Teenagers are very different from children,
aren't they? And today, Vicki and I are going to talk about the 5
best ways to motivate a teenager. I've had a lot of people over the years
who explained that "This isn't my kid." -"My kid wouldn't do
that. What? What is that?" -And it's not their kid.
It's their teenager. -Yeah. They're a whole different animal,
aren't they? -Totally different. So, we handle them differently. Now, when I
say totally different, it's the same person. As children grow and develop into
teens, they become more autonomous,
they they want to have more independence. -Yeah, they kind of assert their
independence. And you know they're trying to make
sense of the world so they're kind of learning new
rules about how things work. How they interact with the world,
how the world responds to their interactions. And that leads to the first
of these 5 steps which is to respect their intelligence
and autonomy. -Now, this could be tricky because we kind of say a joke
that their brains don't arrive until...
-They're 35. -Yeah. And so, it might be a little bit
challenging because some of the way that they
process things won't feel as intelligent to you. But recognize that it is their
intelligence. They are learning. You know, with a
toddler, when they fall down, we don't say, "You are
never going to learn how to walk." We don't just give up on them. It's part of
the process. And i think we need to remember that their
intelligence is growing. It's evolving the way that they see the
world and how they interact with the world. It's all evolving.
And as we show them a little respect for that,
or at least respect that process in them, we're able to be more motivational to
them. -Remember, one of the most important developmental tasks that your
teenager is going through is establishing this
independence and autonomy. And so, for you to respect that and acknowledge that,
in ways that shows them that you get it, that you understand that they have come
a long way, they're not a little kid anymore.
-Right. -That carries a lot of weight. -You know, and I think we forget sometimes
that the whole idea is for our children to grow up and
become autonomous from us. And so as they start
pushing and exerting some of that autonomy, it's natural to kind of pull
back and "Whoa, things are changing." But if you can
learn to respect it, it goes a long ways with motivation. -One way that we respect
their autonomy is by respecting choice.
And this is actually a way to empower your team. So, number 2
on our list today is to empower through respecting
choice. -I feel like this one can be really challenging for a parent.
-Yeah. -For a lot of reasons. One, our life experiences
have kind of modeled and molded the way that we make our choices. You
know, the way you made choices at 15 isn't anywhere near hopefully the
same way you're making choices at 35 years.
And so, it's very easy to want to kind of influence and
maybe even behind the scenes dictate the choices.
Because you're coming at it with a different viewpoint. You're coming out
with lots and lots of experience. And so, but we need to let them have their
choices and realize that as they learn, they're going to be able
to gain that same experience so that their choices can be better and
better all the time. Now, remember this is all about how to motivate
a teenager and what we're going for is a more
internalized motivation. And so, acknowledging
and respecting choice is a way to shift some of the control
from you as a parent back over to them as a teen. And it gives them a sense of
empowerment to feel that their choices matter.
If you feel like your choice doesn't matter, you're not very motivated to do
things. Now, that doesn't mean that they've got carte
blanc with all choices and all of the resources that we've ever given them,
right? But sometimes you're... You still need to
offer choice and then respect the choice they make. And
we've got other videos about this too. Because as a parent,
it matters to you how they behave and so we structure the choices in such
a way that you can acknowledge and respect their
choice but it still optimizes the possibility that you're
going to get the outcomes you're looking for.
That's kind of a different video. -Right. -So, we'll just go with that for now.
-This next point can be very, very challenging for parents.
You want to tie the privileges that you offer your children
to their effort, to their work as opposed to
the outcome. So, you get to detach yourself from the outcome
and tie the privileges to their efforts and work. -You know, Vicki? This ties right
into our second point about acknowledging and respecting their
choice. -Yeah. -So, when you give them a choice and
there are consequences either natural or completely fabricated by the parents
that are tied to that choice, you empower them actually by
following through with the consequence. And you detach yourself.
-Right. -This is the hardest thing that we're going to ask you to do.
Detach from the outcome. As a parent, you have to emotionally
detach from that because to the extent that you stay
committed or attached to whatever their choice
is, then they don't they don't have to. -Right? I think another
point that we really want to bring up is that
the real privilege is tied to their efforts
if we can help our children. And this might be true for you as well. But if we
can learn to enjoy work, enjoy effort,
you are going to be miles ahead in world. I don't know anyone in any situation who
has had a great measure of success that hasn't
had to work in one way or another. And we're not
talking physical labor all the time. But there is effort required if you want to
achieve things. And so if your teenager is learning that
effort brings about privilege or
outcomes or even learning experiences that might not even be
the outcome you want, learning to love effort, if you can learn to love work,
you will be successful. -Having worked with hundreds of teenagers.
And we raised... What? 4? I found that one of the biggest barriers to a
teenager being motivated is a belief that
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I do. -That doesn't matter.
-And if it's tied to my parents mood and I don't control that,
then you know, it doesn't matter what I do. So, really what we're trying to do
on the motivation front is tie their efforts
to the privileges that they get to enjoy so that it's clear that it matters
what they do. Also with those hundreds of teenagers I've worked with, one of their
primary complaints is that 'My parents don't keep their word."
-Yeah. Yeah. That's a hard one. -Well, sometimes we say things in the heat
of the moment that we don't really mean. Or
our teenager actually does something that qualifies themselves for something
we've promised but we didn't think they would so we weren't really serious about
following through with that promise. Do you see how this gets
messy? -You know, we've talked about this so often with the choices that we give
our kids in disciplining and things. Don't offer a choice you're not willing
to follow up with. And so, that's just something we get to work on ourselves.
And remember that if you get to a situation where you're trying to...
You're starting to kind of pull back on on something you said you would do,
take a minute, breathe through it. You can do over.
Talk to your child about it. I mean, if they learn that negotiation and dialogue
is important in life what a great lesson, right? So, be willing to follow
through and then just do it. -Say, what you mean and mean what you say.
And and like Vicki said, at those times when you get out of alignment or out of
integrity with your word, acknowledge it. Own it. Apologize. Ask for
a do-over. Be upfront about that because they're
going to need to learn that as a life skill anyway.
-I wonder what the last one might be. -Well, we actually had
4 specific to this topic and then one that we've got to remember
no matter what we're doing with our children, your job as a parent...
-Is to love them no matter what and even if. And this
is so important because I don't know any teenager that hasn't gone through a time
when they don't feel particularly lovable. -Right.
-For themselves. And so, they are looking for opportunities to
corroborate that story that's going on in their head that the world doesn't
love them or their parent doesn't love them. So, make sure
that you are sending the message "I love you."
-No matter what and even if. You know, part of the clinical syndrome
of teenage (Did you know that's a clinical syndrome?)
is that they naturally go through some self-doubts and and just trying to wrap
their head around who they are and where they fit in the world. So, it's
going to come up even if you're doing the best job you
can as a parent to send that message. The other important thing about this
step though Vicki is what it does to your mind. See, if you
think your job is to make sure that they
anything. -Never get in trouble, never do this... Right. Yeah. -gGood upstanding citizens,
get their homework done, finish their chores, whatever.
If you think that's your job, you're going to feel frustrated. You're going to
annoy them. -And they won't be motivated. -Right. -And
you're not very good at that job anyway. So,
you're fired. Let's get back to your true job which is to love them no matter what
and even if. Even if they're not motivated,
still your job. I know parenting can be a challenge.
It can be difficult. But we've got your back. I don't know if you were aware
of Live On Purpose central. Would you come and visit us over there? There's a
link in the description for Live On Purpose central where you
will find the resources you need to be that parent
you've promised yourself you would be.