Loitering without intent: give teens a break this summer

When even doting parents talk about their children becoming “aliens” during adolescence, it’s no wonder that wider society regards them with suspicion.

It is especially the case at this time of year, when teenagers are highly visible hanging around in groups on the streets, in parks and shopping centres or, weather permitting, on the beaches. Just the sight of a huddle of hoodies is enough to send people scuttling across the road or prompt security guards to move them on, for fear “they are up to no good”.

But give them a break; they have nowhere else to go. With secondary schools closed for nearly three months and summer jobs scarce, or non-existent for younger teens, the lack of low-cost recreational facilities for young people is never more apparent than during the summer.

Teenage mentor Eileen Keane Haly reckons that about 20 per cent of older teenagers are motivated enough to keep active during the summer, involved in sport and various organisations. It's the other 80 per cent she worries about, those who don't want to be involved in organised activities but still want to meet their friends.

"It looks so bad when you see groups of teenagers outside," agrees Caoimhe Heeney (17) of Duleek, Co Meath. "But there is nothing else for us to do. It's a lose-lose situation."

She points out the predicament of her “innocent and sensible” younger brother as a good example of the issue. “He’s 14 now, and him and his friends obviously can’t get jobs. They don’t want to be pestering their parents for money all the time. In his group of friends there are about 20 of them and all they do is walk around Duleek. They have nothing else to do and they take up a lot of space and it looks so bad.

“Even when I am driving by it’s, ‘Oh my God, what are you doing?’ But there really is nothing else for them to do and it’s not their fault. People are looking at them, [thinking] they’re probably causing trouble or doing something they shouldn’t be.”

She sees elderly people getting anxious near groups of teenagers “and they could just be walking”. Or if they go into a shop, the owner is keen to move them on, but they are just there to buy something.

Teenagers need centres where they can meet and socialise. There is a youth cafe in Drogheda, 10km from Duleek, but the problem is getting there.

Caoimhe herself is busy, working a couple of days a week for her father in a bookmaker’s in Navan. A keen boxer, she trains with the lads at the Duleek boxing club three or four times a week. She has also set up a girls-only class there “to encourage them to join and not be intimidated by the boys”, which meets every Friday. But she has sympathy for her peers who are not into sport.

"If you don't enjoy going to the gym or going for runs, you are really just stuck at home all day, sitting on your phone and watching Netflix or on Facebook and everything – it's awful.

“A load of my friends have been trying to get jobs this summer – leaving their CVs everywhere in town and no one is getting back because no one really wants 17 and 16 year olds working for them.”

Caoimhe is also very involved with Foróige, the youth organisation which works with more than 50,000 young people aged 10-18 across the country, and is looking forward to doing the final module of its leadership course at Maynooth University for a week in August.

“I can’t wait, I am so excited. You stay on the campus, they feed you and everything, it’s deadly,” she says.

Meanwhile, contemplating what’s ahead of her in September as she goes into her final year at school, Caoimhe adds that she is quite happy if there are times this summer when there is nothing to do.

Chill-out time

There’s nothing wrong with teenagers doing very little at this time of year, agrees Keane Haly. A mother of four children ranging in age from 19 to 12, she encourages parents to “chill out”.

“I have no problem with them sitting around until 12 o’clock in bed or lolling about reading magazines or books or watching movies because they are chaotic the rest of the year.”

Because parents haven’t done it for so long themselves, they are inclined to disapprove. “But it’s among my most happy memories – the days I would not wake up until noon. They don’t need to be running around doing fitness classes at 9am.”

However, Keane Haly, who does teenage mentoring and parent coaching through her own Cork-based company, Jumpstart your Confidence, would encourage summertime house rules, such as switching off the wifi for an hour or two every day. Yes, there are arguments about it going off in her house, "but the minute they don't have it, they will talk to each other; they will get out and do something".

She also believes it is important that teenagers are not given spending money without doing jobs. “I know it is easy to say ‘take this, do this, get out of my hair . . .’,” she says but through her work with students going into college, she sees their inability to manage money and understand its value as “a vast problem”.

