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Being a teenager is probably one of the most confusing times in your life as you are facing so many changes physically and emotionally and all you want to do is spend time with your friends. Often this means hanging around the streets, making a nuisance of yourself and upsetting those around you.
Spending unstructured time without the presence of adults is very important in helping young people mature and understand how to deal with people on their own. It is often wrongly assumed that teenagers need youth clubs and other structured organisations to allow this development to happen when in fact all they really need is somewhere to go.
The hormonal surges that initiate changes in a teenager’s mind and body trigger major leaps in development that are similar to a toddler’s. Unfortunately tantrums are much harder to deal with when your teenager is taller than you.
Teenagers are impulsive and argumentative because their frontal lobes are the last part of the brain to mature into adulthood. All of their thought processes travel through the amygdala part of the brain, which reacts instantaneously and emotionally to any stimuli find more. Teenagers’ brains are complicated because they want to act tough but are emotionally vulnerable and they find their parents embarrassing but feel isolated if ignored.
Youth shelters provide the perfect solution for disgruntled and confused young people who need to spend time with their friends away from their parents. Studies have shown that it is as important for teenagers to socialise with their friends as it is for them to study for their exams.
Large friendship groups benefit teens in the following ways; a sense of belonging, a sense of security, a chance to discuss body changes and emotions, allows them to experiment with their identity and they are able to experience relationships for the first time.
All of these skills will help them to forge connections in the workplace, make and maintain friends and embark on positive relationships. If a teenager spends hours on social media alone in their bedroom they must be encouraged to spend time with their friends, as isolation can lead to depression and low self esteem.
Although a teenage shelter is not a complete solution of how to handle teenagers they do go someway to providing teenagers with somewhere more preferable than the street corner. Shelters built in areas where sports take place provide an excellent place for observers to watch the game.
When a school has decided that they would like to install a teen shelter it is a fantastic opportunity to involve the pupils in the decision. They can participate in the design process, production of questionnaires, deciding the best location, how much money the school needs to raise and fund raising ideas. Again having an outdoor classroom or somewhere to meet means that they are able to release some of their teen angst in the privacy of their own shelter and keep dry in the process.
Playdale teenage shelters have been designed and developed after consultation with youths between the ages of eleven and seventeen. All shelters have been made to the BS EN1176 standard and are available in a variety of different designs. All shelters are in the Encounter range which is quite a fitting names as they are enabling teenagers to interact with each other in their own environment. The Playdale teenage shelters are very cleverly designed to provide shelter without dark corners and a variety of different seating arrangements.
If you would like to find out more about Playdale’s Teenage Shelters please contact us or phone 015395 39837 for more information.
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