Teens and the Holidays!

Six in ten parents are worried about the cost of keeping their children busy in the school holidays, a survey suggests. And I am sure even more of them are worried about them getting into trouble.

By now I can imagine that a lot of parents already want the holidays to be over. Occupying your children and teenagers can be very challenging.

What do you do with a bored 14-year-old who just wants to spend all day on the computer or in front of the TV, eating food that would make Jamie Oliver use some of his very choice language?

Well, it is time to get them off the sofa and into action. Make summer the time when you whip them into action and get them doing something that they love. Inspire them rather than nag them. I think the summer months are great months to appeal to your teen’s sense of fun and adventure and getting them to do something will raise their confidence, abilities and prospects. Be it at summer drama school, creative writing course or a football school to brush up their skills, there is somewhere for everyone. A word of warning though, don’t try to force them or you will get nowhere, let this come from them and just support them in the organisation.
And it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Before embarking on any summer holiday scheme, give your teen a budget to work with, a figure they have for all their Summer Fun.

Before you think that sounds too difficult, there is evidence to show that a child’s intelligence is not linked to success and that what is more important is how that child is cultivated and what opportunities they are given along the way. Something in the book Outliers that Gladweel calls constructive cultivation. There is evidence that children who are not constructively cultivated during the summer months can go backwards in school work. Hence why the Kipp Project was started, where the performance of failing school students has been turned around by making summer holidays shorter, to ensure that these children are constructively cultivated for more of the year and do not drop back.

So how do you do it?

Well, first tell you teen what you are thinking, just as an idea, something like,
“I have been thinking, I really want you to have a great summer this year and really enjoy it, do you have any ideas about how we could make this happen?”

Listen to the answer, it may surprise you.

If they have no ideas, ask if you can share some and only share if they say yes. If they say no, then just tell them that you have some and you will be happy to share them with them when they are ready.

If they say yes, say something like,
“Well I have declared that the summer should be Live a Dream time, and I was thinking, you could pick something that you would love to do, a dream you have, and we can see if we can make it happen.”

See what they say and come out with, and then it’s time to get creative.
Support your teen in looking for the perfect solution, search the internet, come up with ideas and make a plan.

If it’s a certain band, are they in concert over the summer, which TV programmes are they appearing on, are they running any competitions, how can you support your teen in getting closer to something that they think is impossible? Just think of the fun they will have, you both can have, and the valuable lessons that you will be teaching them.
This summer in our house each week we have picked a different country and we will learn about it, talk about it, dress like they do, eat like they do and generally have lots of fun.

How letting go of control can be the best thing

Those of you that know me will know that I am a big proponent of Choice Theory principles. To me they make so much sense and William Glasser’s life-long work plays such a big part of what I do.

The fact that, as a nation, we don’t practice Choice Theory in our lives is, in my mind, the reason we are mostly so miserable and in conflict.

So I thought I would share with you today a few gems from his work for you to ponder…

“ Where we are unhappy our first thought is that we have to do something about it. For a parent unhappy with a teenager this is almost always means trying to do something coercive to make them change. Threatening, punishing, bribing will be your most common choices. You may even find someone like a counsellor to help you do this. You will never solve the probem by trying to make the other person see that you are right and they are wrong. The problem you are dealing with is never a simple one of who is right and who is wrong. When you disagree the prime consideration should not be who is right or wrong. It should be whether what you are trying to do will preserve or harm the relationship between you and your child. To preserve, even at times to improve your relationship, sometimes you may have to give in”

When most parents hear this they panic… we just don’t know what to do or what even could work.

What we need to remember is that any teenager’s activitiy is I believe tempered by the relationship with the adults

Over the next few months I am going to explore how you can use Choice Theory in your home, so if you are interested please stay in touch via RSS

In his work. Glasser talks about the seven deadly habits and the seven connected habits – this is what we will be discussing. I also want to go through the basic needs as Glasser refers to them and talk about the impact they can have in your home.

A deadly habit could harm the relationship – a correct one; well, it’s obvious!

Using football to connect with your teenager

Now, I have to say that I really dislike football, (must be all those matches I had to police) however I do think that this is an opportunity for you to really connect with your teenager.

So whatever your thoughts about football, have some fun with them over this period.

Watch games with them, have parties, invite their friends over and above all use it as a way to discuss teamwork.

So what can you learn from football?

Everyone is fit and healthy

No one gets to play unless they are 100% fit. Just like a football team, to get the best out of family everyone needs to run at 100% efficiency, especially you. Imagine if Beckham was not firing on all cylinders, had had a very late night and just felt exhausted, how well do you think he would play? Exactly! It is the same for you, looking after yourself is imperative so that you can perform to the best of your ability.

Working towards an end goal

Everyone on the pitch has a purpose, they have a job to do, know exactly where they fit into the team and what they need to do. An efficient family is the same.

Does your family operate like this?

How could you give family members jobs and give them responsibility for their part in a team effort?

They train lots.

An understatement, perhaps I mean that they train most of the time. They realise that to do your best you need to put effort and time into getting it right. What training are you doing to get yourself ready to perform as a parent?

