get a job.
• Go to summer camp.
• Do a summer internship. This is not only a great way to keep busy, but also a great way to get some college credit or experience for their resume.
• Get some friends together, find a dirt field and play some baseball like in the movie The Sandlot.
• Baseball not their thing, then how about a game of football in the grass at the park.
• Head to the YMCA and get in on a basketball game.
• Grab some golf clubs and head out to the golf course with a couple of friends. Laugh hysterically at each other. (Or is it just me people laugh at when we’re on the golf course?)
• Hit the bike trails for a long, scenic bike ride.
• Take a date to the bowling alley.
• Lace up those roller skates (or blades) and learn to skate backwards at the skating rink.
• Sign up for an exercise class.
• Get a pool pass and become a regular at the city pool.
• Start going for a nightly jog or walk.
• Take an art class at a local college or with the city recreation department.
• Join (or start) a book club.
• Clean out the garage and have a garage sale. (This is a great way to get your kids to clean for you. They won’t mind doing it if they get to keep the money from the garage sale.)
• Use that garage sale money to see some of the summer blockbusters at the local movie theater.
• Don’t want to go to the movie theater? Then have a movie marathon at home with some of the guys and/or gals.
• Hold a car wash.
• Take a day trip to a nearby amusement park.
• Throw on your best swimsuit and go to a waterpark.
• Check out the animals at the zoo.
• Go see a ball game at a local stadium.
• Audition for a part in the summer performance at the local community theater.
• Have a water balloon fight. (It takes half a day just to fill the water balloons.)
• Get some good boots and go hiking.
• Buy a tent (again with the garage sale money…or maybe the car wash revenue) and go camping.
• Dust off that fishing pole and head to the river to catch some fish.
• Get some canvas and paints and paint a portrait of a friend or a landscape of the great outdoors.
• Pull out a camera and take pictures of everything you see. Learn Photoshop (or a free program like GIMP) to make the photo masterpieces.

There’s no excuse for teens to be bored this summer. Even if you live in the middle of “nothing to do” like we do. If you are creative and really think about what interests your teen there are tons of activities to keep them busy.