Family time and teens.

[Greylamp100]

How much time can we reasonably expect to spend with our teens? Oldest DD is just turned 15 and quality time with her now revolves around dinner time as we always eat together, and in the car as we taxi her about to various activities/ social life/boyfriends. Apart from that, when she is in the house, she is mainly in her room on her phone or doing beauty treatments/working out. I miss her so much. We used to watch a series every night but even that has slipped. She will occasionally come on a bike ride or walk. Should I just accept this or has anyone managed to improve engagement?

Boyfriend's house. She hasn't got several boyfriends ..

Hmm well the thing I find works w my DSC is paying for stuff, ie they will come to a gallery/lunch/cinema/theatre (as long as they aren’t doing anything more important)

Could you afford to take her for lunch or a midweek pizza supper once a week? That might re-establish a connection that would impact on the rest of the week.

Sounds like that's totally normal, especially if she has a boyfriend. Mine (16) doesn't, but we only spend time together in the evening when we have dinner together and watch a series (watching Hustle and Call the Midwife these days), and I get a run down of her day then, and any concerns she has. Obviously school and gcse revision is taking up most of her time (she has three paintings due this Wednesday, Biology, German, Math exams, plus two essays due this week).
Other than that we do go out to lunch occasionally when not in school. She doesn't like shopping. We used to do the odd pedicure together but covid stopped that.
My 17 year old son is different. He does have a girlfriend and most evenings she's here or he's there. He cooks his own food so doesn't join us for dinner. He works and has college and also goes to the gym a lot. So our conversations are when I drive him to work or college. It used to be when I drove him to rugby matches. We are pretty good at communicating but I'm sure his girlfriend is his main confidant.
We usually would go away once a year but haven't since Christmas 2019, and this year I want the three of us to go in a mini cruise in October. The kids get along when they only have each other for company! Probably last family holiday.
Sadly that the way it is - your job is to help them become independent, self sufficient people, and she's doing that. Relying less on you is her growing up.

I think we were abnormal as we played a lot of games and watched quite a bit of stuff together. Probably actually helped that our house was too small so we can converse whilst in separate rooms

We were quite strict on the phones rules in our house, maybe that also was a factor.

But we just would announce we were doing something - such as an escae room - and there was an expectation they would come, unless they had something particular arranged already.

sounds normal/average.
out of 7 kids 4 are teenagers and they are very similar.
Apart from the changing of the guards style ransacking of food. seriously, we can't watch a few episodes of whatever without all of them appearing at least once.
teenage boys and food! 😁

DS3 is doing GSCEs so we see him the least atm as he's revising a lot. 1 more week to go! After that we'll carry on watching Superstore.

I guess because there are 9 people at home there's seldom enough lack of contact to miss any of them.
I chat to all 4 for at least 15 mins each day, just to keep in touch of what's going on.
sometimes more. or we just spend time together. or I hide because they are in dickhead mode🤣

I kinda have a few "that's our thing" with each of them. They often just come downstairs, get a drink, give me a hug then go back to their caves. Lovely.

It's all guided by their needs. They know we are here for them if they need anything so if they don't need us that means they are content. I'm happy with that.

That's all very reassuring, thank you.

@partyatthepalace
That's a great idea now we can eat inside again.

@Livingintheclouds thank you, you are right, it is a natural process and I will try to see it as such rather what I am missing.

@picturesandpickles - screen time has definitely crept up over the various lockdown. She will come to watch something with me, I just need to be more proactive. We need to learn some more card games. She did say she would teach me a Tik Tok too.

We always have dinner together and watch things like sports that we both enjoy together.

My DDs are 17, 14 & 12 and we eat together and sometimes sit down with them while they play music which they both love.
We go to theme parks together
Do shopping together
And I get to spend 20 minutes with my 17 year old on a car journey to her work place every Mondays and Saturdays

Sounds very normal to me. Have a 14 year old ASD and 15 year old DD and have a few chats with each every day to ask how their day has gone etc. DH does some taxiing of DH around and recently she told him to go for a walk with her as she said he needed exercise.

Odd day out, this year DD came punting with us and DS came to safari park with us, in summer have a 2 week break of doing things together. DD also used to do paid DIY with DH at old house but we have run out of DIY now. And whenever DD wants something bought for her. So quite limited but good to see them gaining independence.