It’s a common perception that many teens are lazy, for they don’t have the same disciplines that the older generation has. However, there are also other reasons why most teens don’t have the energy anymore.
If you’re interested, please read on. In the following sections, we’ll discuss what’s causing teenage laziness and how to deal with them.
Why Are Teenagers Lazy?
Due to the advent of technology, peer influence, and unhealthy diets, many teenagers become lazy or unmotivated. First, many individuals, especially teens, rely on websites, apps, and gadgets to complete tasks instead of manually doing them themselves.
Consequently, it made them more dependent on tools that can automate and execute things instantly. Moreover, as they’re more focused on their phones and computers, they have lesser physical activities leading to lower energy. Also, these gadgets are so tempting that teens stay awake at night playing games, watching videos, or browsing social media, resulting in lack of sleep, stress, and laziness.
Aside from technology, the influence of their peers might also contribute to behavior. If your teenager has lazy friends, there’s a high chance of him/her adapting their traits both knowingly and unknowingly. In other words, by simply being around friends, they might not realize that they’re starting to adopt the destructive behaviors around them.
On the other hand, what this generation called FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out means it’s ideal to stay on trend or be the same with everybody. As a result, a teenage girl or boy might mimic their friend or anyone of their same age’s behavior, including possible lazy behavior.
Lastly, an unhealthy diet can cause a lack of energy which can contribute to laziness. As such, a primarily fast-food diet with little to no vegetables and fruits can cause health problems. Furthermore, as services like UberEats and DoorDash make buying processed foods quicker, it’s more enticing to order than prepare meals at home.
10 Ways To Deal With Your Lazy Teenager
1. Set home responsibilities
If your teenager is too lazy to have the initiative to do things, it’s best to assign them tasks at home. At first, it could be simple chores to avoid discouraging him/her even more.
In the long run, you can extend or give more achievable tasks to keep the momentum running. After all, doing nothing every day can encourage laziness, even to active ones. Hopefully, this will make your teen realize the value, benefits, and joy of being productive.
2. Check sleep schedule
If you notice that your teen is tired and sleepy even in broad daylight, then it’s best to check his/her sleep schedule. First, you can ask about the time of sleep and rising, then make a plan out of it. Next, you can advise and provide measures on the best time to rest and how long to sleep.
By doing so, you can learn about your child’s sleep patterns and possible issues. As a result, it’s easier to help your teen get enough sleep and avoid laziness.
3. Make a healthy gadget screen time limit
Setting a limit to how much time your teen(s) can use devices would be helpful. Aside from having more time doing better things, it can also make them healthier. Since they will have lesser screen time, you can advise them to do physical tasks and other habits.
If you prohibit screen usage before bed, the blue light from gadget screens won’t affect your teen’s REM sleep. As a result, he/she can have more energy and time to complete productive tasks.
4. Communicate and motivate
One way of treating your child’s laziness is to talk and motivate. It might be ineffective at first, but it can catch up to their emotions once you take things seriously. Besides, while communicating, you might find out about issues and hardships that are causing laziness.
While talking might be enough, constant motivation is also beneficial. If you noticed that your teen starts to get lazy again, quick inspiring words and support could rekindle the urge to move and do worthwhile tasks.
5. Prepare healthy foods
Since unhealthy diets can cause low energy, preparing healthy meals at home is advantageous. Not only that your teen(s) can eat better food, but also, you can save on costs from buying processed goods outside.
Suppose you let your child help in preparations. In that case, he/she can understand the benefits and enjoyment of making food rather than letting others do it. Accordingly, it’s both making your teen appreciate hard work and actually moving.
6. Encourage exercise and physical activities
Encouraging teens to do physical activities can help them avoid laziness. Whether it’s house chores, exercising, or sports, body movements can stimulate the brain, making the body more active and excited to do things.
Apart from getting fit, it would also help them stay away from using gadgets every day. In other words, exercise and sports can provide more energy, health benefits, and enjoyment.
7. Control anger and punishments
If you have a hard-headed teen, you probably already made a lot of lectures and had a ton of headaches from the issue of laziness. If that’s the case and he/she is still not following, it would be best to control the anger and punishments.
In detail, you can explain calmly in a loving tone instead of shouting. Additionally, you can reduce or ease punishments and explain why you did that. Hopefully, this will make a teen understand why laziness is an issue that needs solving.
8. Reward or acknowledge actions
When your teen did a task or chore, reward or acknowledgment can help keep the fire burning. If it’s his/her first time after your talk, then having someone notice the outcome can help realize the effects of hard work on the people around them.
If you can’t afford a material reward, nothing is better than sweet and proud words from a parent. However, if you want to use gifts to make a teen do things, then please make him/her remember that it’s about the result and not always the reward.
9. Make activities and tasks fun
Apart from rewards, making tasks more manageable would also help in curing laziness. Again, if you plan to assign chores, please start with simpler ones to avoid discouraging them and remain at that level or give more throughout time.
Making activities fun and engaging is also an excellent way to encourage productivity in teens. Since many teenagers don’t do things that they don’t like or enjoy, making chores and tasks fun and relatable might help.
10. Be an example
If you want to help a teen break out from laziness, you can motivate him/her by showing how productive you are. Also, you can tell a story, experience, or example about how being hard-working helped your life at some point. Hopefully, these ways will make your teen realize the problems that laziness can incur and the benefits that productiveness can provide.