# [How to Be Brave](https://howtobebrave.substack.com/)

Helping parents raise curious, courageous learners using evidence, instinct and grace. From a former NYT reporter and author with 25 years experience.

# Teens should be doing stuff. Here’s how to help them

### Fake homework, the value of part-time jobs, and why you might have to sometimes make your kid row a boat

[Jenny Anderson](https://substack.com/@jennywesta)

Mar 23, 2026

_Photo: Frencesca Runza for Unsplash_

We spend a lot of time worrying that teenagers aren’t happy, fulfilled, engaged, and agents of their own destiny. Between [40 and 70%](https://www.cdc.gov/children-mental-health/data-research/index.html) of US adolescents are not flourishing (though the data on this can be messy).

Screens are often seen as the top culprit. The state of the world—polarization, war, an affordability crisis, modern school design, cancel culture, climate change, nasty politics—also play a role.

These are important debates. But much less time is spent on figuring out how to get kids to _do_ more things.

Doing something IRL is a great way to curb fake homeworking, TikTok doomscrolling, addictive gaming or finding another ‘beauty hack’ on Instagram. Totally unoriginal but actually proven and popular ways include sports, art, music, part-time jobs, or anything that displaces the ability to explore the dark recesses of the manosphere (thank you Louis Theroux for [showing me](https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81920687) the hellscape of live streaming men who were not loved enough as children). This philosophy is the basis for the [Center for Teen Flourishing](https://www.centerteenflourishing.org/), and one of the main reasons I joined.

I wrote about the can-do culture of the 1980s in my [post on](https://howtobebrave.substack.com/p/stranger-things-and-one-more-thing) _[Stranger Things](https://howtobebrave.substack.com/p/stranger-things-and-one-more-thing)_ last week. Kids rode bikes, had freedom, played with nails and barbed wire, built things and, in the world of the series, battled monsters. My nostalgia wasn’t for a time free from phones. It was for a time when kids developed problem solving skills by _doing stuff_, not sitting in classrooms with teachers wondering how to develop problem solving skills.

### **Will just ‘doing more stuff’ work?**

“Flourishing isn’t something you get by following a formula or flipping a switch—it’s a natural process that emerges over time shaped by our daily interactions and the environments we inhabit,” [writes Dan Coyle](https://danielcoyle.com/flourish/).

Screens are addictive. Kids sit down to do math and end up lost in Roblox, Discord, or Snapping pictures of the ceiling to 200 semi-strangers. They need help changing their _daily interactions_ and the _environments_ they inhabit.

This is hard. We’re busy. With technology involved, the lines between communications, entertainment and learning are so blurred as to be nonexistent.

But as Coyle also points out, flourishing “isn’t a solo endeavor. We become our fullest selves in and through relationships with one another.” Flourishing is mutual.

So, kids need to do more non-screen stuff and, ideally, do it with others. The good news is: there is a lot out there. The bad news is every kid is wildly different and finding their thing may take time, and experimentation. Human variability is a feature, not a bug.

### **What about overscheduling?**

There are, of course, a few camps here. Many kids are desperately overscheduled. They have too many demands placed on them, and are stressed. They might need more time to rest and daydream, and _less_ doing time. There are also kids happily doing a million things but without having nailed their great passion. That’s OK. That’s adolescence. There are also a lot who are struggling to find their thing.

The focus of this post is kids who can’t identify something they care about or can’t quite get to doing the things they say they like—due to screens, homework, and/or an internal narrative that’s hard to identify. Psychologists have a term for trying to get people to do more stuff: Behavioral Activation, or BA. It’s pretty simple compared with, say, cognitive behavioral therapy (managing one’s thinking), talk therapy, or acceptance and commitment therapy. Mike from CTF [wrote about it here](https://michaelgoldstein.substack.com/p/behavioral-action-is-the-phonics), but suffice it to say in the research that exists, it’s effective.

### **So how do we get kids to do more things?**

There’s no magic wand to wave, but there are several practical and even simple routes to try and get teens doing more stuff.

#### **Sports**

**(...but not the crazy expensive ones or hyper-competitive ones to get you into college)**

We are a sports family. I was a figure skater, then ice hockey player turned runner (with a particular predilection for anything that happens outside and could involve winning). My husband played competitive racket sports and also loves moving (and winning). When our kids were really little we rode around with them on our bikes a lot, and enrolled them in a lot of things that involved balls.

The case for sports goes way beyond getting-off-screens. So called “soft” skills like grit, determination and teamwork don’t need to be _taught_ because they are embedded. A lot of sports are outside (you want grit? Try playing netball in the freezing rain at 6am in the dark in winter). There’s meritocracy, the thrill of victory, the pain of loss, unfair ref calls, team support, the value of practice, the discipline of showing up. It’s a good list.

If we had raised our kids in the US, I imagine we would have been a crazy sports family. But all my reporting on teens in the US paints a muddled picture of sports. For too many kids they’re a chore, stressful, and joyless. And the whole thing is too damn expensive. Research from the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program [shows](https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/National-Youth-Sports-Parent-Survey-FINAL.pdf) that competitive youth sports now routinely cost families thousands of dollars per year once you include club fees, coaching, equipment, and travel. Furthermore, at way too young an age, too many kids are booted out. Most kids don’t make the cut in middle school and that’s the end of the line. Club teams are even more elite (and expensive), leaving vast swathes of kids home with their phones.

