First mind shift change to improve your relationship with your teenager.

I was asked to write some tips for parents surrounding my manifesto and, since there is so much in my manifesto I though I would take one point at a time and give parents some tips. My manifesto is designed to change not only the way we act towards young people, but the way we think about them and our relationships with them. To read the rest of the manifesto, go here. In the meantime, here is the first point.

First mind shift change to improve your relationship with your teenager.

Quick fixes will not fix the problem.

So many of the problems with our young people are systemic, yet we think that a quick intervention will “fix them”. We see a problem and we rush to fix the young person with a quick solution. People are so much more complicated than “quick fixes”.

For busy parents this is more so….we want the behaviour to change and we want it to change now. We don’t often think why it has got the way it has, how we may have contributed to it or how we can work together to fix it. We automatically blame the child and think of an intervention that will fix them.

The first question we need to ask is, actually does that young person need fixing? For that matter, what gives us the right to say anyone needs fixing? If we want to improve the situation then we must realise that it may take as long to improve as it did to break down in the first place.

People only change when they are ready to and most of the time, this is not quick!

Our children are not appliances, something cannot just break and you cannot call in someone to repair them. It is like any exercise programme, it is painful and it takes time to achieve results.

A lot of these quick-fix methods assume that we can control another and force them into change and most importantly, they only look at one aspect it takes to be human.

I can work with a young person and do everything and really change their view on life, their attitude and behaviour, but if that young person sits on the couch all day eating chocolate, the improvement in their behaviour will be minute.

We need to be brave and really take these problems by the horns, implementing long-term solutions that take an integrated approach to supporting our young people. We need to look at diet, nutrition andenvironment as well as the traditional talking therapies and interventions if we want to produce long terms success.

Long term solutions that integrate all the different aspects to produce long term success should be our only option.

So next time you feel like you want to step in and fix your children ask yourself,

1. Is the solution I am trying to implement going to move me closer to or further away from my child? In other words, will it harm and improve the relationship? If it will harm, then don’t do it.

2. Ask yourself if putting a quick fix in will teach your teen anything. Will it make them learn something about responsibility, for example, or is it just a quick fix punishment?

3. Look at the situation in a holistic way., Could what they are eating affect their behaviour, do they need to get out more, what is their environment like, could that be having an impact?

Remember, quick fixes may seem like a good idea, but they rarely fix the long term problem.

Wisdom from Seth

Found this on Seth Godin’s Blog and had to share it.

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.
Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it. To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.
Of course, now that’s all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

Really love this by Seth and it has really made me think of the definition between the two what do you think?

Video games, mobile phones and TV are keeping children up at night, answers to a BBC questionnaire suggest.

Newsround sent a questionnaire to 1,000 children aged between nine and 11 at schools across the UK.

Most said they went to bed at 2130, but a quarter said bedtime was 2200 or later and half said they were not getting enough sleep and wanted more.

Health experts have linked a lack of sleep to problems with concentration, behaviour and school work. About half the children asked said they were staying up to play on computer games or their mobile phones or to watch television.

and in another report:

According to researchers, teenagers are suffering from what they call “night owl syndrome” because they do not get enough sunlight.
A study by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Centre in the USA concluded that teenagers were missing out on exposure to light, especially in the morning, and that this was upsetting their body-clocks.
The research was led by Mariana Figueiro, who said: “As teenagers spend more time indoors, they miss out on essential morning light needed to stimulate the body’s 24-hour biological system, which regulates the sleep/wake cycle.
“These morning-light-deprived teenagers are going to bed later, getting less sleep and possibly under-performing on standardised tests.”
The study was published in the journal Neuroendocrinology Letters.

So what is the answer?

OK, here we go again, criticising the technology. How on earth can it be the technology’s fault and not the parents? If this stuff is keeping your child awake, remove it from their room. Surely it is that simple!

But I want to add something here about sleep, too…

Most parents find the sleeping habits of teenagers bizarre. They appear to become nocturnal in their activities. In Barbara Strauch’s  book, “Why are they so Weird?” she explains in great detail.

The reason for such strange behaviour, from the change in melatonin levels to the fact that in the past adolescents, as the most agile, had to stay up and be alert to defend the pack. She believes that these in-built environmental qualities have lingered on and our teenagers find it difficult to go to sleep in the evenings because of this biological factor. She also stresses that research has shown that teenagers need nine hours sleep; hence, they have an inability to go to sleep and an inability to get up, which is bound to lead to problems. Some schools in America have taken note of this and have started school days later, and I belive one school in Britain has changed it’s start time.

So maybe our teenagers are not lazy, just biologically impaired!

