Erasing Boredom for Teens This Christmas

Many times during my years as a family coach, I’ve been asked about how parents can make sure teens aren’t falling into a ‘bored rut’ during the school holidays when one or both parents are still hard at work, and it’s especially important to ask this question at a time and age like this when buying them the latest Xbox game and plonking them down in front of the TV for the holidays seems like the easiest option.

The key aspect of boredom is being unproductive, and many young people get very impatient when there’s ‘nothing to do’ – after all, they’re in their element when there’s something going on all the time – think the instant gratification of a world they’ve grown up in.

So here are a few tips I’ve picked up on, and have found actually work as win-win solutions for pre-teens & teens and their parents

Tip 1: Give Them Their Own Time
With the end of the school year, teens feel like they’ve finally got some sense of freedom, and with the exams having just passed, they need to relax. Give them the time to sleep in, or even laze around the TV sometimes.

Tip 2: Decide on the Rules of Having Friends Over
Do you have to know their friends who are coming over? Are you even happy for them to have their friends over? Whatever decision you make around this, make the rules clear – rules are easier to bypass for teens when they haven’t been verbally communicated by you, the parent.

Tip 3: Get Them To Plan Out Their Week
I thought this was the most lame thing I had ever heard when a colleague told me about this, but it works. When you pose the challenge to your teens to plan out their week, it gives them time to search online to see what’s going on in the local area, and actually realize there is a world outside of their house!

Tip 4: Give Them the Task of Making Dinner
With all the cooking shows going around, many younger people are getting into cooking (think Junior MasterChef). When you’re leaving for work, leave them a budget and the challenge to surprise you with dinner.

Tip 5: Busy Business
Plant an idea in their head about starting up a business. Or perhaps start with getting them to list some of your household’s unwanted items on eBay – it could be their pocket money! With the internet, anything is possible

Tip 6: Hand them a Camera or Art Supplies, and watch…
Young people have a wild imagination, so help harness and unleash this through art – this will give them hours of time to spend on something that will help them express their creativity.

Tip 7: Endorse Sport
Suggest some sports they can go play with their friends – if you have the equipment for it, just hand it to them – they may have forgotten you still have that set of tennis racquets in the garage!

Tip 8: Writing Christmas Cards
If they are totally bored, give them the Christmas Cards you need to write to family and friends, and get them to write messages in each card, and sign for the whole family. Not only is it a lovely gesture to get a Christmas Card from a family friend that was written by one of their kids, but it’ll tick one more thing off your list AND give your teen something useful to spend their time on.

Tip 9: Decorate the Christmas Tree
Same as above – great fun for teens, and a task that ‘just needs to be done’ for you, that actually gets done!

What are some of the ways you get your teenagers out of the ‘boredom rut’?

Taking a Holiday with your Teens

Christmas can become one of the most stressful times of year very quickly – with work commitments, as well as the worry of where to go on holiday, can all become too much very quickly. So if you’re thinking of taking a holiday this festive season with the family, here are a few quick tips about how you can make the holiday time as stress-free as possible.

In sync with my newly released second book ‘Shush, You!’ I stand by the belief that you can improve relationships with your kids through small actions in 5 minutes a day or less, so this article is in hope that you can achieve that on holiday!

1. If you don’t know where to go, ask your kids!

2. Give your teen a time frame and budget, and let them come up with a travel itinerary.

3. Don’t ban iPods or cell phones – simply dedicate some time to when you can discuss something as a family during the trip.

4. If you’re taking your work on holiday, make sure you dedicate your time to it for an X amount of time every day.

5. Make a rule that if it’s a family trip, the whole family goes. No exceptions. That also narrows your chances of coming back to an un-supervised party house.

6. When conflicts arise, cut them on the spot. Take them for a walk and have a good chat to them.

7. Most of all, remember to have fun! Without banning anything, or starting up arguments, remember why you went on holiday, and that was to bond, and have fun!

What other tips would you recommend when going away on holiday?

Happy Holidaying!

Turning 21: Give Us Hope

The inevitable happened at the end of July.
I turned into an adult.
Oh gosh.

