Have you ever heard it said ‘The Problem With Teens These Days…’
Maybe you’ve said it yourself…?
The problem with kids these days is…
- – “They have no respect for their elders.”
- – “They have no manners.”
- – “They dont know how to have good old fashioned fun.”
- – “They lack motivation.”
- – “They have zero attention span.”
Well that’s not my opinion, here’s what I think;
In the first 5 days after Ollie (my first son) was born I had the realisation that we are all born knowing nothing!
On February 27th 2014 – he arrived into this world knowing nothing, having no beliefs, values, education, understanding or wisdom.
Now he is totally reliant on me, my wife and other trusted adults to teach, train and guide him and show him the best way I know how to do life – much like you and I when we were born, we were reliant on our parents and guardians.
I made the amazing realisation that…
I cannot expect that he should know how to behave in any situation or assume that someone would have taught him. I cant expect him to know when its time to sleep, or how to behave in public, or how to communicate what he needs or how he feels.
Every human being is in the exact same boat.
Everyone on this planet is right now doing the best that they can with the resources, knowledge, understanding, learnings, life experience, modelling and beliefs that they have accumulated on their journey of life.
So back to my thought about “The Problem With Teens These Days”
Teen behaviour is simply a symptom of a greater problem.
Teens are doing their best, doing the best they know how, to meet their core needs.
(See my report about “Understanding Teens – Their 6 Core Needs of Teens” – download it by submitting your name and email in the form on the right hand side).
Some teenagers are behaving in a resourceful manner to meet their core needs, and some in very unresourceful ways.
No matter how they are behaving, no matter what behaviours we see on the surface, they are all simply doing what they have been taught, behaving according to their beliefs and values and the strategies that have been modelled to them along the way – as ways to meet their needs.
Imagine this… What if when you were a child you were taught by your parents, that you brush your teeth with a stick of celery, and that’s all you ever knew. That would have been ‘normal’ to you. The need was ‘clean teeth’ and the strategy was using a ‘celery stick’.
It’s exactly the same in life – we all have these 6 Core Needs.
(According to Robbin Research International – specialists in human behaviour).
So we can’t assume that anyone ‘should’ know how to behave or expect that they will behave according to our ‘rules for life’ as we all have experienced a totally different upbringing which formed our beliefs, values, habits and world view.
So what is this PROBLEM?
The problem is a problem of AWARENESS.
Let me explain.
As per my report on “The 6 Core Needs Of Teens” all teens are doing the best they know how to meet these 6 core needs:
- Certainty
- Variety
- Love and Connection
- Significance
- Growth
- Contribution
As a developing human being we all have these 6 core needs, but how we choose to meet those needs will determine whether we live a fulfilling and satisfying life or whether our life is a struggle and full of problems.
So very quickly there are 3 main elements in this problem of AWARENESS:
1. AWARENESS of our needs
Awareness is the beginning of transformation.
Until we become aware of what it is that we are subconsciously trying to achieve we have no idea how we can work to become resourceful in our efforts to meet our needs.
In my report on Understanding Teens I go into much more detail on:
- 3 Universal Fears
- 3 Questions
- 6 Core Needs of Teens
The best thing we can do for teens is to help them to see that when they are able identify and understand their core needs and how when they are able to resourcefully meet those needs they can discover happiness and fulfilment in life.
If we dont even know the goal, or what we are trying to achieve, it’s almost impossible to know the best way to achieve it.
So what is it that we are trying to achieve with our behaviours?
Not at a conscious level, but at a subconscious level.
2. AWARENESS of how to meet the need resourcefully
Much like my crazy analogy of brushing our teeth with a stick of celery, we all have strategies that we use to meet our needs.
Currently Ollie’s primary strategy for almost all things is to cry, and he’s very good at that when he desperately has a need.
If we all continued to use that strategy into teen and adult life, the world would be a crazy and very noisy place, but in reality, there are lots of teens and even adults who are using childish strategies to meet adult needs.
Have you ever met a teen who plays the ‘Attention Seeker’ card?
They’re simply using an unresourceful strategy to meet their need for Love and Connection and maybe Significance.
They have never learnt a resourceful/mature way to meet that need.
It is our responsibility as trusted adults to help teens to learn resourceful strategies to meet the needs they have, when we see them displaying unresourceful strategies.
The easy thing to do in this scenario is to judge the teen, to tell them off for their immature behaviour, but unless we can help them by guiding them into more resourceful strategies transformation and change cannot occur.
Thirdly…
3. AWARENESS of how to interact with other who are trying to meet their needs unresourcefully
Living in a society where we are in close proximity of hundreds and thousands of other human beings every day, who have all had different upbringings, different values, different modelling of strategies for how to do life, it is inevitable that we will rub shoulders with others who behave differently to our ‘model of the world’ and dont live their lives according to our ‘rules’.
The 3rd level of awareness beyond, becoming aware of our own core needs, becoming aware of how to resourcefully meet those needs – we must also become aware of how to interact with others who are behaving in ways to meet their own needs in unresourceful ways.
This is where we often encounter conflict.
This is where we can be prone to judgement.
This is where we see bullying, racism, abuse, discrimination and all of those terrible symptoms playing out.
Self Mastery and Behaviour Management strategies are keys to success in a school community, a work environment, functional families and in life.
As parents, teachers and adults who work with teens, these 3 elements of AWARENESS are crucial for ourselves as well as to manage the way we choose to engage and interact with our teenagers.
It is our responsibility AND privilege to take teenagers on a journey of self discovery to help them to become aware of their own internal core needs and resourceful strategies to meet those needs. Additionally teaching young people self leadership strategies and resourceful ways to see, interact with and approach others.
My challenge for you:
- Model Well – live by example
- Encourage Often – speak words of life and encouragement
- Create Space For Self Discovery – walk with your teen on their journey of self discovery
Be the change you wish to see in your teen!
Nathan Hulls
Teen Behaviour Expert | Motivational Speaker | Success Coach
www.NathanHulls.com
For Bookings – Teen Workshops, Parent Workshops, Teacher Workshops
