The 4 Things Your Teen NEEDS This Christmas

If you think it is an iPhone 5s, Kindle Fire HDX, Your car keys, and a credit card; you would be slightly incorrect.  Christmas is a great time to give amazing gifts, but next year they would just want the next iPhone, tablet, their own car, and a lot of money.  Here are four gifts your teen NEEDS this year, so put them on the Christmas List:

1. Your Time/Attention - I know it seems contradictory because parents are doing everything they can for their teens for Christmas.  We buy their gifts, take them to Christmas parties, help them wrap the gifts they bought for us with our money, and the list goes on.  Christmas morning can seem like such a blur, so take the time to create a new family tradition and ask your teenager for their ideas. Teenagers are becoming more aware of helping others, so maybe a service project in the community would be a good idea.  Most importantly, make sure you try to connect with your teen and allow time during this crazy, hectic holiday to be a moment where it is more about your relationship than your next present.
   
2. Family Fun - This is an easy one right?  I would say no.  Holidays are being taken up by games on TV, movies, Candy Crush or Quiz Up and are becoming less FUN and more isolated and boring.  Play a game together. Break out the deck of cards or dominoes. Play Taboo or Boggle (you know, Scramble with Friends but in 3D).  Put down the iDevices and engage in hilarity.  You won't regret it.
   
3. Sleep - The fact is that teenagers sleep in late.  In their defense, they need it!  In an article every parent should check out, it explains:
   "Part of the problem is a shift in circadian rhythms during adolescence: It makes sense to teen bodies to get up later and stay up later, Johnson said.
   But due to early busing and class schedules, many teens rack up sleep debt and "become increasingly cognitively impaired across the week," Johnson said. Sleep-deprivation only exacerbates moodiness and cloudy decision-making. And sleep is thought to aid the critical reorganization of the teen brain."
   
4. Help - This is probably the vaguest ones on the list.  Each teenager will need a different kind of help. Communication is the only way to figure out what help is needed.  And if you want open communication with your teen, then make sure you get these first 3 things on their Christmas NEEDS List and you may be able to help.  Some teens may have issues with peer pressure, future worries (like college and beyond), depression, pornography (cannot stress this one enough), or relationship problems.  They need help to make choices that will affect the rest of their lives, but they don't want us to make it for them.
   
   I hope you have a great Christmas and get everything on your list, including the new Kindle Paperwhite.  Maybe that is just me.  Let me know what you would add or change to the list.