Are you presently in a parent teenager relationship where you as a rule, are always praising and affirming the self worth of your teen and yet they still struggle to believe in themselves and have a fear of failure? This appears to be a common reality. Being a parent what can you do to help your teenager approach risk and the fear of failure in a helpful way?
I would like to introduce to you three tips that when applied will make a huge difference.
Firstly. In your parent teenager relationship, emotion coach your teenager. This means to acknowledge and validate all their emotions whilst guiding them to become a master of their own emotional states.
The last thing you want to do when your teenager is distressed is to minimize or trivialize their emotional reactions. Don’t say things like “get over it” or “its not the end of the world” or “there’s nothing to be upset about”. These may have become part of your lexicon of self talk that have worked for you. However, if you ignore or play down your teens feelings, you run the risk of them feeling alienated. Alternatively, when your teenager feels understood, they will tend to relax on the inside.
Secondly. In your parent teenager relationship, it is important when you as the parent is accepting of your mistakes as an integral part of your learning curve in life. The truth be told, a mistake can be seen as an insight that will equip you to do better in the future. It’s been said that those who never make mistakes are not doing anything.
As a parent, do you ‘beat yourself up’ when you make a mistake? If so, you teach your teen to do the same. For example, when you lock your keys in the car, how do you respond? Do you get angry? Do you say: “What a dumb thing to do. I’d forget my own head if it were not screwed on”? If so, again you are teaching your teen to respond in the same way. Instead, what could you say? You could say: “It’s a nuisance but not to worry. I will go ahead and get a duplicate set of keys made up for the next time that it happens”.
Thirdly. Remember, you only fail when you give up. Problems are a fact of life in every human endeavour.
Setbacks are part and parcel of life itself. They are not meant to knock you out. Rather, setbacks come to help you become stronger and wiser. By knowing how to deal with setbacks, you can provide some valuable life lessons for your teenager.
On the whole, by being kind and generous to yourself you teach your child to be kind and generous to himself.
By emotion coaching your teenager, by accepting your mistakes as a vital part of your learning curve and by knowing that failure only occurs when you give up, you can powerfully assist your teenager to build their confidence and develop a healthy attitude toward risk and failure. By doing so, this will go a long way in helping you create a wonderful parent teenager relationship.
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