Activities

[choirfarm]

I'm trying to figure out this issue, especially with my oldest boy in 9th grade,

who would be happy to spend his life at home, a lot of which in his room just

daydreaming listening to music or calculating sports scores and statistics. Here is what we do each week:

 

Sunday- church- he runs the power point at least once a month during the

services and often on Sunday nights and for special concerts and such. He hasstarted playing with a youth handbell group at 4,but they really don't haveenough to play. ( I think he went because a girl he likes asked him to go, butthat is just a hunch.)

 

Monday- Evening: High school boys Bible study at someone's house. He hasactually wanted to go to this, which surprised me. There are about 6 to 8 boysthat go, most of which are seniors with two juniors. We are the only

homeschooling family in our church. He is the only one who doesn't drive,

doesn't have a cell phone, doesn't do facebook, etc. He enjoys it, but

obviously no close friends in this group. Also this group just met from the

middle of September to middle of November. It will pick back up Jan-April, I

think.

 

Tuesday-nothing

Wednesday- nothing

Thursday-nothing

Friday- We are supposed to have piano lessons on Friday afternoons, but their teacher's husband went into hospice so that has been on hold since Ocotber and not sure when it will pick back up.

Saturday-nothing

 

 

Now HE is perfectly happy, but what in the world will he put on his transcript for activities???? Before last year he could at least put some piano competitions that he placed in. I mean, he has no friends (other than several that are his brother's friends a few years younger. I'm not sure what I should do.

 

Also complicating this is school takes us a long time. He is doing Apologia

Chemistry, Chalkdust Geometry, TOG year 3 rhetoric level which includes history literature and writing, SOS Spanish,Analytical Grammar and Intermediate Logic in addition to piano practice. This pretty much takes from 8 to at least 3 and many times 5 each day. I'd like to take my 8yo to some of the park days and such, but he really needs to be home to get his school work done. Hubby likes for us to be home in the evening if he is home. The younger kids and i are gone on Wednesday night for church activities as it is.

 

Also, we travel tons. This year we took a family trip for 2 weeks in September, will take another week long one in February and a two week one in April. We are also going to try and go to

Ethiopia again this summer. We are often gone on the weekends as well and take tons of long weekend trips. We live on 50 acres, so when we are home on the weekends we are often doing things outside on the farm. It makes it hard to commit to participate in anything. Dh NEEDS time off and time to get away from the high pressure job. Don't suggest doing things without us, he won't. He loves his family and likes for us to be here and around when he gets to be. (He's a surgeon, so he is gone a lot.)

 

Christine

[choirfarm]

What complicates it is also including my other two children. My nearly 13yo has more aquaintances. He has middle school madness on Wedesday night, while my 8yo has AWANA and I have choir/praise team. Thursday afternoons my 8yo has violin and vision therapy. On Sunday night she has children's choir. I typically have music committee meeting once a month as well as extra practices sometimes for choir and/or praise team for things like big concerts, Christmas Eve etc. So I really don't want to leave the house anymore than necessary. In January/February my daughter will play her one sport for the year: basketball. She will have practice on Thursday night and games on Saturday ( just one). I like this sport as it is more low key than others that have two practices a week, two or more games a week and longer seasons. Still, even though each child doesn't do much more than church stuff, it feels busy even though my 14yo is home alone TONS.

 

Christine

[Julie in MN]

Christine,

He sounds like a nice boy & I wouldn't fret a lot about him, myself.

 

But as far as generating ideas, you'd have to give us something to work with. If he doesn't drive, apparently lives too far out to walk/bus, you don't want to take him anywhere, and he can't commit because of family travel and farm responsibilities, then I'm not sure what to suggest.

 

Maybe you could first brainstorm about where you could fit something in, and then we could give ideas about what could fit in that slot. Is there a possibility you could host something at your house? Is there a way he can get out to do a service project? Is there a computer where he could do something online regularly? I think you need to think through logistics, first. Otherwise, just enjoy that he is content where he is :)

 

Julie

[tex-mex]

Community service project -- long term -- like helping out at the local animal shelter to organizing a food drive. Kids can meet at your farm to go over the basics to plan and implement. Make it a quarterly event and it looks good on the transcript.