It was horrible – seriously. I woke up, ready to take on the world as an adult and guess what??!
I didn’t feel any different!
I didn’t have that much of a big night out, but seriously…come on! I thought adults were supposed to be responsible and awesome and I well…felt the same!
I have come to the conclusion that every parent, adult, teacher, youth worker, manager…they are just the very same 16, 18, 20 year olds in an older person’s body. No big transformation exists! No Easter Bunny, Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy came to transform me – I still looked the same, I FELT the same.

I have used the same techniques in numerous speeches where I get adults in any given audience to remember what it was like to be a teenager, or a young person, and the only thing everyone always agrees to is that the only difference between how they used to be and how they are now was the sense of absolute freedom they felt. It’s interesting though, because as an adult, we have more responsibility – for ourselves and others. But isn’t the whole point of having freedom that we have more responsibility? Were we more responsible when we were younger if we feel we have less freedom than we did back then? Or is it the feeling of no consequences that fades as we age?

All these are valid questions, but the one thing I’m starting to feel kicking in is the hope I have in the world. When you get older, we feel more hope, more opportunity to change the world. Partly because we are allowed to do more things, but isn’t hope something that every human being on Earth should have?

Time and time again, I make sure to share with my audiences the grim future that was painted for me at primary school: the two divorces I was apparently prone to as a young person living in today’s world, and the 15+ career changes I was expected to go through. Now, I’m all for teachers being honest with us as kids right from the beginning, but the one thing they forgot to instill and paint for us at school was hope. The one thing that will keep us going through the tough times; the hope for a better future. When you look at all the possibilities, it’s exciting that there are numerous ‘things’ we will go through during our lives, but at the same time, it instills a feeling of insecurity of our futures. With the expectations of many changes, how are we supposed to grasp the concept of goal setting, and more importantly the concept of goal achieving when we are told the rules are going to change so many times on us, that we will never have a feeling of security?

I guess the reason I write this is because youth cannot go as far as they can if there is no adult support. And as an adult, there is so much support you can give us just by instilling hope. Try it – let’s have a look at a number of options.

If you are a parent or teacher, instilling hope means supporting us through the good and bad times. Every parent wants to do this – I’m not saying they don’t. But the way you can help show that there is hope is by reassuring us; your kids that whatever we want to achieve, we need to stick at it. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was really little. By then though, my dreams were doomed. School told me there is no point in striving for something that was already possible. Great. OK, fair enough. But the way they went about giving me other options (or in this case option) was to try a career in animation. 3D animation was the ‘it’ thing back then, and all the teachers were enthralled that this had become a job, so it almost seemed like it was their mission that we all needed to become little ‘animationists’ because that was the way of the future. Ding dong! It’s now 2011 and that is not the hottest or newest job anymore. The world will keep changing, but don’t just try get your kids involved with the latest trend – that is almost a formula for them to fail. Look at me now – if I had followed the advice I was given, I would just be finishing my studies, looking for a job in an over-stocked market. I’m not suggesting I would have been the world’s best astronaut, but hey, who knows – if I had stuck at it, I could have been the first New Zealander into space (by the way, there hasn’t been one YET), so although I was like what, 8 years old, that dream was dead in the water. So be careful how you pose your support. Make sure you are giving us hope through the support – not by shutting down our ideas.

OK, say you’re not related to a young person – say you are a manager, or some high exec, and it’s your job to mentor some new employees. How do you instill hope in them? They are likely to be at the higher end of teen years, or even over 20 – so how can hope become alive in these ‘kids’?
A popular technique for employers is to sit a young intern or employee down and draw up a 5 year plan. OK. Do you remember what you were like when you were 20? Wasn’t the only thing you knew you’d be in 5 years time was OLD? How about going at it from a different approach – ask what they want to achieve in the industry. They may have no idea, they may have some idea, or they may have already made their own plan. No matter where on the scale of assurance they are, you can help by showing them some options, and offer advice around how they can get to wherever they want to go. I think many young people think in achievements rather than years in today’s world. It’s possible to slice 3 years at University into 2 years – anything is possible in today’s world, so it may be your way of thinking that a 5 year plan is best, but we have grown up with speed, and the best way to instill hope in the fact that we have a future, and better yet, a future in your industry is to let us know that there are pathways we can take to achieve whatever we are there to achieve, or at the very least that there are people that can help us decide what we want to achieve.

How do you instill hope in the young generations?

