Children are always joyful, excited and adventurous. However, raising a teenage child is a tricky phase that both child and parent go through.
Teenagers start to gain control and independence in their lives, while parents tend to maintain control. This pull in different directions sometimes affects family situations and brings newer experiences that are not always pleasant and at that moment we start questioning our teenager’s parenting style. During this transition, the one key element that remains of common interest to all is ‘preparing the foundation for a bright future for the teenage champion of the house.’
Every family wants to achieve this wishful future, however, the methods applied are sub-optimal, just like a sportsperson cannot accomplish much without the right support.
The age of 13-19 years is a very delicate stage where all the emotional, physical and mental foundation develops simultaneously. And because of hormonal changes, the teenager falls into confusion with himself and the surroundings as well. Having known of the situation, family, teachers, friends, and everybody tries to provide the support required for the teenager.
However, the fact is that sometimes it’s difficult for teenagers to share or discuss all or any aspects of their life with anyone, be it, family or friend. This is where it becomes difficult for the child and the parents to communicate which leads to creating misunderstanding between them. But this is the time where all parents have to be utterly careful. But you must be thinking then, how do I parent my teen?
In spite of being mad over their child, you should try to be more gentle, respectful of the situation and the child’s emotion and properly provide guidance.
For example, when a teenager works with a sports coach, the difference is visible in their achievements.
What if similar support can be brought in to their life to empower them, to have them realize a better sense of who they are. And this support can teach them to learn how to live to their true potential.
Teen’s life coaching is a possibility where the child works with his / her coach to understand their unique personality, make choices and decisions that are true to their core needs.
Before thinking how to raise a successful teenager, lets first understand what are the problems or challenges my child is going through.
Let’s understand the top 13 teenage problems and how a teen’s life coach can help them.
- Pressure from school/Parents: – As a parent, you must be thinking how should I strengthen my parent-child relationship? But we as a society are putting lots of expectations on our teens. This pressure creates anxiety in them. A life coach can help teens to manage these anxieties to be more successful in school.
- Missing clear vision: – The decision of what to do after high school bothers teens very much. They get confused by listening to views and bits of advice from parents, friends, and media. This is the right time teens should start finding their passion. A life coach can help teens listen to their inner knowing of what they desire to do in life.
- Peer Pressure: – Even as adults we experience this type of pressure. A teenager needs to learn how to follow their inner compass and to love and take pride in who they are and the decisions they make for themselves. This is a skill the teen will benefit from all through life and a life coach can help the teen develop this important skill of self-love.
- “Unhealthy” old belief: – Keeping these thoughts and believes make them view the world as a hard, unfair and sometimes cruel place, which makes it hard for them to be happy and successful. Sometimes these beliefs stop their growth in life. A life coach can show these teens how to create new habits, new thoughts, new desires, new values, new needs and a better, happier and successful life.
- Friends drama: – The teens need to have a coach to show them the bigger picture when it comes to friends switching back and forth from best friends to enemies. It creates lots of rumours and depression. A life coach can guide a teen to use their inner compass in making good decisions when it comes to who should be a friend and who should not.
- Teens don’t like to talk to parents: – If we remember our childhood days, we did not tell our parents about the fight we had with our friends at school that day or the low grade we made on a test. During this age, the teen spends more time with friends and less time with parents. A coach can guide them to make good decisions.
- The brain of a teen is still maturing: – According to Dr. David Walsh, this part of the brain does not fully mature until around the age of 25. This is why many teenagers are not able to take “good judgment” in difficult situations.
- Bullying: – It is rare for a child to never experience being bullied by the time they graduate high school. A life coach can teach skills to kids to help them handle the bullying and even prevent bullying from occurring. Teens also need these skills to help them realize when they are getting bullied so that they can avoid that situation.
- Not Communicating properly: – Teens at this age face challenges to communicate effectively and clearly with parents, teachers, and friends. A coach can bring confidence in them to communicate effectively.
- Social Media: – Teens need to learn how to balance their time and energy between social media and real life. A life coach can assist kids in achieving this balance.
- Clear goals: – Without setting goals, life goes directionless. Giving teens direction, goals and visualizations about their future can empower them during this crucial age of their lives. At this age besides other skills and grades they also need to be able to understand the importance of their future selves.
- Lack of Accountability: – Its expected from teens to understand the importance of responsibility in the real world. Accountability also teaches integrity, and they learn how to stick to their words. Being responsible, accountable to your actions and having integrity can open a teen’s mind to more opportunity and overall success. Teen’s life coaching will make accountability a habit for them.
