10 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers

This morning I was browsing through some parenting blog pages and was, once again, made aware of the difficulties so many parents have raising their teenagers.

Sure, there are days when we, as parents, wonder where these brats come from. Then we look in the mirror and have our answer!

Anyway, having spent most of my working life around teenagers and lived with two, who are now responsible adults, this is a topic I have given much thought to. One day, while training some volunteer adult mentors who were about to begin a mentoring journey with a teenager, I was asked what were some of the key points I would recommend to mentors.

That got me thinking. After a time I narrowed the list down to the following 10 Habits or Hot Tips. I know they work, as I have mentored, coached, taught etc. well over 1000 teenagers on a 1:1 basis over the years, some with more success than others quite obviously.

As we are told it takes three weeks to create a new habit, these 'habits' can be created relatively easily and serve as a useful check list for a parent-teenager relationship.

I have written the 10 Tips imagining a teenager is spending time reflecting on his or her life.

1. Surround myself with positive friends.
2. Follow a hobby or interest during the next 30 days.
3. Exercise at least 30 minutes every second day - at least 2.5 hours each week.
4. Spend at least 20 minutes a day reflecting on my life and purpose.
5. Get nine hours of sleep every night.
6. Join a youth, cultural of community club.
7. Seek three adults I trust with my life (in addition to my parents), and stay in touch with them.
8. Give priority in my life to my school subjects or work.
9. Set myself specific, measurable, intentional, limited, extending, realistic goals (SMILER = implies FUN) that I know I can achieve using short and small action steps.
10. Be myself. I am unique, I can have fun, I will do nothing that could possibly be life-threatening.

There is no Rocket Science in these tips and they will require some consistent energy and effort. That's why it's so important to have some adult support, that person who shares with the teenager at a stormy moment, "I believe in you." It's neither a corny or stupid statement if the speaker is being genuine.

The trouble is that so many teenagers are growing up in families that are not functioning too well and everything seems to be too hard for them.

Teenagers look to their parents for direction and guidance all the time.

A few years ago, in one of the mentoring programs I was involved with, a young girl with antisocial behavior issues, was living with a guy about seven or eight years older than she was. He would mentally and physically abuse her. The young girl had no father around and her mother, whom this youngster loved dearly, was a drug addict, also in a not-so-good relationship. Yet this girl wanted to go home and live with her mum. She tried and it didn't work, so she went back to the abusive boyfriend. This happened a number of times. I was told that she would probably go back to this abusive relationship between five and seven times before she realised she deserved better.

Throughout it all, she kept wanting to be with her mother. Her mother knew that the domestic front was not the best place for this teenager. I don't know how that journey continued, as I moved.

However, I often think that if we had had the time to place a mentor alongside her for 12 months, a volunteer who was willing to make sacrifices to encourage this girl to reach her potential, some of the Hot Tips above could have been actioned.

Relationships, relationships, relationships! Teenagers on average don't want to sit on the internet, in chat rooms etc. etc. all their lives. They desperately want adult role models in their lives. More and more research is showing this and I can certainly vouch for it from the work I do running three GR8 MATES school-based youth mentoring programs in Outer Western Sydney. You can check out the Blog Page on my website if interested www.yess.co.nz

Maybe I can add more in a future Hub article :-)