Teens, friends and leaning into service …

This might sound odd but stay with me. 

I’ve been thinking about how one of the most meaningful ways I was able to facilitate and support high school age connections for my kids actually ended up being to offer myself/ourselves to other people in ways that were helpful.

Often before but definitely by the teen years we noticed there were a lot of parents who had moved on from the attentive degree of parenting and family life that was still happening for us. Or maybe they never had it to begin with. They were either happy to have us give their teen a ride or come places with us or they didn’t care one way or another and the teen was happy to do those things with us.  I’m not saying this with any hostility. It was just something I saw a lot of. There’s a natural moving on of some parents during the teen years, maybe especially in a small-ish city where kids can walk, bike  or take the bus places. 

There were kids at basketball or youth group or indoor soccer who I felt uncomfortable seeing walk home in the dark on a winter’s night (or any season) on streets known not to be particularly safe. Offering them a ride one or both ways began to build additional connections for my kids after the activity itself and offered them another adult in their corner. 

One friend’s dad wouldn’t drop or pick him up but insisted he be in by 9:00. He didn’t seem to mind where he was or who was picking him up but it was clear that things wouldn’t go well if he was late. It was at least a 30 minute walk for him each way, after about the same to school and back, plus a newspaper route. In order to be in on time he needed to come off the b-ball court and be getting packed up just before 8:30. The real fun and and pick-up time began then. After regular games, a range of other people came and everyone would organize their own teams and series of games. The whole thing didn’t always feel worth it to him, so S and I began giving him a ride there and then I’d drop him off on time for his curfew and zip back to watch S until finished at 10:00/10:30 or so. There were inevitably other friends needing to walk home late so sometimes S would ask if we could drop them off and it wasn’t unusual to drop another 2-3 kids off.

They found a time on late Saturday afternoon into early evening that many of the same players were available and had a series of games where the friend didn’t have curfew. Several other guys they became friends with were there in those days as well. I’d offer a ride to a couple of them, go do my own work close by for a while, then meet them at the door of Costco with my membership card to let them in so they could grab some quick supper and hang out between games. They began to think of me as their ticket to Costco and the Costco workers saw me as the basketball Mum, showing up on cue to meet a group of sweaty, energetic 15 year olds at the door so they could throw back some fries and hotdogs in each other’s company. 

Over the years there were many of these opportunities. 

L and I picked a friend up for performance choir practices as her dad was often away with work and her mum was not quite finished work in time. In the weeks her mum was, she would flip the favour and do the same for me. They still had a couple of younger kids at home though so we would almost always do drop-off which was in a town in the opposite direction. 

M sometimes had a neighbourhood friend bike with him down to the boat club where he worked and ride the paths until M was finished a short shift. One season in particular, it rained tremendously and if I could, I’d end up going down to pick them up and we’d awkwardly load the bikes and give the friend a ride home. I didn’t get the sense his parents got home until late so we often found ways for them to keep hanging out. 

I spent a few particularly awkward evenings with the parents of a new friend of M’s. He and the friend met online in a virtual course and realized they lived relatively close. When M and I went to the community centre to meet as planned, I was all set to take my book to a cosy corner, but upon arrival, the parents were clear that they didn’t know M or I and wanted to stay close by and get to know me better. This was the opposite side of the coin from the basketball friends’ or biking kid’s parents. This harkened back to my younger parenting days when my kids spending time with friends often meant me spending time with the parents. As it often did then, this too turned out okay. They were new to Canada and so, of course, wanting to see what was what. It ended up being a bit too supervised for a longterm teen friendship, but some good came from it in that in my time together with the parents, I was able to recommend some different places and things and help orient them quite a bit. I learned a lot from them and their life experiences and it was a positive connection for M and their son who continued connecting online.

When I think back to those years, it was a lot of waiting and late evenings and pivoting because someone else’s plans had changed, going farther than I otherwise would and sometimes being in places and socializing with people I didn’t initially want to. It kind of felt like waking up each day to see what the assignment would be. 🙂

I became one of the parents (I wasn’t the only one) who would help with the writing of a friend’s resume and keep the file on my computer to print out copies, write a letter of reference or pick up a parent without a car to go to pick our kids up from camp together. I was one of the ones who would sit in my car until the very end of youth group so that M and S could have as much gym and social time as possible, asking what snacks might be useful for us to bring the following week. 

Even into college, when we went to take G out for a day of ferry rides and dinner out, we invited his roommate who didn’t have any family close-by and began to get to know him and be a potential support of sorts.

I think there are some key things we can bring to the table and offer other kids and famillies as homeschool parents … things like resourcefulness, community connection and creativity. These are things we develop over time in facilitating an education for and with our children.

Things like partnering with kids in writing resumes came easily to me after years of noticing learning and skills in everyday life and partnering in life skills. Putting a good word in for a friend or suggesting a community opportunity was easy when we’d become so familiar with local community.  Likely most importantly is the creativity that comes with home education and by that I mean always looking to find a way that works best for the largest number of people, whether that’s figuring out how to mediate sibling dynamics when we’re together so much as a family, plan field trips or co-ops for various families within a group or figure out what might make a two hour classical ballet class tolerable for siblings waiting with you while you watch. 