The [Gold Crown Foundation](https://www.instagram.com/goldcrownco/) in Colorado found a great hack for this. At their giant sports facility they built a league for kids who don’t make it into the up-or-out culture of middle and high school, but still want to practice with good coaches and play competitively. Thousands of kids joined.

Mike from CTF profiled [one high school junior](https://michaelgoldstein.substack.com/p/from-38-to-18-hoursweek-of-screentime) who spent nearly six hours every school night on YouTube and TikTok. He didn’t love the time online, but nothing else filled the space. Then track season started. The scrolling was displaced by practice, commuting, and the low-grade but real pull of belonging to something. His screen time dropped by more than half and his sleep improved. Sports crowded out tech, which made him happier.

This kid liked track. He didn’t have to be made to do it. (The challenge is what he does when track ends.)

#### **Jobs**

Lots of kids _have_ to have jobs. If your kid _doesn’t_ have to work but is spending too much time on their phone, it may be time to encourage them to go earn some cold hard cash.

Another Mike case study: [Zach was a 16-year-old l](https://michaelgoldstein.substack.com/p/from-35-hoursweek-of-screentime-to) ogging 35 hours of screen time a week — TikTok and Snapchat scrolling he didn’t even enjoy, but felt powerless to stop. He approached school with the minimum possible effort, watching stats videos at 4x speed and randomly guessing at practice problems to collect participation points. He developed an eating disorder, and had to join a residential recovery facility. When he came out, his parents knew pushing hard on the phone would likely backfire. So his mom tried something quieter: she suggested he get a job. Zach was open to it, but stalled on the applications until he got some help, in this case from a coach. He had an interview and got a grocery-store job. Once he started working 20 hours a week, his screen time dropped by half.

There are obvious perks to jobs. Kids have to get up in the morning, manage their time and money, pay taxes, and be responsible to a schedule that neither kid, parent, nor school has designed. And they have to put away their phones. They get some pretty real feedback. Failure might result in consequences, like losing your job, not nagging.

Old-school options include babysitting, dog walking, pizza parlor a couple of times a week, being a barista…the list goes on.

#### **Sometimes you have to make them do stuff**

When I was reporting my book I met Claire, a mom who stumbled into helping her kid find an interest. In the summer before her daughter Bea’s freshman year, three things were clear: Bea was losing interest in soccer, she was in with the wrong crowd (endless TikTok, a lot of beauty products, and general mean girl vibes). Also: Bea had nothing to do for the summer. Claire, offered options. A soccer camp (maybe it would rekindle her love of the sport?) A sleep away camp (a new social set!) Time with the grandparents in North Carolina (Claire could feel like a good daughter and mother, double win!). Bea soundly rejected each one.

So Claire signed Bea up for a rowing camp. They lived near the water, it was a local club with kids from the area and honestly, Claire was desperate. She was working 10-hour days and did not want Bea on her phone all day every day. Bea was not happy. She cried on the way to the boathouse and tossed plenty of invectives at her mom. But Claire stood her ground. She’d given Bea options, she’d paid for the damn camp, and Bea was going. “It was five days for goodness sake,” she recalled.

Day one was a bust. Bea hated it. She was sore, tired, and apparently not very good at rowing. But day two was better. She met a girl she liked. She had someone to sit with at lunch. Bea started to get the hang of the rowing thing. By day five she was hooked. The family became a “rowing” family and Bea had friends who were healthy, active and tired.

#### **Arts**

I mentioned we’re sports people. So my husband and I were surprised at my younger daughter’s third grade parents’ evening when the art teacher told us how much our own kid loved art. We double checked that she knew who our kid was (she did) and looked at each other sheepishly. We hadn’t even noticed. We were never the parents hauling out art supplies at the weekend. We asked our daughter if she wanted to drop football (soccer) which she was _really_ good at. “Sure,” she said. She liked it fine. But she loved art. Who knew? (A better parent, perhaps.)

_Artwork by one of our ‘sports kids.’_

Maybe you’re an arty parent and would be surprised if your daughter loved boxing, or your son wanted to rock climb instead of paint. The message is: When they do what they enjoy, they’ll be engaged. That has benefits of its own, and can spill over into other things.

### **Is it all about finding a passion?**

Not every kid is going to find their “one true calling” and that’s fine.

William Damon, who runs Stanford’s Center of Adolescence (and the author of _The Path of Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life_), estimates that only about 18% of kids have a true passion. The rest have to test some waters. That’s the point of this post: Try some waters. Maybe it’s as simple and low stakes as visiting a relative with dementia (I wrote about that last week)—emotionally challenging, but potentially rewarding.

Perhaps it’s a snack club with friends once a week. (Do not underestimate the incredible value of food to draw in teens.) Can four families agree to host a dinner club? The teens plan a meal, make the shopping list, and buy the food (you can subsidize, or cover.) Kids come over, to yours one week and then the others’ the next three. You stay upstairs, they play music, cook, eat, maybe play some games (have them do a phone stack….IYKYK).

The stakes for doing things can feel high right now. Lower them down and just do some stuff.

_A phone stack at a recent gathering of 17-and-18-year-old boys._