How do you keep some semblance of structure for teens in sum

Well my 16 yr old has a full time job (50 hours a week) for July and half of August as a camp counsellor. She is also taking an online summer school course for the month of July and hoping to attend most nights of a 10 day music festival. She gets the last 3 weeks of the summer to do whatever she wants which will include a couple of shifts at her part time job other than that I figure she earns the choice to do whatever she wants.

My 13 yr old will be umpiring baseball, he is also going to volunteer at the camp his sister works at a couple of days a week and football practices start the end of June. As he is pretty busy too I am going to let him pretty much do whatever he wants too. If that means a rainy day full of PS4 that's okay with me because it is going to be once in a while not everyday all day.

We are big volunteers and had a regular schedule at the shelter where we volunteer. We got up early and people and kitties were counting on us. We also trained to run a race togethers last summer, so had a mileage schedule we stuck to. It got us up and dressed and moving. We have a vegetable garden and a bee/butterfly garden where we spent time almost everyday. We love to hike and are into nature photography so we would plan outings to hike around and take photos of different places. We're also big readers and could sit on the patio for hours with books. We're good at relaxing without being mindless. Then there were days with friends and days with errands. Mostly we spent it together, because I have a teenager who still thinks I'm pretty awesome to hang out with and she is amazingly easy to be with as well. And I keep thinking four more summers!!!

So, really, just stuff we love doing. Nothing overly scheduled or rushed. 

I can't remember a summer my kids didn't have sports practices and my kids are all 7 years apart with the youngest being 10, so there's always been somewhat of a component of babysitting or helping with errands which works for our family. That aside, some things we routinely do...

*I have each child choose something they'd like to learn about and dive into that over the summer. I encourage going to the library to learn about it, etc. DS1 has really gotten into hiking so he has been doing some local hikes and planned and went on a 50 mile hike in TN with a couple of his buddies to celebrate their graduating (he was a Jr this year). Younger DS wants to learn about macaron making. He's watched a thousand videos and bought the supplies so we'll see where that goes.

*Our kids must volunteer for something. It's totally up to them to choose what interests them, but they must "give back" in some way. Honestly we're fairly lenient on what we consider giving back...mostly they have to do something relatively selfless and babysitting your younger sibling sometimes counts. DS1 offered to help DS2 with his daily physical activity** for example.

*We have a list of things that need to be done every day. DS1 who is 17 is good about doing things without a lot of direction so he doesn't have a list unless he gets super slackerish. DS2 has a list that includes: read for 30 min, some sort of physical activity, play with guinea pig, pick up room, empty dishwasher, etc.

**We do ask them to do something active every day. Ride a bike, go to the pool, go play frisbee, hike, etc. 

During the summer when my youngest son was between grades 7 & 8, I "bribed" him to read 10 novels.  I asked a friend who taught high school English to make a list of 10 novels which would challenge him, but also interest him.  They were not easy reads.  I can't remember the whole list, but what I remember are: the Old Man and the Sea, A tale of Two Cities, the Glass Menagerie; Call of the Wild; Lord Jim; Etc.  I asked that there not be fanatsy books because he was reading only that genre.  The pay off was a dinner at any restaurant of my son's choice.

He took the challenge, and it was such a good summer for him.  I read some of the books after he did if he asked me to so we could discuss them.  Of course, this was back in the days when there was no internet competing for his time/attention.  But it is good to look back on this summer and how his reading world was expanded. 

My ons are 15 & 17.

The oldest works 32 hours a week + has cross country practice M-F. So he is only home before 10-3pm each day. He has a couple of chores, but they only take about 15 min to complete. He also is spending time on college apps and researching where he wants to go. 

The youngest has a pretty free schedule. He dogs sits for my dad when he is out of town, but thats not an every day deal. Younger son also always helps me make dinner. His chores take about 30 min of his day. We do cut his screen time off when he starts getting moody. But he likes to watch tv with us in the evening so we almost always watch a movie at night together.

Mine are almost 15 and almost 12 and I am a slacker parent. All I really require is that they help around the house and don't spend 24/7 on electronics.

The older DS has drivers ed this week and has summer basketball, summer weights, and summer football, but realistically they are all optional (he does do them though).

Both boys are also in boy scouts, but we are lazy on that in the summer too.

We hike, go to the pool...this year we will be decluttering for a move, but nothing is structured with day and time.

I love summer.

We swim (recreational not competitive) at least every other day. My teen also likes to occasionally do things like mini-golf, bowling, paintball, laser tag, etc.

In my case, there is a younger sibling, so I can get my older one to put down the remote or phone or mouse for things that may be considered too young for most teens, but that he'll do to play with his brother.