I have a hope for my future, and for the future of this world in general because of all the wonderful adults that have helped me gain this, and I hope that the young people who’s lives you touch – today and in future can attain this. And while thinking about this, maybe you also need to ask yourself – how bright do you see YOUR future? And do you trust it (the future, I mean :))

What they didn’t teach us in school

At the start of last month, I was asked to present at a local High School around the life lessons I’ve learned from my journey of being an author, speaker and consultant.

I was shocked to find that after sending my presentation through, I was asked to write out a new one…some of my suggestions and lessons were too ‘provocative’ for the student body, and something that they didn’t want their students exposed to.

It was an interesting piece of feedback to hear, as I’ve never been censored in such a way before, so I thought, for this to not go to waste, I’d re-tell some points in the online world (where everything is allowed). Many have heard, or have heard of Bill Gates’ speech he gave at an American High School around his life lessons, and I must say, it was nothing different to it…apart from the fact that I don’t have any sort of billion dollar empire, I’d love to see the day that some of these life lessons are at least discussed at school – after all, isn’t this the institution that’s supposed to prepare youth for the ‘real world’?

At the same time, I know of many schools that have Leadership Days where they invite speakers, and teach them some of the real life lessons…maybe this school was just a bit too sheltered for the truth, but here we go, my three points that I wanted to share with the school…judge for yourself how it may break students as the school thought…

1. You Need to Work Hard
In our generation, somehow we get it into our heads that life is going to be easy. Who can blame us? Our parents are Generation X, or for some, even Baby Boomers and all their life they had to work really, really hard to get whatever they wanted in life. They obviously didn’t want their kids to go through some of the same struggles, so they tried to make an easier life for us – their kids. Back in the day, some of our parents were working at 13 or 14 years of age, whereas today, that’s illegal! Our parents had to work hard to get their first job, while we expect to have a steady job in our late teens, because we hear of how some of our parents had been promoted to manager positions in their late teens. What we forget, or what our parents forget to tell us is that they had to work up for years before then to get to that position. You are going to work hard to get to wherever you want to get to – whether it’s a promotion, or starting your own business, or anything else, you’re going to have to get out there and put in the hard yards. That’s what we don’t get to by parents or teachers…not because they’re lying to us, but because perhaps they forgot about their own journey and challenges. The best advice I was ever given is to choose what I love and put in all my passion, blood, sweat and tears into it. And I have. Have you? What do you want to do? Whether it’s a short term or long term goal, what do you really want from life? Find out, pin point it and get ready for some hard work – there are no shortcuts there!

2. Take the Opportunity to be Curious
When I came to New Zealand, I was the most outgoing child you could ever imagine. Even now, I can’t contain my excitement when telling a friend some good news that I end up telling the whole street rather than the person I’m talking to. But what happened for a little bit when I came to New Zealand, all of a sudden people were speaking a funny language, and I didn’t understand a thing. So I became really introvert and started to really take in what other people were doing. I guess my observation skills have stuck with me since that time, but now that I finally know what language everyone is speaking, I can add my extrovert-ness into any conversation. What I’ve learned over the last 4 years of being in business, being an author and speaker, is that people think that celebrities and opportunities are out of their reach. If only people knew the truth. I’ve learned to be brave, which is what I’ll touch on in the next point, but the biggest thing I learned is the importance of being curious. I wrote my first book when I was 17, and luckily, I was invited onto a live radio interview with some of the other top parenting authors of the country. After the interview, I e-mailed all of them – even the ones that I disagreed with on the radio, and expressed my gratitude and honour for the opportunity to be heard alongside them on national radio. One replied. But you know, that one was, and still is THE biggest, most respected parenting author in the country. The busiest people are the ones that have enough time for everyone and I now know this and am not afraid to e-mail or even call some of my most admired heroes. This parenting author is now one of my dearest mentors and friends, and always makes time for when I’m in her city and vise versa. The lessons she’s taught me and all the information she’s helped me out with has been priceless. Get mentors, contact whoever can help you – even if they’re at the very top of their game – they always have time for you! Take some time to be curious about the world around you – whether it’s contacting someone you think is out of reach, or doing some extra research about some topic, job, or person – just do it! What’s the worst that could happen?

