Humans have an intense craving to be accepted by others, to be comforted by others, to belong. This craving is the impetus to be loved.
What is love? American Heritage Dictionary defines love as a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
“Love is a sanctuary for our spirits, a bath of empathy for our emotions, a tranquil meadow in which to nurture our fond hopes and dreams.” When love is present, the soul is at peace. Chaos and negativity fade away. Kindness and giving become commonplace. Joy and happiness, beyond current circumstances, radiates due to love. Everything becomes better when love touches. It can be a hug or kind word.
9. No Regular Family Time - Meals, Activities
A meal of family activity provides good nutrition and bonding time. It also sets the stage for regular family discussions and the foundation for transmitting family values. People including teenagers tend to talk more over food providing clues to the dilemmas in their lives. Teenagers need attention to shape their thinking process.
8. Living a life outside of your teenager
Parents have the responsibility to nurture their children from 0 to 18 years of age. Unfortunately when a teenager gets an adult like body at age 12-14 parents leave them to themselves as if they are adults. They may have adult bodies but child-like brains. They need more guidance after the age 12 as they believe they are invincable and do not understand consequences. Away from home 15 hours a day is disasterous if no one is available to supervise teenagers, even if it is to work a second job. Teenagers need some one-to-one quality time.
Parents are to model the behavior they desire for their children to replicate. If parents never spend time with their teenagers, teens are left to model their behvior after someone. That someone can be anybody usually someone who is cool, hip and not law abiding.
7. Embracing Anti-intellectualism
“Minority adolescents ridicule their minority peers for engaging in behaviors perceived to be characteristic of whites such as speaking standard English and enrolling in an Advanced Placement or honors class to wearing clothes from the Gap or Abercrombie & Fitch (instead of Tommy Hilfiger or FUBU) and wearing shorts in winter” according psychologist Angela Neal-Barnett in 1999. In many ethnic neighborhoods, education is seen as assimilation – losing one’s culture to become white. Education should not been seen as a negative but a positive. If education is not valued, then it will not be completed.
6. Refuse to oversee or review student homework and class work
Teenagers are children, whose mantra in life is folly and play. Without parent intervention and a road map, they wander from class to class, school to school, playing and trying to find themselves. Their wandering, often, translates into behavior issues, truancy, failed classes, and then low graduation rates. When they finally land at high school graduation, they are 23 years old and forced to get a GED.
Many teenagers drop out of high school due to sheer boredom. Homework provides insight to the content of a class. The class is often boring with no hands-on activities leaving the student disengaged. This problem can be rectifiied quickly before student drops out.
5. No Career or Education Goals for Teen
“School is like traveling. One must choose a destination and map out a route to get to the destination;
Upheaval Media created Follow Your Inner Compass Teen program http://www.followyourinnercompass.com which is a book and web -based career exploration/
4.No Dreams or Family Goals/ Plans
Chaos is evidence of no planning toward a goal or dream. Where chaos abounds trouble comes. Trouble creates stress, depression and a sense of failure. If your life is full of trouble, take the time to write down your plans and goals for your life. Communicate your goals and dreams to your teenager. Teenagers like to know the direction of their family and how they can participate in its forward movement. Furthermore you provide a behavior of success they can replicate.
3. Set no boundaries or discipline
Many of the troubles young people face would be eliminated with the establishment and execution of rules. Rules loudly scream care and concern. Rules provide stability and tradition.
2. Speak ill to or about a Teen
The tongue is capable of giving an individual life or death. Words are powerful. Many teenagers have repeatedly heard negative sayings “you can’t do anything right!” “You are ugly,” “You are stupid” “You will never amount to anything.” No matter how intelligent they are, every time they are faced with a decision, great or small, their subconscious mind replays those sayings, causing them to procrastinate in making the decision, hence fulfilling the prophecy a well meaning adult spoke.
1. Pretending Everything Is Okay
We are in the worse economic recession since the great Depression. Everyone’s life has changed. Our cash accumulation or good credit is gone or leaving quickly. We are all struggling. Some of us are dependent upon unemployment, food stamps, and food banks. For those lucky few, the affluent lifestyle has been reduced. We, adults, are walking around angry internally. We smile to people outside our house, but at home we are depressed and irritable.
We pretend we are not in a lifestyle funk to everyone but our children. They are crazy. Their behavior leaves a lot to be desired. They should be mild mannered well behaved young people on track to out perform you educationally, but they are not. Children - teenagers – imitate your behavior. If they are crazy then they are probably reacting to your craziness. Stop pretending and deal with it.
If any of these 10 items occur in your life, your teenager is guaranteed to drop out from high school. The question is when? If they are moving in that direction, you have the power to change their direction. Begin with reading Follow Your Inner Compass Teen.
