Sorry for the long delay in posting but I plan on getting back to at least posting every Thursday during season and hope to get back to posting three times a week after season. I have been accumulating some great content over the past few months.
Today, I would like to share with you a book recommendation and a great article. As leaders, teachers, parents and coaches I think it is fair to say that this generation is growing up in a way different environment then we did. With that being said, how do we as the adults in their lives help them navigate their way to adulthood with the skills to become successful adults? First, we have to understand the times they are living in. Secondly, how can we help them become mature adults.
A great resource is
Dr. Tim Elmore's Artificial Maturity: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults and here are a few insights from his book:
- Kids think they know a lot but it's virtual because they have experienced so little. They are overexposed to data but under-exposed to real life experiences.
- Kids assume they have experiential knowledge when they only have informational knowledge and with this abundance of knowledge, their confidence soars but it is based on a virtual foundation.
- The overload of information is causing kids to think they are mature. It is fostering over confidence and arrogance. It is also creating low self-awareness. Self-awareness is what is developed through real-life experience.
- Adolescence want independence but not the responsibility.
Today's kids no longer know the experience of innocence, exploration, and imagination that most of us adults recall from our childhood. Parents have become so focused on safety that it has prevented children from taking calculated risks and learning to fail, both of which help to mature.
Kids are failing to learn how to resolve conflict, think for themselves, or do real life problem solving.
How can you help?
- Know they are confident on the outside but anxious on the inside. Create real life experiences.
- Provide autonomy and responsibility simultaneously.
- Provide information and accountability simultaneously.
- Provide experiences to accompany their technology-savvy lifestyles.
- Provide community service opportunities to balance their self-service time.
Another great article I found in Southwest magazine,
In Criticism of Praise by Heidi Stevens discusses how to tackles the issue of how too much praise by parents has left a generation of kids with no resilience to deal with failure.
Click here to read the full article. Here are some great take aways from the article which references several resources and professional points of view:
- Failure can motivate kids to brush up on skills and tackle problem from a different approach. And, perhaps most importantly, it can build their resilience.
- When we praise children for their intelligence, we tell them that this is the name of the game: look smart, don't risk making mistakes says, Carol Dweck, Stanford University psychology professor.
- We also harm their long-term performance. Because when they do take a risk and inevitably stumble, kids fed a steady diet of praise rarely receive failure as an invitation to try, try again.
Again, we ask how did we get here? We know technology has changed the game but so has parenting. In the early 70's the Self-Esteem movement of parenting began. In a Columbia University study of American parents, 85% said it was important to praise their children's intelligence in order for kids to feel smart. Dweck concluded from her study that the self-esteem movement changed people's intuition, their common sense.
We have created a generation that expects to be rewarded for just showing up. We need to challenge them more and give them more credit and realize they will rise up to the standards we set. Kids are used to going into different environments and figuring out what's valued, how to succeed, and what's going to be praised. What we need to be aware of is that our constant praise is not cultivating self-esteem or resilience.
Help by Calibrating the FREQUENCY and STYLE of our praise.
- Recognize that the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice recommends Peggy O' Mara the editor and publisher of Mothering Magazine. Research is clear that RESILIENCE is equally important as that inner voice-if not more. And if our overwhelming praise is stripping them of the power to hop up and try again, then we're helping neither their competence nor their contentedness.
- We all want our kids to be safe but we need to realize is that if we weave a protective cocoon of hyperbole to shield them from harsh realities of the world, they'll emerge too weak and ill-equipped to bounce back from the inevitable obstacles.
- Understand that Praise fits into two categories; process-oriented and outcome-oriented.
- Process focuses on effort, persistence, and resourcefulness. When kids are praised for hard work they want to keep engaging in experiences. They see that the process, not just the outcome, provides value.
- Outcome-oriented praise emphasizes the place they arrived rather than the effort exerted to get there. It becomes problematic when challenges arise, which kids perceive not as opportunities but as threats to the greatness their known to exhibit. If they attempt things they might fail and then everyone will have been wrong states Kristin Race.
- Be specific in your praise. Let them know exactly what they did right rather than general comments like "good job." That will go a long way according to Kristin Race.
- Make sure your praise is genuine. Kids know when you are insincere. What they truly desire and need is your mindful engagement and attention.
- Validate your childs area of interest and help them become their authentic self. This will help give them an internal security and may take edge off the inevitable setbacks and failures they will face. Let them know you love them and your love is separate from their performance. Connecting affection to achievement also turns love into a reward rather than a given, from author Ashley Merryman, NutureShock
I hope you find these resources as interesting, informational and influential as I did. As a leader of young adults I think it is our responsibility to help them navigate through this information age and help them grow and mature to be responsible and successful adults that can contribute and give back.