[choirfarm]

Yep, logistics are tough.. And I will take him out. It is just hard when he only expresses interest in one thing: sports. He has a sports notebook. In his football section he has all the high school playoff brackets, college brackets, pro, etc. Our family has done our annual bowl selections and he has them in his notebook and constantly messes with statistics. ( I am designing a statistics course for him to do next year as it seems like something he would love.) He messes with that tons as well as filling up his IPOD with music and researching about his favorite artists. He loves computers but has limited access because of violations of trust in the past. What can I see him doing in his future? Well, I can see him as that person on the computer behind Al Michaels giving him all of those interesting stats that he talks about during the game. (There has to be a person doing that. Surely commentators don't have all that stuff in there head.) I'm considering having our whole family help out with Helping Hands which is run by a collection of churches and gives food and assistance to the needy. I just wish he would be passionate about something that matters.

 

He is a sweet boy and does a great job at church running the power point. He ran it for our choir concert, but could only do it one out of the two days because he went to a concert (Francesco Battistelli, Leeland and Brandon Heath). The choir cheered when they found out he would be there the second night as he always seems to be right there. He makes changes effortlessly when our director changes things or the words are incorrect. He actually puts the words up in time for us to sing instead of slightly behind. Bless his heart, they had him running the Christmas Eve service and it went out 3/4 of the way through. Thankfully the DVD still worked, but the words for the last two songs wouldn't show up on the screen!!! The sound man that was up there praised him for keeping his head. He powered down the computer and restarted it. It was showing on his screen, but not on the projector. That was about all he had time to do and the sound man didn't know what was wrong either. Afterwards, he figured out that a cable disconnected. We're thinking that a guest dislodged it somehow as the connection is shaky. So the music minister taped it and now he knows to check that if it happens again. I've thought about having him volunteer an afternoon a week at the church. If he knew about web design, then he could help them a ton as our web page is pathetic. We don't really have a staff member who does that. But would colleges look at that as an activity?

 

Christine

[choirfarm]

Community service project -- long term -- like helping out at the local animal shelter to organizing a food drive. Kids can meet at your farm to go over the basics to plan and implement. Make it a quarterly event and it looks good on the transcript.

 

What kids?? Who would he invite???

 

Christine

[mom2paul]

Meals on Wheels is a wonderful volunteer opportunity....we do it as a family once a week now for several years now and ds really looks forward to it.:auto:

[Mama Lynx]

Yes, colleges will look at web design as an activity, especially if he has sites he has designed that he can point to. That's also an employable skill. Might he enjoy learning to program, as well?

[Rosie_0801]

If he likes sport, how about SCA or something? He can partake in sport, possibly get awards (do things like that go on transcripts or college applications?) and there is always room for volunteering, even if it is just to play waiter at a feast. That's something the whole family can attend, but everyone can still be off doing their own thing, to a degree.

 

Rosie

[choirfarm]

What is SCA? I've never heard of it.

 

Christine

[Rosie_0801]

What is SCA? I've never heard of it.

 

Christine

 

 

Society for Creative Anachronism. A very silly name for a world wide medieval re-enactment society. It's fun :)

 

Rosie

[Nan in Mass]

My son does LARPs and plays D+D type games. It seems to be full of a fun batch of independent-thinking geeks who are intrigued by strategy, statistics, and complex systems. They memorize books worth of rules. They are generally kind and welcoming. It sounds like something that might appeal to someone who was playing with sports statistics, but it wouldn't be suitable for a conservative Christian.

[Nan in Mass]

Sigh. Those are dangerous words. If you don't like this advice, ignore it, ok?

 

You sound like you have reached the point where you feel that you really must do something about this situation but are hesitating because it is going to involve some rather extensive changes. Every time I've reached that place and not made the changes, I've regretted it. I've looked back later and asked myself why I didn't do anything. The answer is always that it was going to be difficult, I hate change, and things were rather nice the way they were, at least for most of the family. Sometimes, the whole family has to change, though, to support one person or to support a new stage in the lives of your children. So far, you have provided a sheltering, family-oriented place for your children to grow up. That is perfect when they are little, but as they approach adulthood, they need more of a transitional place. If you don't provide that, they have to make the transition in one gigantic jump when they leave your family. Some children can do it, but I have grown to be suspicious of that jump. I think lots of people get lost during it or lose their ties with their family. I know it is difficult to balance the widely varying needs of your children. Some compromises and sacrifices will have to be made, but I think you should do them deliberately, rather than let it happen by accident or while you weren't noticing. It may be that your son's need for outside activities can't be met right now, but you should make that decision deliberately, hopefully with the intention of meeting those needs another year. They may not have many years left by the time they are your son's age. Or they may. We didn't make the transition (which is how I recognize it now - sigh) with our oldest and I bitterly regret it now. We changed things for the next two. One result of all this is that we had extra years in which to work on launching the oldest. (We bungled the traditional college launch date and wound up launching two more or less together. Meanwhile, the oldest worked and lived at home, at least part of the time.)