“Give them their €20 or €30 but not before they wash the car, clean the kitchen, hoover, or anything,” she says. “It is a great sense of achievement to have your own money in your pocket, and you are less likely to squander your own money than your parents’ money.”

Keane Haly also feels parents should insist teenagers go to any family events that are on. “If they don’t experience the warmth and that feeling being around family, how are they going to know it? And it does mean without their phones – or put them off for an hour – otherwise they might as well not be there.

“As a people we are fundamentally family orientated and it is such a shame it takes effort now to keep that because social media is really trying to break that up.”

She says it’s a pity youth clubs are regarded by many young people as being “naff” and believes they need to be reinvented.

“They just need somewhere to socialise with each other that isn’t on the side of the road drinking a can.” Teenagers who have nowhere to go end up just staying at home, “which is wrong on so many levels”.

When teenagers are out and about, older people can be very intolerant, she says. “I think kids will behave in a way expected of them. So if you treat them with a lack of respect, that’s what you’re going to get. If we expect a bit more, we will probably get it. Don’t see the negative in everything. Give them a chance before you judge them.”

It is not just in disadvantaged areas that we need programmes to engage teenagers. “Some of the loneliest kids I come across come from the best backgrounds, with busy parents; they are completely lost. Communication is lacking and there are a lot of lonely kids out there, leading to anxiety.”

A sporting chance

Youth Work Ireland Tipperary uses its summer programme to target young people who are not active, says its acting chief executive, Carmel O'Neill. The focus this year is on physical activity. "Activ8" offers them the chance to take part in non-traditional sports, such as kayaking and go-karting, free of charge or at minimal cost, with up to 300 teenagers from its catchment area of Tipperary and east Limerick expected to participate.

On registration youngsters are given a card, which is stamped at each event they attend. Those who collect at least eight stamps over the 10 weeks are given a prize and entered into a raffle for a bigger award.

“There are loads of services in our towns but young people aren’t taking up on them. Either they don’t feel confident enough to go into them or they just don’t feel linked into them,” O’Neill says.

The programme was developed in conjunction with young people “so they’re things young people actually want to do”, she says. “We are trying to use the local facilities. If we bring them to a six-week session in the gym or the swimming pool, then at least they are confident enough to go back.”

Generally she thinks the summer holidays are a challenge, particularly for rural teenagers. “They don’t have access to their friends, unless it is online, and parents are roaring at their kids to get off their phones, get off the internet, get off Facebook and go out and kick a ball.”

They can be very isolated. “Just physically getting into town can be a problem.”

O’Neill’s organisation, which works year round with 12 full-time and seven part-time staff, and 200 volunteers, has drop-in services in the towns of Tipperary, Cashel, Thurles and Templemore. “That is how we would first engage with young people.”

Teenagers are amazing, she adds, if only older people got a chance to know them.

Pearse Street: talk about a hive of activity

“It is good to be a young person in Pearse Street,” says Carmel O’Connor, head of the Talk About Youth project based in the distinctive red-brick building that houses St Andrew’s Resource Centre.

It works with young people from Westland Row, City Quay and Pearse Street in the south Dublin inner city and has 333 people on its books, ranging in age from four to 24.

The community runs a week-long South Docks Festival in July. This kicks off a four-week summer programme that ranges from educational to recreational, sport to arts. Activities such as a tour of the RTÉ studios, horse-riding, kayaking, bodhrán workshops and camping in Larchill are aimed at groups aged 12-15 as well as eight to 12.

Older teenagers have no interest in a summer programme, she says, although there are various international exchange programmes for those aged 15-plus.

The day we speak, there is a group of 18-24 year olds in Spain and another 10 young people are preparing to head off to Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean to link up with youth groups there. The 10-day trip was organised and funded by a man who grew up in the Pearse Street area and now has his own business on the island.

For those youngsters at least, summer 2016 will be one to remember for the rest of their lives.