Teenagers aren't lazy, they're just really efficient in how they use their

time. How do you motivate a lazy teenager?

So I'm guessing that since you're the one watching this video, you're not the

lazy teenager but you know one, don't you? Probably got one in your house with you,

okay. Parents? Is that who I'm talking to here today?

Now if you are a teenager and you're wondering what I'm telling your parents

and that's why you're watching this video, awesome, glad you're here because I

think this can help you as well. Now let's take a look at where we're going to

start. What is your job as a parent? Alright, if you've worked with me very

long, you know I have one answer to that and we're going to reiterate that right

up front. Your job is to love them no matter what

and even if, okay. Now most parents they're like, well duh, yeah, of course, I

love them. Yeah, don't lose sight of that, your job

is to love them no matter what and even if. When you realize your job is not to

make sure that they're not lazy or to make sure that they're productive

citizens or to make sure that they make sure that they make sure that they, do you

see how burdensome that is and you can't even do it, I don't think it's possible

because of something that we'll get to in this video. Now keeping that

perspective, your job is to love them no matter what

and even if, couple that with what we talked about in this video right up here

about the influencer quadrant and how to get someone to open up to you, you want

to be in a green space. If you don't know what that means, click on that link, it'll

queue it up for you so that we can review that, okay. I won't spend the time

in this video to go over that but it's powerful because your focus shifts from

all about you as a parent to all about your child

and because you love them, in this case your teenager, because you love them, you

know that it's not good for them to stay lazy and non-productive, right? You know

this as a parent, life has taught you a few things so from that perspective,

let's take a look at control. Now for that we'll go to the white board, as we

make a little tea chart, you've probably heard of those before where we draw a

big capital T right here and at the top of this one is your teenage son or

daughter. At the top of this one, we will put the parents, parent or parents,

sometimes you have a nice parenting team, sometimes it's you. Either way, this is

the parents' column. Now what we're going to do is just brainstorm together for a

moment, a few things that we can put on each list. This is a list of things that

are relevant to your teenager's life and we're going to put it on the side of

whoever controls that thing, alright? So how about working, who controls that?

Your teenager does. How about attitude? Yep, it's over here.

Okay, how about behavior? Yeah, do you see a common theme here/ How about how your

teenager handles school? Who controls that? yep, once again. How about language

How about music or other media?

How about schedule? How about how they handle church? What about what they're

doing with their friends? Gee, looking a little lopsided, don't you think? Who

controls all of this stuff? They do, alright. Now I'm not saying that's right or

wrong, I just want to acknowledge what it is and we have to face the harsh reality

sometimes because you don't control this stuff, parent, and if you don't believe

that, I bet your teen will prove that to you and it won't take very long, will it?

Okay, so let's be clear about that. What do you control as a parent? What do you

control about your teenager's life? Well none of that but what do you control? Now

let's start with probably the most important one. I've already mentioned it

to you and that's why I wanted you to review some other videos. Your own

attitude.

Your own attitude, your own position, your own perspective, you control that, not

your teenager. This is important because I have a lot of parents that I've worked

with in the past especially who will come in and say oh, they're just driving

me crazy, okay. No, we can appreciate why you say that but on your emotional life

here for a moment. What if you could get to the point where you're good either

way, no matter what your teenager's doing?

That's what I'm talking about, you get to control your own attitude. I shared an

example in another video that might be helpful to review here. Let's say you get

a new car, brand new car, it's your dream car, you love it and you're driving down

the road in your dream car and your teenager is standing right over there on

the sidewalk and your teenager waves you down says, "Hey, dad. Nice ride." and you're

like, oh boy, what's going to happen here? You pull over, yeah, roll down the window

and you look at it and say, "So uh, what are you doing?' He says, "Oh dad, I just love

you a new car How about if I drive it for a while?" Man, I was afraid this would

have happened and get out of the car and you hand him the keys okay and then your

teenager hops in the car, fires it up, drives it right into a foam pole, totals

the car, he's fine thankfully, but he gets out and he looks

back at you and says, "Oh sorry." Now what's wrong with this story people? First of

all, why are you giving the keys to someone that you don't trust to handle

the vehicle appropriately? What if our emotional life were the car?