3. Learn to be Brave
So you work hard and you’re curious about the opportunities out there…with all of this, you need to learn to be brave. Many self esteem books will tell you to be yourself, but the beauty of life is taking risks. I used to hate public speaking. I mean I used to love being the centre of attention, but as I became more and more introvert when I came to New Zealand, I bought into the whole ‘public speaking is worse than death’ belief. I had to get out of it, because very early on, I realized that in order to get the message – my precious message of how people can build better relationships with each other, across to many people, I was going to need to get out of my limiting belief. The fear used to really get to me, but I knew it was for the best. I knew I was going to have to swallow my pride and fear and get out there and do it for the people – without sounding like some sort of revolutionary, I knew my message was going to really help people. Sometimes when following your dreams, you need to be brave. Do you think Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t scared – getting up and speaking about something that he truly believed in? All those people watching him, but his passion and vision drove him. He could have hid in his room and stuck with the life he was given, but his belief that his vision was for the greater good of people, drove him to get out there. Your fear may not be public speaking – it might be getting out there and contacting J.K. Rowling – who knows! But if you really believe in what you’re doing, get out there – be brave, and just do it!

What other advice would you give to youth today? What do you wish you knew when you were 13, 16, or 19?

2am the New Midnight...?

A common problem the average parent is likely to come across is the timely issue of youth growing up too quickly. Time and time again, parents are faced with decision time about what curfew to set for their teenagers. The only problem is, with the invention of constant communication technology, like cell phones and GPS tracking systems, the old ‘be home by midnight’ is no longer valid. Teenagers are taking a stand, and they’re hitting the sore spot by claiming their friends are staying up later too…and before you know it, the old midnight turns into the new 2am.

The key is to do your research and set some rules. Take your teen as a starting point for your research. You need to take into account that their friends may be very different to the friends you had at your age – everyone knows that there are some groups that stay out later than others for whatever reasons. There are daytime skaters, as opposed to the night-time ones. The night-time ones aren’t necessarily there at night to drink and do drugs – they may have divided the time because the skate park is quieter, or has more of their friends around at night-time. You’ll need to ask them to see their side of the story and understand their reasons why they are staying out so late.

Your next port of call is the other parents around. These can be family friends with teenagers, or even your teen’s friends’ parents. What do they think about their proposed curfew? Is it too late? What do the other parents set as curfew for their teens? Why?

Now after you’ve done your research, go back to your teen like a sales person, and try compromise the best time you can both agree on. Maybe not be as sly as the stereotypical sales person, but try work towards your both advantage. Through this process, you’ll be able to set some rules down, because even if you decide on a particular time, things do come up, so set them straight. Perhaps the curfew can be at 2am, which is the time when they must be at home, but they must TXT you at midnight, or an hour or two after they’ve left home to let you know they’re OK. Come up with a number of scenarios they can reference to in future. For example, what if the bus, taxi or their ride can’t get them home by 2am – do they need to TXT or call you? Are they hanging out in your suburb or in town? What if there is a family emergency – how fast can they get back home?

Now, if you need to, write these rules out and stick them on the door, or the fridge, in their car, wallet, or even in their room. Perhaps it might be embarrassing for them to have these rules up in their room, or in their wallet, but I personally think friends can be very considerate in today’s world – teenagers have a conscience too, and if your teen’s friends see you have set rules for them, they’ll know about the rules their friend has, and I hope you find, in the perfect scenario that they will actually peer pressure your teen to stick to them.

What curfew would you set for the teen in your life? What was acceptable when you were younger, and what rights are they demanding in today’s day and age?

Annoying Youth Habits in your Workforce

Day in and day out, more and more youth are coming into the workforce. And no wonder – half the world’s population is under 25 years old, and the new generation’s work habits are following them into the workforce. Bad attitudes, scruffy work clothes, turning up late and in general, disregard for not understanding when the business doesn’t do well, they may be out of a job.

Sure, that sounds like the generic youth job of a bartender, or coffee-maker, but it extends way into the corporate and SME world too.

The twisted youth minds are a hard one to understand, but when it comes to it, unless your generation wants to be blamed for the bad habits instilled in today’s youth, it may be good to pay some attention to what they react to, and what will help them achieve more in your business.

Many attitudes come down to the parenting young people have received. Do they respect you as an employer, comes down to: do they respect adults in their lives? Showing up in scruffy clothes, comes down to: were values instilled about respecting the people around them?