- Lack of confidence: – It is no secret that in any decade of life, confidence is an asset that can increase opportunity, ability and desire to take leaps and achieve success. During this age self-confidence is being built and is at a very fragile stage. A teen who is constantly taking a beating emotionally in this stage in their lives may have poor self-confidence that runs far into adulthood. A coach helps teens to be confident for whatever good you do.
If you improve your communication skills, I guarantee you that you will earn fifty percent more money over your lifetime – Warren Buffet
30 Benefits of Teens Life Coaching
Today’s teens do not need advice; they need empathy and want you to trust them. They need to get empowered.
A coach can help teens learn how to handle obstacles and setbacks, establish positive thinking and monitor growth. Coaches do this by establishing a new set of beliefs and values and assist in moving forward, planning and setting goals that pave the way for future success.
Teen Coaching is about personal development and is an investment in your teen’s future. Through a process of learning life skills and lessons, your teen will start to develop self-awareness, self-confidence, courage, and compassion. These fundamental life skills will enable your teen to set SMART goals for their future, make effective choices, and follow their dreams. This will help them to become the person they were born to be and achieve their true potential.
1. Your teen gets an unbiased person to talk to:
Let us recognize that this is a tough time in a child’s life. A Life Coach can be an unbiased outlet for the teen to talk about themselves and about what’s going on in their lives. They get the support of an objective and non-judgmental person.
Your teen gets the opportunity to talk about difficult subjects, such as bullying and relationships. However, if an area of concern does come up, it will be caught quickly, talked through and worked on before it gets too overwhelming or out of control.
2. They teach to set and achieve goals: A Life Coach discusses goals, plans for work/college and dreams. A coach will also help set smaller goals and SMART goals. These are goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound.
Often, teens set very basic goals that are not specific and measurable and are less likely to achieve them. A Life Coach sits with your teens and explains about the importance of goals and helps your child to make the goals along with the plan.
3. A Coach teaches teens accountability:
A teen’s life coach instills accountability in your child. Few goals are set during each session. The next time the teen meets with the coach, your child takes the accountability of that goal and explains what all s/he could do and what all could not.
Together, they discuss if any challenges came during achieving those goals or if goals are not met. Excuses are acknowledged, but not supported. Instead, the Life Coach will help them to think of a different approach to reach the same goal.
4. A Coach instils confidence:
A Life Coach works with teens to focus on their strengths and utilize these strengths to achieve goals. The more a teen can see her/his strengths, the more confidence s/he will have. Teens are also taught how to build confidence that reduces the chance of getting bullied.
5. Effective communication:
A Life Coach educates teens on how to practice assertive communication and be confident in saying no to people and activities that are not in line with their bigger vision and goals. They are encouraged to see the world from a different perspective.
6. Discover their own strengths and talents: Teens have so many unutilized strengths that if they start focusing on them, their strengths alone will be good enough. And this strength will be more than sufficient for their goals and happiness. After this, they do not need to worry about their weaknesses.
7. A coach will help teens to recognize their talents and strength.
8. Manage stress: – Coach teaches teens to make informed decisions about how to best manage stress.
9. They will lead their lives with a new sense of motivation and a boost of inspiration.
10. Coaching can help your teen to understand the emotions they are going through and how to manage them. They may be battling feelings of worry or fear and behaving aggressively. A coach helps your teen to understand and handle their confused emotions.
11. Academic and organizational skills:
Organization skills are a key aspect of whatever your teen does in life. Starting from organizing the way they structure their academic preparation, keeping things properly, ensuring they maintain their belongings and so on. This aspect is best nurtured when the importance is realized.
12. Coaching improves teens time management skills:
Time – a factor that is always falling short for a teenager. They would love to keep doing things at their discretion but time flies when they do things they love and does not move when they hate something.
Prioritizing various activities, they do and optimally being able to utilize their days can work wonders. A coach works as a team/partner with the teen to enable them to accomplish this.
13. Coaching installs a stronger sense of self-worth.
14. Stronger decision-making skills: Every step of life needs a fine and delicate sense of deciding what is required. Decisions can also have consequences that are not always considered to be the best. Therefore, skills to develop and also be aware of possible consequences can empower the teen to be able to decide clearly.