They don’t give up

However bad it looks they never give up. Even when losing you never see a player just abandon the team and walk off, thinking the whole thing will not work.

As parents however, we can sometimes give up too easily.

Think how many times a striker makes a goal attempt before he even hits the back of the net.
He does not give up after a few attempts.

Being a parent is the same; you may have to do something ten, twenty times before you finally score a goal.

They work together to win.

Just imagine if every player on the pitch thought, “I am going to win this, no matter what!” What if every player on the pitch wanted the limelight, wanted to be noticed?

They don’t think of themselves, they think of the team. So often, parents make their relationship with their teenager a battle of wills that they must win. So stop thinking how you can get your teenager to do what you want them to do and start thinking like a team!

Have something that brings them together

As a team they are united towards a common goal. Just like a team, your family needs a common threat that brings you all together. Some families I work with have family mottos and logos, something that lets them all know where they are going as a team. In my house we have a purpose and that is to have fun and be kind. We all work together as a team towards this.

They have support

Teams have supporters, dedicated fans that will do anything to help them succeed. Just like a team, as a family you need the same.

You need people that are committed to your success, friends and family that you can speak to, who will help you achieve your goals and aims. Let them know what is important to you as a family, what you are working towards and tell them how they can support you.

They celebrate

Teams celebrate every little win, however big or small. As a family you need to do the same? Give yourself and your team credit for all the good things you do.

Our job as Parents is not to do what is easy!

Following on from my review of the great book The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genes, Talent and Intelligence is Wrong: The New Science of Genes, Talent and Human Potential by David Shenk, I have some information about a great piece of learning for me.

I have always known that as parents our job is not to do what is easy, but to do what is right and I have suspected that we need to step back more and allow our children to fail; this was all affirmed in the book. I also suspected that giving in too easily could have massive consequences later on in life, but I was not sure why until I read this book and then it all made sense.

The book talks about an experiment involving children and marshmallows. The children were left in the room and told that they could have one marshmallow now or wait a while and have two. I don’t want go into the ins and outs of the experiment but the interesting bit came when they went back to the children later on in life and found that the ones who waited and had two marshmallows had far exceeded academically those who ate the marshmallow straight away.

What this study showed was that children who could delay gratification early in life were more likely to be able to put in the persistence required to succeed in life.

It affirmed for me that frequent rewards will not give children this persistence as they will give up too easily. And delayed gratification is an early indication for a tendency towards self discipline needed to do well in exams. Interestingly, the study also found that the children who delayed their marshmallow eating craving also had fewer social problems.

What they also found in the study was that children can be taught to delay gratification, for example being told to think of the marshmallows as pictures and to not see them as real decreased the number of children who ate the marshmallow straight away.

In a world where everything is instant, it is so important for us as parents to think of how we can teach our children to wait.

Here are some tips from the book on teaching delayed gratification.

1. Be a model of self-control

Show your children how to do it by not giving in to all your wants and desires.

2. Help them practice

Give them opportunities to practice and wait for things.

3. Don’t give in to everyday pleas

Just because your child wants it now does not mean you should give it. Don’t give in so easily.

4. Let them deal with frustration so they can teach themselves

Don’t rush in to make a sad child happy; let them learn for themselves how to deal with frustration.

And my gem from the book…

True failure is to give up and sell your children short.

We are not supposed to make things easy for our children, we need to present the problem, monitor their response and moderate the behaviour for next time.

Your Children’s Talent

I have just read the most fantastic book;The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genes, Talent and Intelligence is Wrong: The New Science of Genes, Talent and Human Potential by David Shenk

Basically, this book turns on its head everthing we think we know about genius and talent. It reminds me of another great book called The Outliers, but this to me is much more practical. The premise of the book is that it is not our genetics that make us smart, but our genetics multiplied by our environment. What I love most about this book is that you read it, thinking thay you could do anything if only you could put your mind to it. It is a book that makes you feel you can rather than you can’t.

The book introuduces the concept of what it call Dynamic Development, stating that we do not develop just as our genes predict we should, but we develop in relation to our environment, including how we are parented, what we eat and what is expected of us.

The book clearly states that talent is the outcome of persistence and uses many example to explain this using the fabled 10,000 hour rule. The author suggests that persitence is the difference between medioracy and enourmous success. He suggests that developing a talent is a dynamic system and a process which is affected by our state, the intensity to which we train our mindset, how we respond to failure, the strategies we adopt and more importantly, the time we put in. He explains in the book how our development has plasticity and is not set in stone, which I believe is a message we all need to hear.

So, what is his advice to parents in supporting their children’s talent development?

1. Speak to your children and speak often. Talking, as the Hart and Risley study shows, can improve academic performance.

2. Have a stimulating environment – children that grow in stimulating environments are most likely to become more intelligent.

3. Nurture and encourage. By the time a child in a professional family is five years old it has heard 560,000 encouraging words. In comparison, a child from a working class family has only heard 100,000, while a child from a welfare family has received 100,000 words of discouragement.

4, Set high expectations that stretch your child

5. Embrace failure

6, Encouarge a growth mindset.

There is also a whole piece in this book on how to help children with delayed gratifcation, but I will save that for another post.

Just get this book, it is great!

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?

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