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Ep. 3: Building Connection & Prom

Ep. 3: Building Connection & Prom

by | Apr 20, 2021 | Mental Health, Parenting, Podcast

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Building trusted connections is essential for teen development

But how do we help teens know who to trust and how to connect? Chris and Karlie offer practical tips for encouraging healthy adult connection and building those connections as a parent or a helper. They also talk promposals and ways to help teens experience the best of prom.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Have a question?

If you have a question about something you heard or just want to give us some feedback, please leave us a comment below.  We would love to hear from you!

Karlie Duke
Karlie Duke

Communications Director

Chris Robey
Chris Robey

Former CEO

The Power of Teamwork

The Power of Teamwork

by | Apr 14, 2021 | Blog, Mental Health, Personal Development, Support Groups

Teamwork: cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause.

As the wife of a High School Basketball Coach, I spend A LOT of my time thinking about and cheering on good teamwork. It is not super fun to watch a team full of individuals who won’t work together. It can be frustrating and, more times than not, will lead to a loss.

But man…when you see good teamwork, you know it!

Let’s take the recent events of March Madness for example. My alma mater, Abilene Christian University (ACU), did the seemingly impossible and beat #3 seeded Texas in the first round of the NCAA tournament. As I was watching, you could feel the energy of the entire team – those on the court, and those sitting on the bench who would never go into the game.

In fact, one of the ACU players went viral as the “hype man” for the team. He was the first to start a defense chant and the one yelling the loudest, even though he never played a single minute of that game.

Today, it is significant when we see that level of selfless teamwork because it is often counter-cultural. I have witnessed incredible teamwork at the High School level over the years, but I have also watched players who only care about their own stats at the end of the game. Even in the midst of losses, they celebrate high-point averages and plays that will look good on highlight reels.

In a world where our kids are told to be the best at any cost (even to the detriment of the team), we need to be intentional about encouraging teamwork. And this doesn’t just apply to sports! Teams can take nearly any form: a group of friends, a family, a group project, a grade level, a team at work, or humanity as a whole.

What if instead of rewarding individual success, we celebrated the team player? Our families, schools, places of work, and communities would be more enjoyable if individuals were willing to take roles that would benefit others.

Let’s take a look at some of the roles that are worth celebrating…

The Utility Player
This person is willing to take any position that will give the team the best chance. They will set aside their own wants for the greater good, even if that role isn’t always their favorite. You gotta love the team player who is always up for a challenge – they are the one you want on every project or team.

The Hype Man
This team member will cheer for others, even when they aren’t the center of attention. This is the person who encourages, pumps up, and cheers for those around them. When you’re having a bad day or feeling pessimistic, you’ll want to turn to your hype man – they are the one who will pick you up when you fail and then celebrate the loudest when you succeed.

The Assister
This teammate does their best to make sure others succeed. Sometimes that means that they give up the “shot” so that someone else can score. This might be a person doing the difficult work behind the scenes or giving others information they need to make the right decision. Teamwork does not mean that you put others down so you look better. On a team, you win when everyone wins

It is important to celebrate the often over-looked positions on a team. But what does that look like?

Here are a few ideas:

  • Ask, “Who have you had a chance to help this week?
  • Look for ways to acknowledge the little things – in sports, in your family, at school.
  • Be the hype man for those in your life!
  • Ask, “Who has helped you this week? Who would you go to when you’re having a bad day?” Encourage those relationships!
Karlie Duke

Karlie Duke

Director of Communications

Karlie was in one of Teen Life’s original support groups and now is passionate about encouraging students to live better stories. She has gained experience working with teenagers through work, volunteer, and personal opportunities.

Ep. 2: Stress & Teen Terms

Ep. 2: Stress & Teen Terms

by | Apr 13, 2021 | Mental Health, Parenting, Podcast

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Stress has become a pandemic.

Anxiety and stress were rampant in a pre-covid world, but now (dare we say it?), stress has become a pandemic. Teens are no exception. Join us as we explore what teenagers are stressed about and how to create connection. You’ll even learn what all the cool kids are saying these days and how to interpret it. Fair warning: Use these terms at your own risk.

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

Teen terms to note:

  • Fire: cool or amazing
  • Lit: amazing, exciting, or drunk
  • Extra: unnecessarily dramatic, over the top
  • Cap/capping/no cap: to lie or exaggerate; no cap is to tell the truth
  • Snatched: fashionable
  • Fit: short for “outfit”
  • Bet: used instead of “yes” or “okay”; or when someone challenges you in place of “watch” or “we’ll see”.
    “I’ll see you tonight” “Bet.”
    “You won’t win tonight, that team is too good.” “Bet”
  • Low-key: low-key means slightly, secretly, modestly; highkey means your sincerely or assertively into something- “I low-key have a crush on him.”
  • Salty: annoyed, upset, bitter
  • Shook: when you’re affected by something; shocked, surprised, scared- “I am still shook from the ending of that book”
  • Tea/Spill the tea: gossip or sharing something juicy
  • Thirsty: when someone is overly eager, searching for compliments or attention

Have a question?