So sometimes, leaving them in bed on none school days can be the best option, letting them catch up with their sleep can actually be a good thing. Teenagers need three hours of sleep more per night than we do and if they are not sleeping well throughout the week then this accumulates. So if you can bare it, leave them in bed. What you need to figure out yourself, as a parent, is what is acceptable to you and what the guidelines are around them staying in bed.

Do you mind at all?

Do you not mind as long as they get up at a certain time?

Do you not mind as long as they spend some time with you or do you not mind as long as you don’t have to force them out of bed on school days?

Get very clear with yourself what the guidelines are and share them with your teenager. Say something like, “I know you need a lot of sleep and I want you to catch up on it. That is OK with us and we will leave you in bed. All I ask is…..”

Be clear what you want and will accept as a family.

You might also want to look at ways you can coax them from their cave. Cooking food they love or doing something they find exciting may be other ways that you can also beat this one. Shouting at them, telling them they are lazy and forcing them out of bed is just not going to cut it.

And their parents have limited opportunities to stop it, a report for the Home Office warns.

The report calls for tougher regulation of sexual imagery in adverts and a ban on selling “lads’ mags” to under-16s.
It also recommends selling mobile phones and games consoles with parental controls automatically switched on.
Author Dr Linda Papadopoulos said there was a clear link between sexualised imagery and violence towards females.

Her report said the material children were being exposed to included the growth of lads’ mags and pornography on mobile phones, through to big-name fashion brands using sexual imagery to advertise clothes targeted at young teenagers.

The report’s 36 recommendations include calling for games consoles, mobile phones and some computers to be sold with parental controls already switched on.

This would allow families to automatically filter which on-demand services and online material their children can use.

Other recommendations include:

* A ban on “sexualised” music videos before the TV watershed
* A ban on Jobcentres advertising positions in lap-dancing clubs and massage parlours
* Internet service providers to block access to pro-bulimia and pro-anorexia websites
* The creation of a website where parents can report any “irresponsible marketing” they believe sexualises young children.

Dr Papadopoulos said there should also be symbols to show when a published photograph had been digitally altered – such as pictures of celebrities manipulated to make them appear thinner.

While I agree with all the findings in the report, especially a sign saying if a picture has been digital altered and selling phones with the parental lock on, I think it may be too late. I personally am not sure why we say this is recent; I remeber this and worse when I was a child, While we didn’t have the internet, images were certainly sexual; do I need to mention the Cadburys Flake adverts, Madonna in her bra or the calenders that were everywhere we went? And what about Page 3, how many children on the tube and public transport are subjected to that topless picture?

I am not sure how feasible these recommedations are or if they are too late. We have created a society where sex sells and it would take decades to rid us of the culture. Even when lads mags were not around, boys got hold of porn. Surely a better and quicker way was for us to start having open conversations about these subject in our schools and in our homes. We cannot leave it to the government to do something, we need to take action rather than blaming. When we see these videos, are we asking our children what they think, what message it gives out? The media that we want to ban can also open up so many conversations…I cannot tell you the fanatstic conversations I have had with my children while watching programmes like America’s Next Top Model. While I am not saying that this imagery is a good thing, I really don’t think we can remedy anything by condemming it.

While I do hope these reports findings are taken seriously, I also think parents have a responsibility not to tut and blame when these images come on, but to have conversations about them.

Oh, and by the way, you can always ring the mobile phone company and get the parental lock put on.

Just to let you know I am running a Teen Coach Training for professionals course for a year starting on March 27th.

This course includes 12 training workshops, training in all my approaches and in-between support.

I would love for two more people to join me.

The cost £5000 full fee or £500 a month.

E-mail me sarah@genyguide.com if you are interested and I will get more information to you.

Is the school run the best place to educate your children on life?

I have to say, I think so. Once all the hassle is out the way and we are in the car, the conversations we have are amazing and I think I parent most effectively when locked with my child in a confined place, with no means for escape.

The other morning Freya was telling me how tired she was and she was hoping that the big coffee in the road mug that she had in her hands would help her through the day. I asked her if she had used my coffee to make it, which she had, so I then when on to inform her that is was actually decaffinated so it would give her no benefit at all in that department.

This led her to ask what caffeine is, which led me to explain about stimulants and depressants and what they do to you. She listened intently and then went through every drug she knew, trying to figure out where they would fit.

The conversation then went on to legal and illegal drugs and I told her the truth about the amount of alcohol and nicotine deaths there were in a year, which she found quite shocking. She then asked the obvious question of why they were legal, which started a whole debate about consumerism and ended with her wanting to write a letter to Gordon Brown!

It was maybe one of the most productive conversations that I have had with her and goes to show me that if we are prepared to talk openly and frankly, to give information without judgement and allow for the difficult questions, we can have amazing conversations.

What about you on the school run, are you using the time wisely?

Neew help them why not try our family communication cards .