Summer vacation is an opportunity to help your teen learn and grow as an individual. It is also a chance for him or her to have new experiences and reinvent him or herself. In school teenagers are usually kept to a rigid schedule. These schedules offer few chances for them to make the choices that will empower them to get up every morning and feel like they are charting their own path in life as an individual. Such freedom is vital to helping your teen develop decision-making skills, and gain confidence and self-reliance. New environments and the potential for less direct supervision can expose young people to unhealthy influences and dangerous habits, yet with logical precautions and open conversations you can usually avoid regulating the fun out of summer. Helping your teen discover dynamic learning opportunities and expand the horizons of fun this summer is spectacular way to support them in having a full and happy life.

Mistakes to Avoid
Many families lead very scheduled lives during the school year, especially in single parent homes or when both parents are working. Routines and regular activities can be important tools to keep teens engaged and protect them from the dangerous situations that so often arise when kids know no one is keeping an eye on them. So when summer rolls around many teens are understandably elated at the chance to make their own plans. However, without a conscious effort by parents and other important people in their lives this freedom can quickly lead to a summer packed with TV, video games, and endless bowls of cereal. The vacation bliss very often wears off after a week or two and gives way to tedium. Boredom does not help anyone in your family, as it regularly leads teenagers to get into trouble just to pass the time. You may have to deal with the consequences; perhaps even worse, it is a colossal wasted opportunity.

Booking your teens into an unrelenting series of camps, programs, and activities in which they have limited personal investment can also present serious issues. While the brochures rave about the benefits your teenagers will enjoy, remember they were written by adults for adults, and teens know it. Taking such an approach is completely understandable. In theory these camps are fun and keep them out of trouble while you are at work. However, the reality is that what teenagers get out of activities is directly related to what they put into them. Making an honest assessment with your teen of how committed and passionate they are about what you have cooked up can help you figure out if both of you might get more out of spending the money in a different way. This can be especially important when you consider that if teens feel stifled by the continuation of a tightly packed schedule they have limited interest in, rather than new experiences that are intriguing, they are distinctly more likely to seek out unsafe outlets.

Considering Common Risks
Even if you and your teen agree that you have planned the perfect summer, it is pretty likely that not all their friends and neighbors pulled it off, too. Drugs, drinking, sex, and petty crime are not things people always immediately associate with summer, yet the risks grow dramatically when young people find themselves with less supervision and less to do. Be aware that planning an active summer is often not enough to protect your teen from increased poor choices in their peer group during the summer. Waiting to address these issues until the summer has started or they begin to surface can be dangerously ineffective. Once teens form their own opinions about what is fun for them and their friends this summer you may have a much harder time changing their minds. Handling these issues directly and openly by starting at least a month before their summer vacations begins can be a strong dose of preventive medicine. Setting time aside for your family to have conversations about these issues, not forgetting to ask questions and listen, is a great first step. But even if you do not think you sound like a broken record yet, there is a good chance your teen thinks you do. Consider finding new ways to address the same topics. You could reach out to other important people in your teen’s life. Relatives, coaches, mentors, and people they openly look up to are good people to look to for support, so that your teen doesn’t just write off your concerns as overprotective parenting.

Perhaps an even better teacher is life experience itself; suggesting to teachers that they can give students extra credit for touring or volunteering in a halfway house, Planned Parenthood, or juvenile court, can give teens a first hand understanding of why it is so often important to say no. If their school is not interested, plan it on your own or with your teen’s friends and their parents. Though this may seem like a scare tactic, it is an honest way to make them aware of the consequences of reckless irresponsibility. Such activities will help to break the monotony of sharing the same worries with them again, starting a new conversation based on new experiences.

A Fresh Approach to Planning
Summer is a time most teens continually look forward to, so you really cannot start the conversation too early. Beginning with grandiose plans is just fine if you do it well ahead of time. This approach will give your teens a chance to think about what they really want to do rather than making a last minute choice between imperfect options. Many families start planning in January when the slew of summer camp mailers start to arrive. Yet, beginning to throw ideas around in September can be extremely productive since the experiences and lessons of the previous summer are still fresh in their minds. Even more encouragingly, this means that all options that would be safe are still on the table. The whole school year is ahead of you if your teen still needs to prove that they are mature enough for the adventures they dream up. They have not missed deadlines for even the most preparation-intensive travel programs. Most empowering of all, there is still time for them to earn money if they are committed to doing something the family cannot afford. If you let your teens know that the sky is the limit if they pay for enough of it, they will likely take the choice far more seriously, and be dramatically more invested in the work and the payoff. Because the truth is that with research, perseverance, and responsibility, the sky can be the limit for your teens to have the time of their lives every summer.

Jumpstarting the brainstorming process may prove easier than many other important conversations you have as family, since it is so open-ended. It is crucial to be completely frank with your teen from the outset about the amount of money you will have to support them over the summer. On the other hand, if you are open-minded and encouraging about the universe of possibilities, but fail to focus on logistics from the outset, you can end up with a very frustrated teen.

Figuring Out What They Really Want To Do.
It is often helpful to start by encouraging your teens to make a list of the passions and interests they want to investigate, starting with broad concepts, like traveling outside of the U.S., working with animals, or getting involved in a lifestyle or career path they are curious about. For your teens to feel that they are being given freedom to take their summer plans into their own hands it is vital that you listen and respond to their ideas rather than trying to doing too much for them. Adults can be especially supportive by helping to search out new and interesting ways for their children to learn more about their passions, helping to make ideas more specific. Watching documentaries, reading books, and even just getting on the mailing list for relevant groups and organizations can show your teen where their perceptions of their passions and interests overlap with what they can do over the summer. Reach out to family members and friends with expertise and experience. Get in touch with people with real life experiences and experts on the subject in your area or over the web. An earnest and well-informed e-mail or letter from a teenager about how to get involved in something a respected person shares interest or experience in might be ignored, but with persistence and forethought such communication can yield new supporters and mentors.

For young people, friends are usually one of the biggest, if not the biggest, source of ideas and inspiration for what will make a fun and dynamic summer. Engaging friends and their parents from the beginning often provides you with the opportunities and resources that can make the difference. Let your teens’ friends’ parents know that you are starting early to make next summer unique. If you are successful in freeing your teens up to get excited and make their own plans it is likely that their friends will hear about it pretty quickly. If ideas, interests, and logistics start matching up between your teens and their friends this is often very helpful. However, it is very prudent to stay abreast of what is being dreamt up and make sure you know their parents pretty well. That way if you are troubled by the ideas and behavior of some of your teens’ friends, there is time to nip unhealthy ideas in the bud—or collaborate with other parents to work out a compromise.

Getting friends to plan together is a brilliant support strategy. Leaving home on their own for the summer might not be safe or might leave your teen feeling unsupported, yet in the company of good friends is often the best way to make this jump. Friends and their parents could join your family in the process from beginning to end, from coming up with a shared vision, planning it and working together to pay for it, to keeping each other safe and happy over the summer. Often some of young people’s most powerful experiences take place when they explore the world with their friends.

Having a bold and different summer experience not only helps teens grow up, but also can help them take charge of their preparations for college or other paths in life independently. By starting early in the year you can support them in local projects and activities that build qualifications, know-how, and confidence for the summer. See part two for sections with detailed advice for different types of off-the-beaten track summer adventures, and examples of specific organizations and resources that can help your family get started.