Parents of Teens with Small Homes

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DisorientingSneeze

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I’m thinking ahead here. I try not to worry about this yet as my oldest only just now finished kindergarten.

Has anyone with a small home succeded at becoming the hangout for your children’s teenage friends? I know this will be crucial to knowing who their friends are and what’s going on in my kids’ lives.

We don’t have a gameroom. My kids don’t have their own bedrooms. The livingroom is usually heavily trafficked by everyone.

As a teen I remember liking to be at the houses where we didn’t feel so watched. Can plentiful food and maybe the purchase of a foosball table for the back porch accomplish this good place to hangout vibe?

For clarity: this isn’t about popularity or wanting to be liked. It also isn’t about spying. It’s an atmosphere thing.
 
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Do you have a basement that can be finished over the years? That would be a good place for them.
 
It’s difficult in a cramped space. One of the main the teenagers are looking for is their own space. Your presence can stifle that a bit.

I have two boys that are in their twenties now. When they were teens, our (rather large) house was a popular hangout. I would mostly stay away from the areas of the house where they congregated, primarily in my study. Individual kids or small groups would often come in to visit me (I had an open-door policy), and we had great talks about every possible topic. If I had been seen as intruding on their space", these interactions would have been a lot more limited. And it might have induced some of the kids to find somewhere else to hang out.

Irishmom has a good point about the basement. I used to have a friend who had a small house when we were growing up, and we mostly hung out in the woods in the back of his property, where we built bunk houses and tree houses. That was a lot better than trying to hang out indoors with the 'rents.
 
Nope. The backporch is really my best hope. Closing it in was never my preference but the Texas heat makes it less hospitable some seasons.

I need Californians (who are lovely people) to either stop moving here in droves or stop overpaying for these houses. Somebody tell them they’re paying too much! I need this bubble to burst!
 
I don’t feel like I want to be the teenager hangout of the neighborhood. I want to have a welcoming space for my kids to bring one or two friends over and maybe have an occasional supervised party. When I was a kid, I would usually meet with my friends at their homes and we’d go out somewhere in public like the park or certain stores. (Borders was big.) We would often just walk around together in a herd. I don’t think I like the idea of teenage kids having a room to be unsupervised in my home. I can’t think of a single good reason that would be necessary. I would prefer to encourage my children to socialize in ways that are appropriate to be seen in public or in the common areas of our home.
 
Allegra said:
I would prefer to encourage my children to socialize in ways that are appropriate to be seen in public or in the common areas of our home.
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Try getting your kids and their friends to join in a common activity, like 4H or the YMCA. You could talk to the other parents about this. 4H is a great program for kids of all ages. And there are urban clubs, not only rural ones.

Most of all, do everything in your power to keep the kids interested in real life enough so that they don’t have to resort to electronic devices for entertainment.
 
Agree. I wouldn’t want them in a basement if I had one. There is a such thing as too closed off. And I sincerely hope that the church youth group and whatever high school extracurriculars they are in provide much of their social events.
 
We were the place the teens hung out, I never knew from one evening til next how many we’d be feeding for supper and on weekends every more of them were there! We loved it, the energy, the late night conversations. Because of the trust we built with these kids, there were times when a kid was beat up at home and he would come to my door in the middle of the night, when we helped with other family emergencies. I’d not trade the childhood/teen years that our son had for anything.

Small house, but, we had a huge yard and a covered carport. We were within walking distance of a state park/big lake, there was a neighbor hood pool and playground.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
Small house, but, we had a huge yard and a covered carport. We were within walking distance of a state park/big lake, there was a neighbor hood pool and playground.
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Yes. There has to be a place where the kids can “escape” the parents.
 
Our house was the one where the kids hung out when we were raising my child. For one, she was an only child so there wasn’t the problem of younger siblings “spoiling” the fun. NOTE: That isn’t a dig at larger families. Just something to be considered, depending on the age differences of your kids.

Our house wasn’t huge and I really didn’t like the kids hanging out in the bedroom. For the most part they were on the first floor with my husband and me. My daughter says we are fun people. We were never the parents who tried to be besties with the kids, but we naturally liked to listen to their music, etc. We liked to talk about the “old days” and the main thing was there was always a lot of laughter and a lot of good food to be had. A bunch of goofiness and silliness and good times.

Kids go where they feel comfortable. Figure out what that is, and you won’t have any trouble being the house to go spend time at for your kids’ friends. I don’t think it necessarily has much to do with what you do or don’t have with regards to space.
 
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Bedrooms were off limits in our house (and weren’t that attractive a place because they were Spartan. So was the workshop in the basement, unless there was a particular project they were working on, usually for 4H. The kids had run of the less formal living room, the den (no fire in the fireplace unless I was present), the kitchen and informal dining area, the downstairs sun porch and open front porch, and, if they were meditating, the upstairs sun porch next to my study. There were plenty of woods outside, and the river and two creeks. During fair weather, I strongly encouraged outdoor activities.

