Jen:
I am so excited today to have my friend Amy Kroff here, and she is an expert on having fun with your families. I can't wait for you to get to know her because she is going to help us have more fun with our teenagers and give us all of her best tips today. Amy. Welcome! Will you introduce yourself to my listeners?
Amy:
Of course. So I'm Amy Kroff, as you said. I am a mom of seven kiddos. I have raised a few of them who have moved on and out of the house, and then I still have four at home. So I've done a lot with the teenagers and I'm still in the middle of the teenagers and I have more teenagers to go.
Four of my kids are biological and three are adopted. And so that kind of makes this diverse family where I feel like I'm learning a lot of different personalities, not just ones that my husband and I can relate to , but ones that switch it up for us. We live in Utah and we just have a good old time. I'm able to stay home and come up with fun, crazy ideas.
Jen:
I discovered you on Instagram @gobefun_co (https://www.instagram.com/gobefun_co/) - if you're not following Amy, you need to be because she is truly the expert on having fun with your family. But I discovered your Instagram and I just immediately fell in love with everything you share. So today I'm so excited for you to share your best tips for having fun with your teens in your home and with your family.
Amy:
I think this is a big discussion. A lot of people want to have fun with their teenagers, and they're kind of a hard crew to get through. I don't know if you've ever talk in front of a bunch of teenagers, but they really just stare at you. And they don' give a lot. You're kind of like, “wait, do they even know what I'm saying?”
So I think the first and foremost with teenagers is you have to be able to laugh at yourself because you will you will make mistake. You will look like a fool. Like to teenagers, you're going to look like a fool and that's totally cool. You just gotta own it. I do see my husband sometimes get a little, he does not like making mistakes, and I'm like, no. The sooner you can just let that go, that the more fun you're going to have with your teenagers.
Some of the key points that I want to talk about.
First of all, when creating family activities, I make sure my kids, especially my teenagers, they know in advance that we're going to be doing an activity. I think that's key that you have to respect their time. You have to know that they, at this stage of life would much rather be with their friends. So if you just give them a heads up, like, we're going to have this family activity and I want you there. I've learned that the kids are very responsive to that and the first question they'll probably ask is, well, how long will it take?
And I have learned in that respect. Don't make it too long. If I say an hour, they're like totally put out, but I'm like, seriously, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. They're like, okay, I can do that. And then can I go out with my friends? And you're like, totally. You know, so I feel it's giving them the heads up, giving 'em the timeframe, and then this is huge.
You've got to get some buy-in from, from them. Like, are you in, are you cool? Are you going to be supportive? And if, if the teenagers have buy-in, everyone else is willing to do it. It's amazing the effect that they have on the rest of the family and their attitudes. and I've learned this even in group activities. If you talk to someone beforehand and say, Hey, can you help me out when I, when I start this game, can you jump in and, and join in? It's game changer in how the rest of people respond. So you want to respect their time and get some buy-in. Keep it short.
Jen:
I love that idea of getting their buy-in because their influence is so great. I know I have six kids, so I have a big family too, and when one child is excited and engaged and just happy to be there, it totally impacts the way everyone else responds. And so I love that tip. I think that's gold. And something I've never really even thought about.
Amy:
I had to learn this cuz I had, a lot of times I feel like I was doing it on my own right. I was trying to get everyone excited and so much pushback and that's to be expected. if you watch on my Instagram, it looks like everyone's always all on board and, and willing to do whatever I put out there. But there's a lot of intentional happenings that go on of me getting them on board, letting 'em know. Working with their resistance and being cool with it. Like, okay, I get it.
There was one time where I really saw it happen, where I really learned this lesson. We do this family chant in the morning. Every semester we have a new theme or whatever. And I do a lot of things on the fly, and so all a sudden I'm like, oh, we're going to do dance moves with this. Everyone, my husband all the way down, were like, no, this is good. No, we're not going to do a dance. I'm like, no, no. This is cool. And I kept trying to get him excited and just everyone was just shaking their head at me like we're not dancing.
All of a sudden, my oldest son, he was still at home, so I still had all seven kids at home. He stands up and he is like, wait a minute, this could be cool. And I was already doing some of my little moves, you know? And he is like, wait, this could be fun. And he gets up and I saw everyone change. Everyone's like, oh yeah, okay, okay. Oh, that's cool. Like, it just took that one other person to, to back it up. And I didn't ask him in advance. It was one of those things that had just happened, but I saw everyone's face expression change, and the support happened because I had that one kid's buy-in. It's Powerful.
Jen:
And to plan that ahead of time, that's genius!
