The long summer break for teens

[Acorncat1]

Hello all,
Please help! We've a 15 year old boy who's just started his hols this week. I have him signed up for a couple of camps but we can't afford to send him every week to one. He will see his friends but their meet up can be quite sporadic.
I'm already worrying that he's going to spend all his time gaming or glued to a screen and I'm going to have to spend my summer battling this!
I have 6 weeks off myself and we'll go away for a week or two.
Any ideas??
TIA!

Are there any tasks st home that he might enjoy doing? I got mine to help paint a wall out the back yesterday. Things like that . It's a total pain OP mine are only primary school age so I'm dreading the secondary holidays

When my sons were in non exam years I paid their annual membership for a local golf club, under €200 at the time and they could walk to it if I couldn't drop them as it was only a short walk to where they'd get the private ferry across to the island, it only took a couple of minutes.

There were lots of tournaments or they could just play a round with their friends. It was great as they were usually up early and were occupied for hours - usually 5 - 7 hours if they had lunch there, had to behave themselves, got plenty of exercise and fresh air and weren't hanging around the city centre where they could have gotten into some bother.

Have you a spare room? There are places that you can contact looking for host families for some weeks and they send you a child within a similar age range etc

When my son was that age I got him gym and pool membership for 3 months, often on offer for students. I sometimes went swimming while he was in the gym and met up afterwards as we are too far away for him to get there himself or dropped him off and did food shopping etc.
He went a few times a week and was great to get him off the screens and me arguing with him about screens!

You've to be 16 to join our gym! Thanks everyone for your ideas!

I have two teenage daughters at home, one off to the gaeltacht soon and the other will be helping out at a couple of local GAA camps In July. She is also going to paint a shed and my parents are going to give her jobs to do. They know there will be no top ups on their revoluts without some chores completed. I am at work though during the day so I am sure chores are rushed so they can sit on their screens though

I have a 16 year old here - I started at 13 telling him I wanted a plan each year by April for his Summer. He gives me a list of things he wants to do, a list of tasks he wants to take on and he sets out some absolute chill time. It seems to work - he collects his little brother from school, he goes to the gym (he has always been a member under family membership ? - might be something to explore).

He did some painting, went off for a few days visiting extended family independently, etc. His great Uncles and Aunts love him popping around for a chat and catch up - might do a few bits and bobs for them and gets assessed on his tea making skills :-)

He is a sensible lad so I do what I can to encourage independence - I appreciate I am lucky - he assigns a doss week at each end of the summer and in between he does an Irish course/sports club mentoring and a bit of volunteering at local GAA all stars. He is also working his way through a collection of books on 1916, and documentaries on the Stardust tragedy - so not mindless screen time but screen time.

Take a bit of the mental stress off yourself - tell him you are trusting him to come up with a bit of a plan - that you know he is getting on a bit, you recognise he is getting more mature and he is well able to recognise that he has to take care of his body/head/wellbeing, sometimes stepping a little to the side can lead to very valuable lessons for them.

Son of a friend of mine at that age leafleted locally and did power-washing of driveways, patios etc. He also did some dog minding. Would he think looking at something like that would be worth a try?