What are Your Teens/Tweens Summer Plans?

[mom2binsd]

DD will be 18 has a life guarding job lined up and will also still work at the ice rink a bit and occasional babysitting.

DS is 15, he will umpire little league, they pay 25.00 a game and he can work 6-8 games a week. He has a group of boys who have been friends since Kindergarten. They all hang out, they ride their bikes all over town, play basketball, swim at either a friend's or the town pool. They love grabbing food and taking the food to their "secret" swimming hole at a creek, we dubbed them the "creek boys" last summer, they were even mentioned in the local radio, as people loved seeing teen boys out riding bikes.



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[mmsmom]

DS14 is doing summer swim team which is mid-May through end of June practice once a day and meets twice a week. He will also do a 2 hour/day tennis clinic at our club. He’s kind of aging out of it but says he wants to go this summer. He will do a scuba camp at a nearby lake for 1 week. He is already certified but this will be for an advanced certification. He and DD will also go away for a 2 week camp. This is likely DS’s last year for it. I think he could do one more year but will be taking a summer math class next summer so likely won’t do camp. We will vacation for 2 weeks in August then they start school around the 17th. I hope he will also spend time at the pool with friends.

DD12 is also doing swim team. She rides horses and those lessons pick up over the summer. She will go to same camp as DS and also do a riding camp for a week. This is first year she can go to club pool by herself so I am hoping she will spend a lot of time there.

For me it’s the first summer I will be working all summer so I am hoping they will be good at entertaining themselves.

[smilequeen]

For the 16 year old...he will be vaccinated. He gets his first on Monday, so I feel like he can do a bit more. I am going to help him find some volunteer work that is appropriate for him. There is a place that does sports activities with special needs kids that is high on our list, he has volunteered there once before.

He's also going to part time intern at my our company to get some work experience (both on the business side and the dental side...maybe he'll get some idea of what he'd like to do "when he grows up" LOL).

But I also want him to have a chance to relax and he will continue to work with his personal trainer and hockey trainer and there is usually a high school varsity lacrosse summer league that he participates in, but the games are in the evenings.

I am planning on my 13 (almost 14) year old doing some volunteer work too, but he probably won't be vaccinated so it may be more difficult to find the right fit. He's going to start with personal training at the gym and he'll focus more on his fencing lessons.

[hellokitty]

DS17 wants to get a job over the summer. He may take summer school. He is my kid who is a hermit so I'm surprised he wants to get a job, which is good because he drives and is the kid who has a work ethic problem.

DS15, will get his license the first week of school assuming he passes on the first go, he plans to do cross country practice (3x a wk) and does summer baseball. His friend wants to study together for the SATs... they are both top students, and his friend wants to be valedictorian... so I suppose that's a compliment that he wants him as a study buddy. I'm all for it... how many kids willingly study by themselves in the summer?

My youngest is going to be 12, he just does
rec baseball and travel baseball all summer.

All my boys are always encouraged to take any other art classes that they may be interested in through our local art center and they usually go to sleep away camp, which may or may not happen. Only my 17 yr old has had the vaccine.

[Melaine]

Great thread! I've been contemplating this really frequently for my girls (14.5). We are MUCH more cautious than the vast majority of our peer groups so that has been a struggle for them. They are very creative and hardworking, so I'm trying to come up with something they could do to make money....I'm thinking some kind of etsy store but still a little overwhelmed with the possibilities.

[pinkmomagain]

CIT at a local day camp.

[jent]

Good thread... DD will turn 14 at the end of the month and this is such an in-between age for summer stuff... too old for a lot of programs but too young to work/be a camp counselor etc.

That said, DD will do a week of mountain bike camp and is on the waitlist for a week of sailing camp, both of which she did last year- both were local programs that she attended last year with modified drop off and lots of outdoor time. She will also do a week of overnight camp- last year was supposed to be her first year but it was canceled. She had done the day camp at the same location the year prior and liked it. Hopefully it will go ok to be new but one of the older groups of campers.

We moved 2.5 years ago and sometimes I get sad thinking about the continuity of experiences she will miss out on. She had gone to the same camp since kindergarten and this year would have been a CIT. It's a small thing but just makes me a bit

[California]

Thank you for starting this conversation. I will be going over these ideas with my teen. She is in a funk. She saw her brother do some great programs while he was in high school. She handled it okay when she couldn't do any in-person last summer, but this time around she's really over it! The hands-on hospital internship her brother did is currently only accepting applicants who are 18+. The COSMOS program is virtual only (and half the fun of that program is living on campus.) She'd really gotten her hopes up about a girls-only science/adventure trip (something her brother's best friend did a few years back) and they just announced last week that they are switching back to virtual for all out-of-state participants. Not sure how they are planning to go virtual for an outdoor no-bathrooms no-electricity wilderness trip! Now nothing I say sounds good to her. Reading all of your responses I'm thinking I just need to encourage her to sign up for some different programs, in the hopes that she'll feel more enthusiastic once she gets started.

She has her Girl Scout Gold Award project to work on. She's been working on it all school year (holding workshops mentoring younger girls via Zoom) and I think she'd like something fresh for summer.

She has been a camp CIT through Girl Scouts before. After reading this thread, I'm going to ask her to look through the brochure and pick a couple of weeks.

She fosters for a nonprofit rescue. As of now they aren't allowing anyone under 18 to volunteer on site. With our numbers dropping, hopefully that will change.

I don't blame her (or any of our kids) for being over this pandemic.

[squimp]

What do they like to do? My kid does better when she is busy and both parents work full time, so we've always tried to make sure she is busy during the summer. Sports, volunteering, jobs have all been part of the plan.

My 16-yo daughter worked last summer at a day camp, they had rigorous COVID protocols and did not have any exposures. She worked there over spring break and will do the same in the summer. She got vaccinated as soon as childcare workers were eligible. She started working at the camp when she was 15 two summers ago, luckily they can work at that age in my state, but she was one of the first of her friends with a paying job. Having a summer job has been so great for her, the experience, responsibility and confidence-building is so great. She wants to work with kids in education or health care so it's a great fit for her.

Do any of the camps have a counselor in training program? It can be hard to get an actual job at age 15 here, but there are several programs that allow you to go for free or at reduced costs so that you can get some skills, then at 16 I think they can start working. If not, are there regular volunteer opportunities which build skills? Volunteering at a food bank or other community programs is a good way to build skills and get experience, my daughter is very public minded and accumulated hundreds of volunteer hours in the summers before she could work. We also have a program called Youth Volunteer Corps, which is not very expensive but put teens in the community doing volunteer work with supervision. She did that several weeks one summer too.

If you live in a college town and the kids are interested in research, you might be able to identify a program that matches faculty and high school students (we have this). There are so many opportunities but it's good to know what they like to do.

[squimp]

DD will be 18 has a life guarding job lined up and will also still work at the ice rink a bit and occasional babysitting.

DS is 15, he will umpire little league, they pay 25.00 a game and he can work 6-8 games a week. He has a group of boys who have been friends since Kindergarten. They all hang out, they ride their bikes all over town, play basketball, swim at either a friend's or the town pool. They love grabbing food and taking the food to their "secret" swimming hole at a creek, we dubbed them the "creek boys" last summer, they were even mentioned in the local radio, as people loved seeing teen boys out riding bikes.

As a former creek girl, I love this story!