Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Teen Rooms

[S. Hamer (shamer_]

>  How has your cohousing community handled teen rooms?  

At Cambridge cohousing we built a teen room and fought to have it remain as
one when we opened the common house. The teens and pre-teens painted
pictures of themselves on the walls and it had a large table in it and
games.


How much use has it
>  gotten?  

Virtually none.

Have you asked the teens to pay for the use of
>  electricity/furnishings, had them help build it, et cetera?  

Just the painting.

Have the
>  teens had completely free rein, or have they been guided?  Most of all,
do
>  you feel that the teen room has helped to keep the teens part of the
>  community, or has it fostered their inane talents at completely
distancing
>  themselves from anything to do with adults? :)


The teens wanted couches, TV's, video games and computers with internet
access. None of the adults supported this idea. As a result the teens never
went into the room. One family had what the kids wanted in their basement
and that became the de facto teen room.

After about 18 months, a proposal was made to convert the teen room into a
music room. That was done and that is what it is now.

As the mother of the oldest teen, (now 14) I did not want him to have a
place that could be a love nest, or to have unsupervised access to TV, video
games or the internet. I think most of the parents thought the same way,
although some did not. As the next round of kids, who are now 6-10 get
older, I expect we might revisit the use of the room.


>  
>  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
>  
>  peace,
>  Beth
>  


Sharon Hamer
Cambridge Cohousing
shamer_ [at] excite.com





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