Having asked around, some of the most common problems with youth come down to the same answer:

The issues are: coming in with scruffy clothes, Bad attitudes, and showing up late for work
Why do they do that? They know when their shift starts…do they not own an alarm clock??!

If only things were that simple. When a young person’s shift starts at 9am, they’re likely to show up at 9am on the dot. Coming in scruffy clothes…perhaps that’s how they actually dress. Bad attitudes aren’t kept in check unless someone complains. So why not just tell them! Picking up on turning to work late, older generations understand that a 9am start time means coming into work 10, 15, minutes before start-time so they’re dressed and ready for work. Well, not in this world – youth will show up when they’re expected, sometimes later. The warning for being late will be obvious, but not when they show up on time, even if they spend 10 minutes to get into ‘work mode’, thinking they’re paid for the time they’re on the premises.
What’s the way out of it? Tell them what you expect and why – whether it’s about the dress code, attitude or time management. What may seem very obvious to you about workforce attitudes will be different to today’s youth due to their parenting they received. If you expect to run your business in a particular way, don’t let it to their common sense to decide what’s right and wrong – tell them. Come up with a Code of Conduct with all the rules written out so if they come to work ‘on time’ instead of 10 minutes earlier or are wearing a ripped shirt, you can point them back to ‘the rules’. No if’s or but’s there….

How do you/how would you keep your young workers in check?

Parenting Expo and Second Book Launch!

So the second book is finally here.

FINALLY!!

Absolutely excited to the max about it - check out the video HERE



The official launch will be at 2pm at the Parenting Expo....all you people in New Zealand, I look forward to seeing you there! More info on here: www.upperhuttcity.com/parentingexpo

Engaging Us as a Generation...

It's been a while since I blogged on here, but I have something I'd love your feedback on, as I wrote on the Emergen ygenclub Blog...

An article I wrote got published in last month's Speaker Magazine that goes out to all members of associations run by the Global Speakers Federation around the world. I've put it up linking back to the magazine on HERE.

I tried to focus on key myths that I've heard go around teachers and speakers, breaking myths like...

• You have to be young to engage youth.
• You need to be cool.
• Textbook content is good.
• I’m an adult, so young people need to hear my funny stories about my life.
• You must be inspiring and positive.

What's been amazing is getting gazillions of e-mails and calls since the article came out, from people wanting to know more tips, more insights into how to engage us, young people as an audience.

So I'm here to get your feedback...what other myths should we bust?

What advice would you give an older speaker who completely missed the target of engaging an audience you were part of?

What tips can you share, perhaps even from your experiences?

Da 1: Surviving Xmas With Teens

The 25 Day Countdown of 'Surviving Xmas with Teens' has officially started!

Day 1 is all about:

ATTITUDE!

Sign Up Now 2 get your daily Xmas tip at www.eva-maria.co.nz



Happy Holidays!

Eva-Maria and the Otara Youth Collective Redefine Youth!

Last week's trip to Otara in Auckland was a huuuge success!!

As the papers raved about the event, the OYC girls were quick on their feet to make the event a huuge success! Apart from my workshop of 'How to get a Better Relationship with Any Teenager', the girls had a bake sale to raise money for their exciting upcoming projects! Woo hoo!!

Read all about the rave article about the day in Scoop HERE!

Check out some pics from the day below, and don't forget to connect with these amazing OYC-ers on...FACEBOOK and BEBO!

Youth Zone Access Radio!

Had an aaawesome interview today with a couple of pretty wicked teens!

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture with the two amazing boys (damn!), so if they become famous soon, I do not have any actual proof that I've met them, but hey...

Victor and Brad were kind enough to ask me over 20 questions about my work, being a speaker, author, and all that jazz....

See the Youth Zone Program on the Access Radio Website Here!

xoxo

"With Mud Flaps At The Back"

Teen Trends and Fashion Today!

Inspired by a comment about a teen boy's hair as having 'mud flaps at the back', I decided it was time to dig down and give the dirt on fashion and teens.

This video is for adults.

After all, we're all just a product of the adult world!

www.trustyourfuture.com

Check out the awesomely awesome video by clicking below! :)


Source: http://www.flixya.com/video/2223619/Teen_Trends__and__Fashion