Amy:
We talked about respecting their time, which is huge. Oh, that, on that note, with respecting their time: if you say it's going to be 15 minutes and the game starts going over, the activity starts going over 15 minutes or whatever, just give them permission to leave.
They need to know that you're re you're going to do what you say you're going to do. And sometimes my kids are like, they're out of there. As soon as I say, okay, you, you know, you, you did it, you participated, and they're gone. Or sometimes they'll be like, oh no, I can stick around and do it some more. So I really, they need to know that you're going to end when you say you’re going to end.
The whole activity doesn't have to end. But you need to respect their time as teenagers. Because my younger girls, they're all in and they'll sit and play, you know, with anything that I'm doing, they'll they're all in and they don't need a timeframe or anything, but the older kids, you’ve got to respect their time.
I talked about planning on resistance. Have you had that with your family?
Jen:
My kids are pretty accommodating. They're pretty willing to jump in and participate. But not always. Not always are they on board. And so I love the idea of not making it such a big thing. I think because I have a tendency to want to go big and dive in and take the whole night and make it family night. But I love the way that you just make it about these little pieces of connection 15 minutes is probably enough to get those memories and to get everybody interacting, and it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Amy:
I'm glad you said that because I feel there was a time when I used to feel that same way when I felt like I'm putting all this effort into it. We are going to have fun and we're going to love being a family and we're going to be together all night. And that's when I started seeing the resistance from the teenagers.
You know, as my kids started getting older, I'm like, wait, what? They don't want to be with me all the time. Yeah. What is happening? But so that's why with my gobefun Instagram. Page, I try to give ideas that really are 10 to 15 minutes. Because if we're doing this consistently, it has to be doable. And our kids will learn over time that this is just what we do. We just hang out as a family. And it doesn't have to be the all night, the you know, all the time spent together. They can still go off with their friends, but then, you know, you spent time as a family. You all laugh together. I think it's just as magical for 15 minutes as it is for three hours.
Jen:
And maybe even more so because sometimes you have all the fun in that 15 minutes and that's what they're going to remember. They didn't need three hours because it's not going to be fun for three solid hours.
Amy:
Right. It's cool to think that you don't have to take their whole night.
Jen:
And one of the things that I teach often is don't make your kids choose between you and their friends, because biologically, they are wired to want to spend more time with their friends and to separate themselves from you. So when you are doing these smaller increments of time and just getting those touchpoints more frequently then they don't have to choose between, I'm hanging with the family or I'm hanging with my friends tonight. They can do both. They can have both. And that's what we want. Because we want to connect with them and also we want them to have time with their friends because we know they value that. We know that's important to them.
Amy:
Hundred percent. That's great advice. Just the other day I was asking my kids separately a question like, what is something you think we could do more as a family? And my teenager who's going to be 17 next month, he goes, whoa. And he is like, we, we do a lot as a family. Like, what? Wait, what? Cause I think it was only 15 minutes here and there. And he's with his friends a lot of the time. But in his mind, no, we spend a lot of time together as a family.
And I’m like, “so you'd like to spend less time?” And he is like, no, no, no. You know, he redeemed himself. But those few minutes mean a lot. They know they're spending a lot of time with their family, even if it's just in 15 minutes, because it's quality time. That's it. It's the quality, not quantity.
One other thing with in planning activities, my personality, I make a plan and I'm like, this is how it's going to go down. And I've had to, over the years, let my plan go a little bit. And when you let teenagers have a say, it turns out so much more fun than you probably could have made happen.
I used to try to stick to my guns and this is the plan - this is what I had planned, this is what we're going to do. And as I've let them guide it more, it really is a lot more fun. They introduce stuff they do with their friends, and all of a sudden it's this whole new game or a whole new activity or a whole new experience that I wouldn't have even thought of on my own. So let your teenagers have a say they have great ideas. They're creative.
Jen:
I think that that is one of the most fun parts of being a mom of teens. Seeing the way that they bring this joy and enthusiasm and new ideas and creativity into your family experience that you just can't do when you're carrying the burden of running your household and being a mom, you don't always have access to the kind of creativity that they do, and it's just so fun to bring that vibrance and that life into your family as you let them lead out and contribute.
Amy:
Yeah. I think our roles as moms is to gather the family. You know, it's those hard parts of like, Nope, we're all doing this. And maybe even to provide a basic idea, but then to let it ride out and see where it goes. Last night I had some of my older kids home and I was trying to teach them the Cup song. You know, you do the whole cup song thing and it was kind of loud and obnoxious, some of the kids didn't know it, and it was fun.
