I decided to write this “spur of the moment” after reading posts a few others had written about their days with teens. I had taken notes on a day in early February but set them aside because it seems tricky to write about a day in the life with teens.
First, as it has for everyone else, the pandemic has changed the landscape of our days and weeks. With young adults and teens, whose lives had begun to shift into work, mentorships (find out more here), post secondary prep, social relationships and interests, that shift seems more pronounced somehow.
Second, we have a whole life learning/unschooling approach which I find makes things more difficult to get a sense of because instead of the clarity of a set list of subjects, learning is woven throughout the week. It doesn’t always look like as though learning is happening (even to me) until the fruits of time spent in deep dives become clearer later.
Also, as I’ve seen mentioned by other parents of teens, descriptions of days with teens seem a bit uneventful compared to adventures with younger kids, not because teens are boring (they aren’t!), but because so much of their learning is internal, particularly for some personalities.
Finally, there’s the question of privacy and the fact that there are a whole slew of interests, accomplishments and challenges that parents of young adults and teens may not really be able to gab about, as much as we’d like to!
So, here we are with a day from early February 2021, with me taking a shot at describing what one “homeschool” day with teens looks like, peppered by interaction with young adult children and a wonderful Granny.
After home educating four kids, and now in our 18th year(!), we have the two youngest living here at home this year. L, 15, is still school age and S, who just turned 18, is technically Grade 12, but has his own plans and projects that have shifted and we have pretty much finished putting together a transcript and portfolio to keep options open that he might be interested in. It seems odd and I still haven’t adjusted really! We all still enjoy spending time together though so the fun is still in the air and maybe even more so now:).
Somewhere around 7:15, I sense the longer of our two tuxedo cats stretched lengthwise against me, making it harder to nudge myself up and out. Literally, I’m somewhat wedged in, so I slowly disentangle as I hear voices in the kitchen preparing to head out. My 15 year old daughter and my husband are quietly getting ready to head about an hour’s drive away to spend a good chunk of the day with my mother-in-law. She was widowed in the fall and doesn’t drive, so the kids sometimes go with my husband to help with some work around the house and yard. It’s a blessing to us as well because she looks forward to sending cooking home and has been mentoring L in quilting and embroidery. Today they are planning to get some tasks done and then spend the bulk of the time finishing L’s quilted pillow, in a crazy quilt style. L really enjoys artistic pursuits and has sewn some of her own clothes in the past so spending more time with fabric rather than sketching or painting materials is a fresh shift again.
My husband and L head out a bit before 8:00 and I see that my youngest son (and the only one still living at home), S, is awake and getting breakfast as well. It isn’t always the case that S and L are both been up and beginning their day at this time. We are all most creative and alert in the evening and tend to be a “late night” family. Now well into their teens, they naturally sleep later unless they have other plans or commitments. I’m happy for them to be able to get the sleep they need. I’ve seen that G (21) and M (just turned 20) have already adjusted to earlier wake up times for early classes and labs and now work for G. I also see that S and L easily set their alarms and get themselves moving as needed, today being a good example.
I start my day in the backyard with birds:). S built me a large feeder but, try as I might, I can’t keep the squirrels from taking more than their fair share. I still fill it a bit, but I’ve shifted more to daily fill-ups of grapefruit feeders on smaller lilac branches. Two cardinals, a nuthatch and an uncountable number of chickadees move out of the area quickly when they see me coming. They’ll make their way back bit by bit over the morning. We’ve gotten to know their patterns and preferences so well this year.
We also have been following an ever-shifting family of cottontail rabbits that live in the back corner of our yard for about four years. We have seen the pre-mating dance the last two springs, had nests built in one of our little gardens under the kitchen window and watched the new babies each June. This time of year we watch their paths of rabbit tracks and pellets that give us some clues about where they are.
Around 8:30, I head down to my computer and phone in the basement – calling it an office right now would be a stretch;) – and plan to work through the morning. I shifted to a much less intense work schedule in the new year, so I will work through the morning and hope S might have some time to spend together this afternoon.
I pop up for a glass of water partway through the morning and see that S has newspapers put together for his route the next day and is now at the kitchen table sorting out some budgeting. He works with a carpenter (although on hold a bit due to Covid and Provincial restrictions) and has a couple of orders that are on hold. He also has plans for an online business and is saving for equipment and supplies. He has taken on an extra paper route to pay for supplies and is factoring the costs of different items and options from different stores. He’s been having trouble getting some equipment in. He’s also keen to get online banking set up with his account. He just turned 18 a few days ago and can now technically bank online so he gets that set up before lunch as well.
We each get our own lunch and I suggest that it might be nice to put a blueberry pie in the oven for early afternoon. He doesn’t disagree:).