 

It seems like you have some activities that have been suspended for one reason or another. Perhaps a good starting place would be to restart those activities with a different teacher?

 

Meanwhile, look at your family and think about whether you need to change things to make it a family that works as a half-way house for teenagers becoming adults. Traditional, stay-at-home values are a good thing, but in those sorts of families, it seems as though traditionally teenagers go through a stage of rebellion and experimentation, often behind their parents' backs. Look at the families you know that do things the way you are doing them and look at what happens/ed to their teenagers and young adults. Then do it the other way around and look at the families who have young adults that are like you want yours to be, and try to decide what they did when those children were teenagers. I did this and we decided that we needed to change our family to be less enclosed and self-sufficient. We began to make a place for other teenagers and began to do family activities that could easily accommodate those other teenagers, ones that teenagers generally like. We also began to put an emphasis on going out into the world to change it to be a better place. We began letting our children go away from us more, and worked towards making them more self-sufficient instead of a cog in the family machine. These changes ranged from getting a dart board and rethinking the no-TV rule so they could watch sports with their friends to learning to ski to letting the children travel in foreign countries on their own. They were extensive changes LOL.

 

Good luck!

-Nan

[Chris in VA]

Honestly, I don't think you need to add anything at this point. He is in charge of running the PP at church--this is a leadership position, or can be written up as one, with a lot of responsibility. I think getting him to re-design the church website (perhaps with help/mentoring) would be fabulous, but he still has time to learn that.

Are any of your trips missions oriented? He can use that.

 

A few activities where he's a leader looks better than a lot where he's just a dabbler. Will he be working part time as an older student? This also looks fabulous.

[Musicmom]

Honestly, I don't think you need to add anything at this point. He is in charge of running the PP at church--this is a leadership position, or can be written up as one, with a lot of responsibility. I think getting him to re-design the church website (perhaps with help/mentoring) would be fabulous, but he still has time to learn that.

Are any of your trips missions oriented? He can use that.

 

A few activities where he's a leader looks better than a lot where he's just a dabbler. Will he be working part time as an older student? This also looks fabulous.

 

I agree. I think the PP and potentially the web design are great activities for him to pursue. It is really important to be able to list leadership positions on his college applications. Plus, he should be able to get some excellent recommendations from people he's worked with at church. I'd pursue these in more depth.

 

Also, is there stuff along those lines or other leadership/service activities that he could do at church while you're there on Wednesday nights? My two kids have been assistant leaders in AWANA ever since they graduated from the program. Anyway, doing something at church during that time would be one way to get him more/deeper involvement without complicating your schedule further.

 

I also think resuming piano would be very good--maybe look for another teacher? Participation in music (potentially he could do a few competitions too) is good to put on applications, not to mention being a wonderful and fulfilling life skill. (Can you tell we're musicians here? My kids play piano and violin :D)

[HSHS]

I agree about resuming piano & trying web design. It's something he could keep up long term too - getting into different types of web design, graphics - that kind of thing. You'd think I knew what I was talking about but I don't. DD loves this kind of thing. She recommends, if he's into coding himself rather than using a program to do it, that he starts with HTML, then CSS and continue from there. There's also free graphics programs available instead of photoshop which is quite expensive unless you can find a copy on ebay or whatever. GIMP is a good idea for graphics and is free. You can also try and find an older copy of photoshop.

 

If he's into games he could learn how to make his own, too. He could run a fansite too. Does he have any interests in particular besides what you have already mentioned? I hope this was of some use to you. (:

[TravelingChris]

I have to agree with Nan's post. I think it is really important to use the teen years and particularly the later teen years to slowly foster independence in the child. Some won't make the transition well even with that but it does work better to make some adjustments in the family dynamic to allow the teen some independence and group activities, regardless if that is a high priority for them or not. I think the group activities have been more important to my introverts than to my extrovert. They needed the interactio with others to become more comfortable. Things like mission projects, camps, etc. can help with the separation process. I think it is better to do it in steps rather than have the kids separated for a long time and then out to college or military or work life they go. Those are huge transitions and having some familiarity with doing things with others not with the family can help greatly.