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!

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?

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?

The Broke Generation?...

Watch the video!

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