But then all of a sudden, one of my other kids started playing a whole different cup game, and I did feel myself wanting to stick with it. Let's make the magic happen with this game. And he started doing this whole stacking game and everyone joined in and my belly was hurting I was laughing so hard. I turned into so much more because I let him take it and guide it and, and didn't feel I had to be in control. It turned out so much more fun. It was just the funniest. I'll be posting that one of these days.
I have to say one other thing that works with teens that’s huge. Okay, two things: If there's candy or cash involved, you're going to get a lot better response. I have to tell you, I was invited to go teach a bunch of teams about different games to play in, you know, like group games. And there were about 30 teens, like 15/16 year olds. And I was going through a bunch of different games.
This one game, I just had a piece of paper in my hand, so I wadded it up and I'm like, okay. They had to close their eyes and, and walk up and pick up the paper. So a couple kids volunteered to kind of show how to do it, and it was kind of dying down. It was towards the end.
And then all of a sudden, another adult came over and had a couple dollar bills. Like $1 bills. Yeah. And he crippled those up and dropped them on the ground. The kids, all of them, like all 30 of them jumped up and got in line to like try their hand at this, this activity of seeing if they could pick up the dollar bill.
It was a dollar bill and all of a sudden participation just shot up, So put a little cash money in the mix. Cash and candy. And do you remember my spinning game?
Jen:
Yes. Yes.
Amy:
Okay. Have you tried that yet?
Jen:
I bought the spinner and then I haven't tried it. I’ve got to do it,
Amy:
Dude. You've got to do it. I've used it in different situations, even chores. I had one daughter, who is away at college and she was home. And I'm like, “hey, will you play this game with me really quick?” And she's like, “How long, how long is it going to take? I'm like, “No, no, no, It'll be fun. Just it'll be fast.” And all of a sudden I bring out that tray of candy and she just like, oh, okay, I'm in! Cash and candy. it doesn't take much, but it, it does take cash or candy,
Jen:
That's so awesome. I love it. Anything else that you would share with a mom who just really wants to connect with her teen and have more fun with them? What's one thing they could do to get started?
Amy:
I do feel I've created an atmosphere where my kids know we're going to talk and we're going to have fun and we're going to laugh. And for those moms that are struggling, and there's a lot of them out there who are wanting to connect with their teenagers be patient, be consistent. If this is really what you want with your teenager, you have to define that this is who we are moving forward. We are going to talk and we're going to laugh together. Expect resistance, especially in the beginning. I have some kids that don't respond as easily, and I do give them their space, but I also let them know like, no, we're going to be friends. This is how it works.
Listen to them. Let them talk. Let them tell you about their day. Ask good questions. I think that's huge. I have a, a lot of those cards that have all the questions to ask: conversation starters. I have so many different ones that I've bought over the years, and I'll look through and I'll get a couple questions and then I'll casually bring it into conversation. They have no idea. I'm prepared. They just think I'm great at asking questions.
And those questions, are always really good questions. Better than what I could have come up with, you know? Like that one where I said, you know, what would you want to do more together as a family? It was one of those I had pulled out of one of the boxes and just thought, oh, that's a good one.
So I think being prepared with some good questions to ask, but in having fun with them, think on their level, what do they want to do? Right? What are your thoughts on that? What have you done with your kiddos?
Jen:
Yeah, I love that. I think being genuine and curious is one of the main things that I think helps me to connect with my kids for sure. Because I genuinely want to know what they're interested in and what would be fun for them right now. And when you can approach it with that curiosity instead of trying to control the situation and make it happen. But if you're open to what they would want, what they would be interested in I've found that really works well.
And all the things you've said I think are brilliant. Listening and being consistent and just continuing to show up even when you're met with some resistance, because that's totally normal for teenagers to meet you with some resistance and still you have an opportunity to keep showing up as the mom you want to.
Because that's really what we have control of as moms of teens. We can show up and be the mom we want to be. And if that's the fun mom, then just keep showing up and being fun. And even if they're not seeming responsive, what you contribute does matter to your kids and they are learning from it and they are absorbing it, and they are feeling that love from you showing up.
Amy:
Amen, sister. Yeah.
Jen:
I love it! If people want to find you, and I know they do because who doesn't need more fun in their family and with their teens, where can they find you?
Amy:
I'm on Instagram @gobefun_co (https://www.instagram.com/gobefun_co/) and every Monday I share a new fun idea, a craft activity/game/whatever I'm doing that week. I share it on my Fun Mom Monday is what I've called it for years, and now it's just stuck.
I do have a Fun Mom certification course and then I have started a subscription box of a monthly subscription of just, you get new fun ideas every month. (https://gobefun.teachable.com) So those are things I'm offering at this point.
Jen:
Hey, well, thank you so much for being here.
