Helping your child have some life-changing experiences while they are at home can give them a great sense of family identity, memories, stories to tell, and new friendships to form. Now I can see clearly that experiences are much better than plastic pieces of toys that eventually just go into the junkyard! Also having experiences together helps your family have a Family Identity. This is important as they become teenagers. Help them want to be with your family and desire to spend time together.
Having experiences together helps your family have a Family Identity. Share on XWe are in a blog series on how to launch your kids into the world. Today’s post is E is for Experiences. This post is the 5th and last in the series. Click here to go back to the beginning of the series.
I went to a Digital Discipleship seminar at our church recently. I’m so thankful that there are youth ministries helping families deal with this digital age. I learned so much!
There have been surveys done on happiness in teens. Teens who spend more time than the average teen engaging in on-screen activities are more likely to be unhappy. And those who spend more time than average on non-screen activities are more likely to be happy. There has not been a single exception to this rule in all of the kids they have surveyed over the years.
In the past few years, suicides have jumped 31%. Those reporting major depressive episodes have jumped 60%. The common thread in all these things increasing is the number of teens being on social media.
And it gets worse, in a survey of 70,000 kids, sexting began in 5th grade. Kids have been exposed to porn by age 8. Kids are reporting porn addiction by age 11.
Google Analytics reports that porn searches increase by 4700% when kids are out of school.
YouTube has over 30 million unique daily users each day. That sounds like a lot, right? Well, Pornhub has 64 million unique daily users.
Our job is to get our kids off the screens and protect them from those influences. Instead, provide non-screen activities and alternative experiences.
These experiences can involve activities outside the home based on where their interests lie, serving others, and traveling to new places. As parents, it is your job to guide and coach them into finding their own “niche” of where they like to serve and minister and be involved in their community. Here are some ways you can add experiences into your educational plan for launching your kids into the great big world. Click here to get a free pdf plan for how to launch your student. What can you start implementing today?
Activities:
Get your kid involved in something they have to practice to get better at. Whether that is a sport, an instrument, etc. This will help fill some time instead of letting them constantly be on a device. Some families also require reading or chores for a set amount of time before their kids are allowed to have screen time.
- Sports
- Music – either individually or in a group
- Drama, puppet ministry, other fine arts
- Hobbies like sewing, crocheting, woodworking, shooting, Legos, collecting antique jewelry or coins, even complex Rubix cube solving
Serving:
There are many places where your student can serve. Look around and see what is close by that you can get involved with. Go with your student and check it out. Ask questions and find out what is the minimum age to serve. Try it out once or twice to see if it’s a good fit. Take into mind your student’s interests. For example, don’t sign your student up to help remove weeds and overgrowth at a nature center, if they are not an outdoors person! Don’t ask me how I know this! 😉
- Operation Christmas Child – easy to do with even a preschooler; make a box together
- Nursing home visits – play songs and hand out cards; We did this every year at Christmas as a family and invited other families to come with us
- National Beta Club Chapter 4th-12th monthly service projects, each chapter sets its own commitment level
- Middle schoolers and above can volunteer to help in church with VBS, summer camps, door greeters, or Kids church
- Local attractions involving nature/animals will often have volunteer programs. There are two great ones near me in Atlanta: The Chattahoochee Nature Center and the Georgia Aquarium
- Shelters for Homeless moms and kids – often have needs for tutoring kids, working in consignment stores, helping around the shelter, organizing food pantry, and donations
- Animal shelters
Ministering to other families:
Have your kids see you ministering to other families, whether that is bringing a meal or giving a family free babysitting so their parents can go out. Let your kids see that there are other people we can minister to instead of being focused on ourselves.
Traveling:
One of the best ways you can create a family identity is by spending a vacation together. How can you do this economically?
- You can go camping. We are from the South and initially, I thought camping was only for parks in the South. But we have been able to camp in Boston, Washington, DC, and Williamsburg.
- Stay at hotels where breakfast is included, have a light snack for lunch, and later, a larger dinner. We don’t eat out at restaurants much – maybe every 3 days at a nicer place.
- Instead of gifts from grandparents for birthdays or Christmas, ask for fast food gift cards from grandparents or money for the kids to pick out something at a couple of gift shops along the way.
Where do you go? Of course, this can vary for different families, but here is what we did.
When our kids were younger, we started with just trips to see family members. Sometimes, we would work in a fun day while we were there, like a day at Dollywood in Tennessee, or Disney World/Sea World in Orlando.
Then when they were a little bigger and a little easier to travel with, we planned a week-long trip. The first one we took was from our home in Atlanta to the East Coast of Georgia. We went to Savannah, Jekyll Island, St. Simon’s Island, and Sapelo Island. We varied the types of things we did – from touring old houses to a marine museum to seining on the beach. And we included some fun dining moments. My kids still talk about the pancakes we had at one particular restaurant.
After that trip, we began learning how to camp with a family of 6. We started with a trip up north to Virginia and Washington, D.C. The next time, we went as far as Boston. Finally, we have also made trips out west now to Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Las Vegas, California, and New Mexico.
We’ve made some incredible memories and experiences with our kids that really form our family identity and give us lots of stories to talk about.
Especially for High Schoolers:
Focus on finding some of these experiences early on in high school and work to attend and serve consistently or travel each summer. This can build an impressive resume with lots of unique things that a potential interviewer can ask about.
A high school student can also add summer internships or camps in areas where they are interested or developing their skills.
Dual Enrollment in a college during high school can allow them to experience a little bit of college while they are still at home and you can help guide them.
They may experience disappointment and be rejected as they try different opportunities. This can also be a great life learning experience.
Resources:
One of my favorite resources for documenting experiences is to write in a travel journal. Mine looks similar to this one.
I try to record the trip as we are going, but sometimes I have to record it after we return. It’s awesome to be able to look back and see where we stayed, or remember funny things that happened on trips.
If you will focus on these 5 areas in your home and parenting, you will be able to launch kids into the world who are prepared and ready to face anything!
Click here to get a free pdf plan for how to launch your student.
Click here to go back to the beginning of this blog series.
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Reply or post a comment on what you can do today!!
Blessings,
Michelle