You won’t believe how a simple adjustment in my busy life has got my teen to communicate with me………

In 2015 it was reported that amid 53,000 children in 15 countries, British youngsters are among the unhappiest, so how can we combat this?

As my daughter has hit those dreaded teen years (the Kevin and Perry years as me and my husband refer to them) it has become increasingly harder to spend ‘quality time’ with her, with both of us leading busy lives (work, school, hobbies, the list goes on) and me now not being ‘cool’ enough anymore it just seemed impossible.

After talking it through as a family, we decided that it was important to both of us to spend time together and actually she would like to hang out with me really, so I can’t be that uncool after all!

So after a lot of thought of how we can do it, we sat down and put a date in our diary’s for each month of the year for some real quality time. We made a list of things we would like to do like a lunch or dinner date, watching a movie or simply having a walk around the shops and actually most of the things she suggested didn’t even cost so that was an added bonus.

Having that time for each other has encouraged and enabled more open communication between us and she will talk about everything and anything (especially on car journeys) knowing that all of my attention is focused on her. It has been a really positive experience for both of us and we are both a lot happier.

So my question to you is, how do you spend quality time with your teen?

You may also be interested in our Raising Teens programmes, contact us for more information.