Many parents with young children are attracted to cohousing. They want an environment where their children have friends a few steps from their front door. They want safe places for them to play and explore. They want other adults around to share parenting experiences and be extended family to their kids.
But what about parents of older kids? Why choose a cohousing community over another community development with amenities? Or a single-family home in a nice neighborhood? Well, here are 8 reasons to consider, many taken from teenagers and older kids who have lived in cohousing.
#1 Access to Adults Besides Their Parents
Think about it. Apart from teachers and parents, most pre-teens and teenagers have little access to adults, particularly adult friends. In cohousing, they develop close relationships with a range of adults. Adults they can trust and ask for advice (especially when they want a non-parental opinion). Adults they can learn from, who have a wide range of experiences, hobbies, interests, skills, professions, and culinary tastes. Remember, adults in a multi-generational cohousing community are there because they want to engage with people of all ages. Young people have a built-in support group who will always there for them.
#2 There’s Always Something Going On
Hiking, sports, work parties, holiday and birthday celebrations, outings, retreats, game night, movie night, talent shows, and of course common meals together usually three times a week. Some of the best conversations, getting to really know your neighbor, are over shared food. Sometimes a young person might find they share a particular interest with a non-parent adult and decide to learn together through a class or project or outing.
#3 Learning Collaborative Problem-Solving
Like many cohousing communities, Cohousing ABQ uses sociocracy as a means of making community decisions. Kids often sit in on these meetings, and when relevant will be asked their opinion. It is a chance for young people to see how adults can use a system for resolving conflicts and arriving at a consensus even when everyone doesn’t get everything they want. In some communities, kids have modeled sociocracy to come up with a plan for a children’s playground. Teenagers moving on to college or their first job say that seeing this open, honest communication and approach to collaborative problem-solving has turned out to be a great asset.
#4 Recognizing Their Value as a Contributor
As children grow, their role in the community grows as well. There are more opportunities to take on responsibility, share their opinion, and become appreciated for unique skills. Older kids and teens particularly mention being mentors to younger children and passing along what they’ve learn from community adults. Being a tutor. Demonstrating leadership. Teaching skills they developed. Encouraging adventurous play (like creating a circus). In the natural course of community life, their leadership skills are encouraged and appreciated.
#5 Earning Pocket Money Helping Neighbors
In a multi-generational cohousing community with families who have small kids, as well as seniors of varying physical capability, it is very common for teens and pre-teens to make pocket money helping out their neighbors. This could include babysitting and pet sitting, helping with technology, taking out weekly trash/recyclables, occasional furniture moving or household maintenance, putting things up in the attic or getting them down, as a few examples. Sure, neighbors can call on available adult neighbors to help out, but letting young people help both teaches them the pleasure of being helpful as well as earning a bit of money for their efforts.
#6 Being Envied by Their Friends
That’s right. Believe it or not, older kids and teens in cohousing find that when school friends visit their community, they discover that cohousing is “cool.” “You’re lucky,” they’ll say. What impresses them? How everyone seems to know their friend and greets them warmly. How welcomed they feel as “friends.” How they get to hang out together in the Common House, check out the pool, sit in on a common meal, and talk to the adults living there.
The benefit they don’t realize? Because their cohousing friend is so socially connected with a larger prospective from living in cohousing, they’re more self-confident and far less susceptible to peer pressure.
And Two Reasons Specific to Cohousing ABQ:
#7 Ready Access to Natural Beauty and Culture
It’s a five-minute walk out our gate, down the levee, and across a bridge to get to the Rio Grande that runs through Albuquerque. There are trails through the Bosque along the river, beaches for picnicking, and numerous areas of the river (and times during the year) where you can wade, paddleboard, or kayak.
It’s not far to get to the mountains or camping spots, and plenty of cohousers are eager to tag along to show older kids the do’s and don’t’s. While Albuquerque is considered a mid-sized city, it seems to have all the culture and diversity you could expect from a larger city with the outgoing friendliness of a small town. So no matter what your pre-teen or teen’s interests are, they’re bound to find people and opportunities here to help them excel.
#8 School Choices That Nurture a Child’s Potential
Even with all the advantages of cohousing, a major move that might require pulling older kids out of school can be difficult. So it’s good to know you have a lot of options in Albuquerque, from public schools to charter schools to private schools. We have put together a list of the schools that are closest to our land (write to us at neighbor@cohousingabq.org if you’d like a copy of the list).
As just one example of the educational quality you’ll find in Albuquerque, high schools here had 39 National Merit semi-finalists in 2024. Not bad for a city this size. The University of New Mexico, Sandia Labs, Kirkland Air Force Base, and Los Alamos National Laboratory all have summer programs/internships that can help high school students explore career interests from engineering to cancer research. X3 Internships, which have been featured nationally, pair high-schoolers with local employers for paid real-world learning that also earns school credit.
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