Yeah, who are you going to give the keys to? I'm thinking hang on to the keys, you get

to drive this one, you're in charge of your own attitude, you are in charge of

your own emotions,

that's going to shock and surprise something. Really, I'm in charge of this?

Yeah, you're in charge of your own behavior. So these things you get to

control. Well you might be thinking but that doesn't have anything to do

with my son or my daughter who's venting out all day playing video games in the

basement. Really? Yeah, it has a lot to do with it because you're the parent that's

going to show up and this next part is going to empower you to have some more

influence. I'll put a star by this one.

We get to control what we provide. This is good news because what are you most

concerned about? If you look at these two lists as a parent, which list are you

more concerned about? Oh yeah, that one, right? But you don't control that one, you

control this one. Which list is your teenager most concerned about? Hmm..

They control this one but are they worried about this stuff?

No because they control it, they're not worried about it, you are but you don't

control it. Which list are they worried about? This one because they don't

control it but they're counting on a lot of this now before I suggest what I'm

going to suggest next, may I be clear about something.

You are a benevolent, generous, loving parent. There's all kinds of arguments to

support that. You are a benevolent, generous, loving parent. You're not going

to take anything away from your teenager, okay? But you may make some things

available that you provide, contingent on some transaction that we can set up.

You're with me? Okay, now before we go there, 5 freebies. 5 freebies, you

don't get to mess with these. Let's put them down. One, love. Your job is to love

them no matter what and even if, they don't have to qualify for it, they don't

have to do anything for you to give that to them freely. Love. Two, air. I know you

don't give them air but you have no business depriving them

of it so you'd think people would know this but I had a client whose daughter

died, you've got to have air. Okay so I'm putting it on the list even though

it's ridiculous. Now three, water. Do not withhold water.

Are we cool? Four, you see where we're going with this. Food. Now you can go a

little longer without food than you can without water but they're both necessary,

right? And you're not going to withhold food. Now it doesn't say preferred food, it

simply says food. You want to be able to sustain life, keep the belly button away

from the back dog. Number five, shelter.

You're responsible for this, you're a parent, there are legal and ethical and

moral responsibilities you have to provide all the freebies for your kids,

you don't get to mess with those. Now when I say mess with them, shelter

does not necessarily mean a bedroom, okay. You're with me?

It means protect them from the elements and in our society, it includes

appropriate clothing. Notice I said appropriate not necessarily preferred

because that happens to be a higher level privilege and we can reserve that

for the transaction. Now what about the transaction? Here's the transaction, we

agree as parents to control something on our list in a way that our teenager

likes in exchange for our teenager agreeing to control something on their

list in a way that we like, simply a business transaction in fact, we're going

to take all the emotion out of the discipline, put that back into the

relationship where it belongs, okay. Simply a business transaction. Now what

we provide can get pretty powerful. We provide access to certain spaces or

equipment or things in our home, we provide money, we provide transportation,

we provide telecommunications. This list goes on and on and on and as long as

it's not on the freebie list, it's negotiable, okay? So we agree to control

access for example to electronic equipment and side note, you have to be

able and willing to enforce this otherwise it doesn't work.

Access to electronic equipment based on how they choose to handle school or work

or whatever else it is that they're not doing because they've been so lazy.

Follow? Now one last comment here. Stay calm, okay. Stay in a good place, keep

smiling. When parents are smiling, kids are thinking more, there's a lot of

reasons for that, use it to your advantage. We want to

change the energy around this whole thing from shame to game. Think about

that, shame to game. No more shame, no more guilt, no

more you shoulda or I wish you would, simply turn it into a game. Hey, I would

like to offer you this in exchange for that, either way is okay with me.

You're smiling, kids are thinking. Turn it from shame into a game. Actually these

lazy teenagers, they're pretty brilliant and efficient but we know a little more

about the game. Let's turn it from shame to game.