It’s a fast-paced world for all of us. There are so many responsibilities for the average person that keeping track can prove challenging. From showing up on time for work to making sure you pay your bills for utilities like Charter Spectrum Cable, everyone has a lot to do. Weeks and months pass by blindingly fast. And if you are a parent, it is even more difficult to juggle everything. If you have a teen at home, however, teaching them some valuable time management skills can be invaluable. It can help you ease some of the parenting load off yourself. And it can also help prep your team for their own busy life ahead.
Helping Teens Develop Time Management Skills
Just like everyone else, a teenager has only 24 hours in a day. And they have a busy schedule as well, with academics, co-curricular, social lives, sports, and homework. That’s not to mention doing chores around the house. On the other hand, teens aren’t the most responsible people at that age.
That’s just the way our bodies are wired. Certain parts of the brain develop in a person’s twenties. Many of these are responsible for rational thought and decision-making. So, expecting your teen to start making the right choice every time is unreasonable.
However, you can start teaching them how to do so. Time management skills are a great example. With your help as well as an individual effort, you teenager can start developing valuable traits. These help at any stage in life whether high school, college, or as a professional. Time management and organizational skills are crucial to success in many cases. And here are a few ways you can start developing them in teens:
Start With a Discussion
The worse thing a parent can do is try to force their child into something without taking their needs into account. This is an especially bad idea with teens, who can become quite rebellious at times. Instead, take them on board, since they are the biggest stakeholder in the entire exercise.
Have a frank but healthy discussion on goals, expectations, and try to map out a strategy to get there. This discussion will always be the first crucial step to teaching your teen a new skill. And it usually works the best. They can discuss how to start a business as a teen.
Help Your Teen Segment Their Weeks
Now, you can help your teen decide on a goal. But you also need to help them understand how they get there, i.e., spending their time wisely. One way to do this is to show them how to break down a year into 52 weekly segments. Then decide on goals and chores for each day in the segment. This shouldn’t be a line set in stone, however. Flexibility is essential in the whole process. The point is to help your teen understand how to apportion and manage their week in a healthy way.
Use Helpful Calendar and Task Management Apps
Making plans is a great step. But sticking to them can often be much trickier. It is easy to lose track at any time. But don’t worry. Let technology be your helper. There are plenty of smartphone apps that help manage time and track tasks. It should help your teen to start holding themselves accountable for how they spend their time.
Break Larger Tasks into Smaller Milestones
Big tasks can seem like a daunting prospect. If you take on too much at the same time, the impact of failure would be all the worse. It can even demoralize your teen if they can’t sense some accomplishment during the process. The biggest tasks become manageable when you break them down into smaller milestones. Help your teen do this to measure their progress and affirm what they achieve along the way. Need to find out some part-time job or online typing jobs (work from home).
Encourage Early Prepping for Everything
Expect the unexpected, as they say. Of course, there is no way you can prepare for every possible scenario. There will always be circumstances that you cannot control. But you can still prepare for a lot of stuff, notwithstanding. Prepping for activities like school projects can help your teen develop a stronger ability to visualize and manage tasks. They will learn how to plan and be more efficient at managing any curveballs that life throws their way. They can make a plan about a move out at 18 & afford it.
While encouraging prepping, help your teen learn how to prioritize tasks, brainstorm, and even create vision boards. Many people respond better to visual schedules and preparation. But the biggest help you can offer is to play a supportive role and letting your teen learn by experience.
Include Time for Every Healthy Activity
A healthy schedule is a well-rounded one. Meaning it is one that does not exclude any activity that a teen could benefit from. Academics are always critical. But so are many other things. You want your teen to experiment with sports, music, dramatics, debates, and even purely social interactions.
The idea is to expose your teen to as many diverse healthy experiences as possible. It could very well happen that they find their true calling in music or literature, instead of an engineering degree that you want.
Encourage Teens to Have a Plan
Having goals and apps to track tasks is great. But both are secondary to your teen’s planning ability. Remember, your teen most likely already has a lot going on in their life. What may seem like common sense to you could very well be something they have yet to encounter. And disruptions in life can often impact teens who are more sensitive to such things at that age.
Having a plan can give your teen something to hold on to despite all the disruptions. It could offer them a valuable guiding beacon in the event of significant changes such as moving to a new school or losing a loved one. Need to start doing things before graduating college.
Conclusion
These are only suggestions to get you started. No two teens are ever alike. Everyone has unique circumstances and perspectives. Don’t look for a cookie-cutter recipe to raise your team. Instead, treat these tips as starting points. Then shape the rest of the process around your teen for healthy and fulfilling parenting that continues to keep on giving.