The garage was off limits, too, unless there was a 4H project that they had to work on.
 
We have a smaller house so when my kids had/have friends over, the siblings hang out in their rooms and my husband and I retreat to our room if it’s later in the evening. If it’s earlier we’d find yard work to do or my husband would work in his basement shop. We have a tv in our room so we didn’t mind. (or the siblings would join us for a movie.)

My kid and their friend(s) would have the run of the first floor which is the living room, dining room and kitchen. I would provide lots of snacks, movies, a game system etc. I would also show up here and there to chat with them, and see if they needed anything. It wasn’t ideal but it worked.
 
I wouldn’t worry too much about having things to entertain teenagers. In fact, maybe the less you have, the less claustrophobic and will feel and anyone who comes over will feel even more open and comfortable. Nothing wrong with having a small house so long as it’s a home.

As a teenager, I didn’t care as much about whether the house I was going to had a Foosball table or anything like that. I was more interested in hanging out and talking. We would usually watch movies (typically unintentionally funny ones to laugh at), talk about nonsense or serious stuff and eat (ordered Chinese, pizza, chick-fil-a, etc).

This is of course when we were at each others’ houses. Some homes had things like pool tables and we’d use those, and some homes were smaller and didn’t. It didn’t make much of a difference to us.
 
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DisorientingSneeze said:
And I sincerely hope that the church youth group and whatever high school extracurriculars they are in provide much of their social events.
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Sometimes kids just want to hang out with their friends in a manner that isn’t so organized.
TheLittleLady said:
Small house, but, we had a huge yard and a covered carport. We were within walking distance of a state park/big lake, there was a neighbor hood pool and playground.
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We’ve got a small house (8 people in 1600 square feet) and a big yard. We just ordered a screen room to put in the backyard to give the kids an additional place to hang out.

The biggest problem around here (for my teens) is annoying younger siblings. They can’t play a board game without the 3-year-old wanting to get into it.
 
DisorientingSneeze said:
I’m thinking ahead here. I try not to worry about this yet as my oldest only just now finished kindergarten.

Has anyone with a small home succeded at becoming the hangout for your children’s teenage friends? I know this will be crucial to knowing who their friends are and what’s going on in my kids’ lives.

We don’t have a gameroom. My kids don’t have their own bedrooms. The livingroom is usually heavily trafficked by everyone.

As a teen I remember liking to be at the houses where we didn’t feel so watched. Can plentiful food and maybe the purchase of a foosball table for the back porch accomplish this good place to hangout vibe?

For clarity: this isn’t about popularity or wanting to be liked. It also isn’t about spying. It’s an atmosphere thing.
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When I was a kid, we had a small house, but were were still a hang out location when playing sports in the back yard. But we really were not a hang out location otherwise.
 
Elizabeth3 said:
I would provide lots of snacks, movies, a game system etc.
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There was no soda, no junk food, no TV and no game systems in our place. Our cook would provide them with hot chocolate, tea or lemonade, and if they wanted anything to eat, there was plenty of fruit. Meal time was family only, or by my explicit invitation. I don’t think that it’s healthy for kids not to go home to eat the evening meal with their own families on a regular basis, except on special occasions (we had a taco night every now and then, and barbecues were more common in the summer).

I had an oversized computer monitor in my study, and we occasionally watched films on that together, especially during the winter. Had a little film club going for about two years.

There’s a difference between your house being a teen hangout, and being a place where teens could hang out. Our home was definitely the latter. There comes a point where you have to nip the tendency toward the former in the bud. Otherwise, you become the (unpaid) babysitter for the whole neighborhood.
 
I just had an idea come to mind. If you have adequate space in your yard, maybe you could get the kids a big playhouse (or tiny house) to hang around in. A playhouse is just that. A “tiny” house is sort of connected to water and electric. Some people actually live in them.

The playhouse would need to be built large enough but not too big.
 
Dacinom said:
As they grew I realized each child had their own temperament and needs. One, didn’t really like entertaining and preferred a quiet home. Others preferred active sports with friends as opposed to sitting at home. Others liked to have friends over and we were the magnet house! See where life leads you, encourage good Christian friendships, trust God.
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Good point! With it being so far off I’m just looking at how we use the spaces now and hadn’t considered that it’s going to be so different because they have such different natures and needs.
 
I love LOVE love hearing all your lived experiences as teens and as parents on this subject. We had a wisdom panel of all sorts of parents whose kids are now adults talk and answer questions for our momgroup recently. I had some follow up questions on this topic but time was up. Thanks for being my wisdom panel!
 
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