By 1:00, I’ve wrapped up work except for a few details that need to wait until evening anyway. S is in his room playing online basketball. I bring in a plate of pie for each of us and have a seat. This is usually a time of day that I spend with my daughter this year and I haven’t taken time lately to really just hang out with just him and today feels like an opportunity. I ask him some questions about what he’s doing because I realize he’s building a team, rather than playing an actual game today. He wheels around on his office chair and gives me much more information than I bargained for. I’m amazed. The statistics, the financial estimates, the plan and budget he’s put together in order to earn online currency rather than buy features with his own real-life money, the knowledge of team development and game play, the vocabulary and articulation in explaining the process – wow.
This last month has been a shift. After years of read-alouds when he was younger and exploring literature together with a small group, (you can read about our process here), then just he and I, that chapter finally came to a natural close just a few weeks ago. Our last two books together were a re-read of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, followed by the story of Corrie Ten Boom and her amazing ministry in Nazi occupied Netherlands, The Hiding Place.
I head to my room to do some writing for a while. The shift from homeschooling with four kids to now just two still doesn’t feel quite natural! I end up texting M (20) and G (21) as I do a few times a week. They both answer fairly quickly. M has some things he’s happy to accept some assistance in getting done so we make a plan for us to drop some things off on the weekend. G is on break when I text and we joke back and forth a bit.
Around 3:00, S knocks on the door and asks if I’d like to go for a walk. Umm, yes! This invitation doesn’t come my way much anymore and I’m more than happy to go. We walk for about an hour, knowing that my husband and L will be home about a half hour after that and we’d like to get the dishes done. It’s a gorgeous winter afternoon. We talk about loads of things. Timelines for returning to the wood-shop. Gaming plans. University or not. Relevant business courses versus degree. Self-directed learning options. Whether our small, neighbourhood store we’re passing by might have our favourite chocolate in stock;). We walk along city streets until we come to a wooded path. S is sure he hears a pileated woodpecker … we listen closely because we can’t hear its distinct call, but it doesn’t seem likely that the little Downy or Hairy Woodpeckers close to our place would make such loud pecking noises. We decide to look it up further when we get home (spoiler alert – after listening to online bird calls from several sources, we’re still not quite sure!)
We arrive home in time to get the dishes washed before my husband and L arrive back. Granny has made dinner to send back for us all and it is thoroughly appreciated. My husband checks some work messages and supplies, we enjoy eating dinner and begin our evening.
Evening for us is the most concentrated family time now that the kids are older, but especially since the kids’ evening activities and my work meetings have shifted due to the pandemic.
L has lots of stories about her day with Granny. In addition to finishing her beautiful quilted pillow and the beginning plans for an embroidery project, Granny got the old photo albums out and L was thrilled to see old pictures of grandparents and great aunts and uncles. She has loads of questions and my husband brings up some old photo albums that the rest of us have never seen.
The kids pour over them and then finally we put them away and settle into some games. Tonight we play Chinese checkers, Black Jack and the card game, Speed. Afterward, L and I set up our own game of Memory with a set of Art History cards that are technically a game of Snap that we use differently. We’ve been into lots of games this past year.
We finish up in time for L and I to watch an episode of Political Blind Date. It is a Canadian show that pairs two politicians from different political parties, and often with opposing viewpoints, on two “dates.” The first date is planned by one politician in an effort to introduce the other to people and places that help explain their point of view on an issue. The second date is planned by the other politician to do the same thing with the people and places that they choose. In each episode they genuinely seem to learn from one another, and more importantly, so far their exchanges have been respectful and full of interesting debate. We watch one in relation to urban sprawl and protecting wetlands and then a second one about the process of hiring migrant workers in our province’s agricultural industry. This led to such interesting conversation because we know some migrant workers a little bit from some farms and groups in my parents’ area.
I’m not exactly sure what S and his Dad have been doing during this time, but I think it involves automotive YouTubers they’ve been watching together lately. They’re both very interested in the marketing and just general industry of cars in different parts of the world.
At 10:00 we settle in for the news. Afterward S and L play on online Word Tile game, Word Chums. L is pretty much undefeatable and nobody can really figure out why. My oldest son, G, is convinced she has some sort of cheat system underway (not really!), but she assures us that she has just developed her own effective system of finding high points words.
By 11:00, David and I head down to the computer for an hour to each wrap up some work details (we truly are night people!). We will both be out of the house here and there with pockets of work tomorrow.
Shortly after midnight, I settle in with a chapter of The Powerful Purpose of Introverts: Why the World Needs You to Be You by Holley Gerth, a book I’m reading (and thoroughly enjoying) in the Introverted Moms Community.
The kids head to bed at some point shortly after.
And that’s a wrap!
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