In dynamics with teen friends, this might transfer to being the parent who ponders the possibility of a request to arrive somewhere earlier or leave later and how it can be figured out if possible or reasonable rather than saying an immediate “no.” And the friends notice this and feel valued and respected. 

My kids never demanded any of this. They sometimes asked and if I could deliver, I did. Other times I saw a potential social opportunity or a need in someone else (so cool that these were often the same thing which is part of the point of the post) and decided whether it was something we could do. 

I felt moments of resentment here and there. To be honest, I’m currently struggling with moving through exhaustion and some debriefing of so many years of child-focused life – the teen years in particular- and the juggling act of combining that with paid work. At the time, though, it was built into our routine and in the moment, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Well, I would have changed a few things but I wouldn’t have changed my responsiveness and presence.  Looking back, I still wouldn’t. Even though it took some toll on me. Even though it was often not reciprocated to me directly while there was a broader opportunity for connections for my kids.

I look back and realize these were the “service years.” It was service to my kids and in the process I realized it could also be helpful to others. And to backtrack to the “service to my kids” part … I chose parenthood and I chose this particular path of education and living and I think in deciding to choose an alternative path, it was inevitable that it would take some alternative ideas and commitment. If I wasn’t sending them to school where there is the potential for built-in community, then I wanted to support them in finding and sustaining it in other ways. (*I want to take a minute to say that I know not all kids have the same need for community and not all parents have the same capacity nor do they choose to do this outside of or in addition to homeschool community. These are meant to be reflections and ideas for not putting all of our eggs in the homeschool basket for those finding it lacking in some way, and some of the unexpected benefit beyond our own family).

In the earlier years, I did that by joining and then co-facilitating homeschool communities and networks and in the high school years, although I did some of that same thing, it felt so much more authentic to tap more deeply into existing local community or activities and just see what we could make work. These places and activities will vary depending on where you live and your family’s preferences. For us they were community and fitness centres, libraries, skateparks, churches (and not just our own but branching out), choirs, art galleries, soccer leagues, youth leadership training, basketball leagues, snowboarding/ski hills, wildlife and nature conservation groups and part-time jobs. I know for other families, becoming involved in theatre has been a huge social opportunity and way to branch out. During our daytimes, we still often connected with homeschool kids we’d known for ages but often in less structured ways than before and it also didn’t always fill the need (I hope to write about this soon).

There are challenges with moving outside of the homeschool world for high school social opportunities. We are going from kids whose entire families we likely know to the unknown in many cases. We are suddenly in the midst of kids in a system that we may have opted out of for sound reasons. There is a lot going on for some of these kids both at home and at school.  I found that when time together was anchored around something consistent and positive, it brought out the best in everyone. My presence and involvement was not by mistake. That being said, I had to work at finding that flow of available enough without being overbearing and so I stuck to holding the outer structure of rides, arrangements, friendly “hellos” and responding to requests as able. I tried not to delve into anyone’s personal details or the nitty-gritty of the friendships my kids had.

And before it looks like I’m an endless ball of energy running around “serving” everyone, I’m not! I’ve actually really turned quite inward these last few months and am soaking in some time to reflect and  pour into activities and projects mainly of interest to me (like hiking and writing this). As mentioned, I’m recuperating from 25 years of active motherhood quite frankly, but it’s recuperation from something I chose and loved. To everything there is a season … 

And I know this isn’t for everyone. Some might see this as over-parenting. They will believe that teenagers should find their own way to and from their activities and jobs – if it’s raining, so be it, they can ride their bikes back home and it won’t hurt them – and that the years of active parenting have passed and we deserve a rest. Maybe that can also be true and certainly my kids made their own way to many places on foot, longboard and bicycle and had many the adventure with weather but I never felt forcing it arbitrarily was the answer. I’ve found the teen parenting years to be some of the most active, complex, exhausting, rich and endearing of all. I wanted to be present and sometimes circumstances demanded me to be. And if I could be helpful to other kids and families in the process, all the better. 

So if you saw me walking to your front door one day with a few hard copies of your kid’s resume, it’s likely because my kid asked if I could help your kid with their resume and I said yes. 😉

And if you see me standing in a forest just breathing deeply, it’s just me decompressing and processing years of “following the assignment” and now relishing in my season of having more flexibility. 

Any thoughts? 

P.S. I chose this picture because it was taken by S on one of the most recent evenings that I picked him up. I picked him up from the train back from Toronto with friends from work and it was the first time in a long while that I’ve done something like that. I realized I’d instinctively made sure there was lots of space in my back seats in case his friends needed a ride home and then went to the station, waiting for the train to come in. Nobody needed a ride as it turned out and that night was a sort of cross-section for me of past and present/future –  preparing as I’d done so many times, yet then sinking into the now familiar feeling of not doing late night drop-offs. Change has come.