Posts Tagged ‘For Parents’
Make Teens Know They Matter
Compassion, unlike confidence and competence, is the first of the critical areas of growth that extends beyond the boundaries of self and acknowledges the importance of others. When teens experience compassion for others – whether family members, friends, teachers, coaches, mentors, and people in the community, they contribute to their well-being as well as having their own well-being enhanced. Compassion draws on the notion that we as humans are inherently social creatures. No matter how confident or competent we may be, we still need other people to create healthy, productive lives. Ultimately, a person who is compassionate toward others is in tune with himself or herself. He or she has an awareness of their feelings and thoughts as they relate to both others and self. There are many ways adults can foster compassion so that teens feel more in touch with themselves, each other, their parents, the adults in the world, and their communities.
MAINTAIN A POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP
The best conversations with teens take place when you respect their needs relating to time and space. Timing is a huge variable when talking to teens. Just because you want to talk about something does not mean your teen agrees. Support your teens efforts to connect to people outside of the family.
BUILD LIFE SKILLS
Make compassion part of the conversation you have with your teens. Talk to your teen about the people you work with, your friends, your support systems, and your extended family. Reflect on why and how you value these people, how the relationships met your expectations, and where they have fallen short. Be active in your community. Promote social and emotional competence.
GIVE TEENS THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD
Create opportunities to collaborate with teens. If you begin this process early, it will be in place as teens grow and more important family decisions are at stake. Encourage cross-generational relationships. Make teens know that they matter.
Understanding Confidence
Confidence as defined here is the perception that you can achieve desired goals through your actions. A confident teen believes that he or she has the ability to succeed and perform well academically, socially, and in those areas of life important to him or her. Teens learn confidence when the adults in their life instill and enhance their sense of self-determination, independent thinking, and self-esteem. Whereas competence is about what you can do, confidence is about what you believe you can do.
Confidence is expressed differently at different ages. Although some of the characteristics of confidence remain the same throughout the adolescent years, others evolve as teens mature and acquire new roles, responsibilities, and interests. For adolescents ages 14-19, research has demonstrated that there is a need for perceived competence in the following areas in order for them to feel confident: scholastic ability, athletic ability, physical appearance, peer acceptance, global self-worth, morality (the perception that he or she understands the moral underpinnings of behavior and acts in accordance with the rules of society), close friendships, romantic relationships, job competence, sense of humor,relationships with parents, intellectual ability (real life settings apart from school), and creativity (generation of new and important products or ideas as distinct from intellectual ability).
This detailed notion of confidence means three things for parents seeking to promote positive youth development. First, it underscores that confidence is not a single global concept. Second, adults raising adolescents need to recognize that confidence is linked to age. Finally, even the least confident teen can be helped. Here are some practical ways you can help.
MAINTAIN A POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP
Enhance your child’s global self-worth by telling him every day that you love and value him, and create tangible expressions of it. Share your own experiences with self-confidence issues to strengthen your relationship with your child.
BUILD LIFE SKILLS
Compensate for low confidence in one area by targeting an area of strength and helping your teen generalize this feeling to other areas. Extract success from failure by enabling teens to become their own models. Offer support in ways that build up and boost rather than undermine confidence.
GIVE TEENS THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD
Ask your teenager for help with challenges to your own sense of confidence. Help your teen shift her focus from herself so she can better appreciate the perspective of others. Encourage your teen to take the initiative and seek out facts that will help bolster her confidence.
Enhance Your Teen’s Overall Competence
Competence is the ability to perform adequately in the world. It means being able to accomplish what is needed so as to have effective interactions with other people and social institutions. Someone who is competent knows how to make things work out for him. Like a chain reaction, the more competence a person has, the more competently he acts. This hones their skills and leads them to be more competent. Teens may demonstrate competence in the following six arenas: academically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, vocationally, and spiritually. Each of these areas encompasses many more qualities than you may probably realize.
SO WHAT?
Why is competence in these areas so important? A better question might be, “What happens to teens who do not become competent?” They tend to not function independently but remain attached to their parents, who worry about them constantly. They often turn out to be followers, easily manipulated by charismatic individuals who have their own agendas.
WHAT CAN I DO?
To understand how to nurture and enhance competence in all these areas, it’s first important to understand the roots of competence. A desire to learn things or accomplish tasks for their own value, or intrinsic motivation, is very compelling. Parents can use it to enhance their teens’ overall competence. Extrinsic motivation, working for an external reward, such as money or a good grade, is short lived. Once the reward is earned the motivation often disappears.
MAINTAIN A POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP
The first step is to carefully observe those activities your teen naturally gravitates toward. Remain objective about this, noticing what he likes not what you wish he would like and support his interest in it. Support his interest without taking it over or compromising your standards. Learn to praise and criticize productively.
BUILD LIFE SKILLS
Take a strength-based approached. This means help her enhance the skills she has and develop new skills when your teen asks for help or is amenable to hearing your suggestions. Suggest your teen learn to break down big jobs into smaller more manageable components. Help your teen see that the competence she brings to the tasks she enjoys can be generalized to other important facets of life.
GIVE TEENS THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD
Actively involve your teen in making decisions important to the completion of the task. Turn mistakes into teachable moments.