Success is there for you to take. You have to go after it. No one is going to walk up to you and hand you the key. I started a company, blog, and courses focusing on encouraging teens and helping parents to build a stronger relationship with their teen. What does that mean? What does encouraging teens mean specifically? It means Empowering Teenage Responsibility. It is mentoring, teaching and coaching teenagers to achieve personal success in all areas of their life. Today, more than ever our teenagers are challenged to achieve more, do more and with parents justifiably busier than ever with work and social demands, it really does take a village to help your teenager achieve success.
Instagram, SnapChat, texting, You Tube, all consume our time, but somewhere in the daily grind we have to provide coaching for our teens on how to be the best they can be, to start developing their leadership capabilities and to create goals for themselves.
It all begins with teenagers spending some time getting to know who they are and how others view them. Is that easy? No, it takes a specific methodology which I have designed and successfully used with teenagers. “Selfies Don’t Change the World, You Do” is the proven seven session program I wrote after years of research, and it takes teenagers to the next level.
Developing empathy, effective communication skills, resilience, and time management are all skills that need to be taught, reinforced, and practiced. How do you begin that journey? It is a daunting task, one that I undertook with my own daughters. There are so many books on parenting, but not one states clearly, “this is the one for your children.” Not only that each child is completely different. Somehow they are not clones of us, and have their own opinions and attitudes that we must guide, educate, and coach.
All of that we are supposed to do in a positive nurturing way to build their character, self-esteem, and self-worth. I am amazed that any of us survive being a parent. We don’t throw in the towel as the first two year-old temper tantrum in the grocery store, where, amazingly, older people look at you like you are the worst parent for letting your daughter wear a dinosaur costume to the grocery store and to have this rolling-on-the-floor meltdown over not buying “Barbie” fruit chews.
So along my journey of trying to be this amazing parent, I failed miserably numerous times, I learned that apologizing to your young daughter is a necessary and often time consuming process but worth every minute. I spent many hours reading parenting books, self help books, leadership books, and trying to master the art of parenting. I learned that Friday night bonfires with other moms and wine is a cathartic moment and unites us in our quest of creating amazing wonderful adults that move out of the house and achieve “escape velocity” from our authority and money. Although, inventing Uber would have been more profitable. The journey of raising my daughters taught me some valuable parenting skills. I also realized that I soon became the go-to mom for concerns with my friends’ teenagers. I was able to talk with their teenagers, encourage them, and provide coaching. It worked. These young teenagers were developing effective communication skills, empathy, and, with ongoing coaching, their own leadership style. I decided to write out the content of what I did over and over with these amazing individuals. I created a seven week seminar, and my business Encouraging Teens LLC was launched. I now provide life coaching for teenagers and college students. I meet with parents and coach them on how to encourage their teen to be amazing. Each child is still unique, yet they all have the same drive – to move out, have their independence and be happy.