15. Desire to “dream big”: Dreaming big is the forte of teens. Their dreams do not have bondages of logic and are driven by their imagination and understanding of their competencies. Nurturing the ability to keep dreaming, and sustaining the dreams through follow up plans, action, and direction creates possibilities of future that may not sound feasible today.
16. Ability to spot signs of an unhealthy relationship: They will learn to respect themselves. And this will help them to move on from an unhealthy relationship, and recover from breakups.
17. Improved grades: Since teens learn how to concentrate on their goals, their grades improve.
18. A coach motivates a teen to achieve their true potential:
Every teen has immense potential that is not always realized. The competencies, capabilities, support, and environment drive what they must do. However, once realized, the clear direction, choices, results, and joy that follow are tremendous. Coming from others, the word itself sounds like Gyan, therefore a coach helps. College/Career readiness: Coaching brings more clarity about their future.
From simple things like choosing subjects to complex ones like deciding in favour of or against passion/need, career readiness is left to societal expectations. Career readiness requires co-relating many aspects of the life of a teenager.
19. Happier teens: Today’s happier teens can only create a happier nation.
Teens are by nature joyful. Societal pressures and other aspects sometimes take them to states of depression and sadness.
20. Healthier friendships: Friendships made during teenage last for life. A child with a great company of good friends leads a life in a way that helps him/her tide past various challenges effortlessly.
21. Learn ways to stay healthy and balanced in life: This by default brings happiness in life.
22. Improved relationship: – Learn more about themselves and their relationship with family and peers.
23. Passion: – They start learning how to keep finding passion and how to start working on it.
24. Limiting belief: – They identify potential setbacks and limiting beliefs holding them back. These limiting beliefs are the main culprit that stops them from achieving excellence in whatever they want to do.
25. Learning Life Skills.
26. Increasing Emotional Intelligence.
27. Self-acceptance and self-awareness.
28. The balance between real life and social media: Digital and social media have barged into the lives of teens in a big way. When your teen knows more important things are there to be done, only then do they start looking away. But that is rare. The content and continuous engagement create trouble for the teen.
29. A life coach can assist teens with achieving a balance.
30. Good decision-making and sticking to them: – Learn all the skills necessary for grounded decision making
How to know if your teenager needs a life coach?
1. A sudden drop in marks in school: – your child was doing well in academics and suddenly his marks started dropping.
2. Low motivation: – Now your teen is not motivated to do the things that he used to love some days back.
3. Career discovery: – confused for his/her career/interest. Lack of direction
4. Anxiety: – social, academic, general
5. Get panicked: – some teens get nervous when the exams are nearing. They need some elders to comfort them.
6. Bullying: – getting bullied but not telling anyone. Parents can see some behavioral changes in such cases.
7. Choosing friends who are a negative influence: – You are observing that your teen’s friends are not good and your teen is getting influenced by them.
8. Attention-seeking behaviour: – because of low confidence (deep insight), this behaviour can be seen in your teens.
9. Transitioning to new surroundings: – some time school change, city or country change affects a few teen’s behaviours and their performance.
10. Low self-worth
11. Self-reliance
12. Fully committed to academic and athletic success, but need some guidance and support with realizing his/her full potential
13. Doubt themselves because they feel all kinds of pressure?
14. Lack of direction: The teen does not stay in a certain direction consistently. He/she may be exploring that is not getting satiated by what they discovered so far.
15. Low Focus and concentration: These teens will have a very little attention span, not able to focus and concentrate thereby making mistakes that we call silly mistakes.
Every teen has the right to be happy and successful, and they have huge potential to achieve the same. A life coach does not behave as a parent, teacher, or friend but s/he is there to offer impartial, trustworthy support without any judgment. A life coach helps teens find their strengths from within and teaches them how to stay strong and focused even if life is not happening exactly the way they want.
“The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.” — Steven Spielberg
Teenage is about being joyful and creating the foundation to succeed in life. It is the age to understand self-potential and learn to live every moment with full potential.
In this critical phase of life, we would not like to burden the child with another person who lectures.
A life coach is a partner to your teen champ. The coach offers impartial, trustworthy, non-judgemental support to steer the capabilities of the teen. The coach, just like a sports coach, does not come across like a parent, teacher or friend but the catalyst to help your champion start living just like one.
The coach helps the teen to start focusing, make clear decisions, find strengths, stay strong even in times when life does not flow the way it was desired to be.
Let your child create the desired future that they deserve.