Posted by admin on March 10th, 2010 in Communication, Parenting

Today I had an opportunity to hear Julie Metzger speak.  I have enjoyed her presentations before and always learn a lot.  I appreciate her speaker “style” because as a speaker myself, I know how tough it can be to provide information to an audience of parents and also be lighthearted and approachable.  She accomplishes that…in spades.  In fact, she can be downright funny.  Always a good thing in my book and something I struggle to convey in my own presentations.  She jointly runs a program called “Good Conversations” with Dr. Robert Lehman in the Seattle and Palo Alto area.

Today’s topic was risk-taking behavior and how parents can facilitate our teenager’s social and developmental decision-making growth.  She cited work by Deborah Tannen (comunication/linguistics research),  John Gottman (relationships) and a Stanford study about how adolescents develop decision-making skills.

Stanford Study

This study examined how people develop decision-making abilities and since this happens in abundance during the adolescent years, it “should” help parent better!  According to their findings, there are 3 variables that need to be in place in order to establish a good decision-making “tool kit”;

1. Responsibility (autonomy and self-identity)

2.  Perspective

3.  Limits (knowing how to control impulses)

In her work, she uses the 3 C’s to describe the work of adolescence  (it very closely mirrors the Stanford Study);

1.  Connection (feeling connected to a community and to others in general)

2.  Competence  (mastery of something)

3.  Control (of self)

Ms. Metzger uses the analogy of “turning country roads into highways” to explain how teenager’s brains are constantly being re-wired.  We’re often reminded that teens act on their feelings more and it seems from a parent’s point of view, that they are often flooded with emotion.  She explains that our job is to help our teens develop a rich vocabulary around their emotions.  Listen to your teen when they come home upset – they need to be heard first.  Then, let them work through the various strategies for handling the problem.  Don’t TELL them.

If you consider the worst teen around – maybe sitting in Juvenile Hall right now – they probably have one emotional word – anger.  In order to develop a sophisticated decision-making tool kit, teenagers need to be able to define a wide variety of emotions and build a strategy to deal with the emotion.  Self-esteem is derived from the successful solution by the teen. NOT the parent.  Success is measured by working through the process NOT an exact outcome.

Take a Beat

Ms. Metzger reminded us that as parents we are really coaches guiding our teens through the process.  They can never develop a good tool box if we are always solving their problems for them.  Even if they fail, they will learn through the process.  Because they are learning through memory AND through watching us model decision-making behavior.  But telling them…not so much.  Here’s a great quote that drives it home:

“Are we preparing our children for the road  OR are we preparing the road for our children??”

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