If you have a question about something you heard or just want to give us some feedback, please leave us a comment below.  We would love to hear from you!

Karlie Duke
Karlie Duke

Communications Director

Chris Robey
Chris Robey

Former CEO

Building Resilience Together

Building Resilience Together

by | Mar 18, 2021 | Blog, Mental Health, Parenting

My family had a week this month where, from the smallest to the tallest, we were impatient and short-tempered. In a word, grumpy. With no particular cause, rhyme or reason. And then I realized. About a year ago, my oldest came home from school for Spring Break. And he didn’t go back—or go anywhere really—for quite some time.

Grumpy wasn’t the word. Traumatized.

I must admit, quarantine is my jam. From sourdough baking to setting the table for “fancy” breakfast, lunch and dinner every day and long walks around the neighborhood, we have lived up the slow life despite the many setbacks of the Virus.

But there’s something engrained in our DNA that remembers the initial shock and worry of the Unknown and Unplanned For that came last March.

For so many teens, staying home didn’t or doesn’t mean three meals a day with the whole family. At an age where the rituals of graduation and prom and seeing friends at school feel essential, teens were stripped of their rites of passage.

For all of us, last March was traumatic. And despite even the best situations, this year was lonely for most of us.

But with teens in particular, we have an incredible opportunity. At an age where they understand loss, they appreciate more than ever when we take the time to teach them how to overcome it.

And it’s teachable!

In Michele Borba’s* new book, Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine, she breaks resilience in to seven teachable traits. Self-confidence, empathy, self-control, integrity, curiosity, perseverance and optimism. Beyond the ability to perform in school, kids that possess any combination of these traits have the ability to thrive. Kenneth Ginsberg in a similar fashion talks about confidence, competence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control.

It’s why we love Support Groups. When students leave our groups after eight weeks saying things like, “I started taking time to think about a situation and find a positive outlook” or “Everyone is struggling with something. I’m not the only one who feels this way.”, we know we’re on to something.

We have an opportunity. Now more than ever, parents, educators, friends, in passing anecdotes and stories, dinner conversations and analyzing math problems, we can give our students a better, fresher start, starting now. We can build resilience together.

A few suggestions:

  1. Foster conversations about emotions. Help them notice the emotions that characters might be feeling in a story. Turn off the electronics and ask them what makes them happy. What makes them sad? At our house, we play a game called High, Low, Buffalo where everyone has the opportunity to share a high, a low and anything random about their day. Sometimes we stay at the table longer to finish. I’ve found it creates opportunity for connection, but also optimism, even when the first answer is that the whole day was horrible.
  2. Get excited about the things they get excited about. Without pushing, prodding or encouraging, share their joy.
  3. Asking questions is more powerful than solving their problems. For us Type A Overachievers it’s easy to jump in and fix everything, but handing back the control fosters confidence and perseverance. Most of the time, they just need someone who cares to listen while they think things through.
  4. Play “what if.” Help them recognize things that trigger their emotions and help them make a plan in advance for how to deal with it.
  5. Express your gratitude for at least one thing every day and encourage them to do the same. I’m not talking toxic positivity. Sometimes there’s only one, but one good thing can help them see the light at the end of the tunnel.

No matter whether the students in your life are struggling, striving, or thriving, reinforcing social emotional learning will help them succeed now and as they grow. It’s a win-win.

Have more suggestions on how to help teens thrive? Tell us in the comments!

 

*We’re looking forward to hearing more from Dr. Michele Borba on resilience and raising the pandemic generation at the Teen Life Summit! Click here for info and registration.

Kelly Fann

Kelly Fann

Marketing Assistant

Kelly has lived in three countries and worked with teens across the world, encouraging them to pursue their passions and to be kind.

Ask Culture and Guess Culture

Ask Culture and Guess Culture

by | Aug 18, 2020 | Blog, Parenting, Personal Development

I was scrolling through a Facebook group recently and one of the members shared this Tumbler post. For the original post the author is referencing, see here. To summarize the post, someone who lives in New York has a friend asking to stay in his home. The first time he and his wife had a ready excuse. The second time, he’s asking for advice on how to say no to the request, and essentially what would be the nuances of rudeness in a direct NO versus another excuse.

There are the predictable myriad of comments ranging from “How could she?” to “What’s wrong with asking? Just say no.” One of my favorite comments is, “If you need an excuse, tell her you’re going out of town. If you need an honest excuse, go out of town.” Who actually goes out of town to avoid saying no?

Until one reader leaves this comment:

This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it’s OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you’re pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won’t even have to make the request directly; you’ll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you’re a Guess Culture person — and you obviously are — then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you’re likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you’re an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she’s an Ask and you’re a Guess. (I’m a Guess too. Let me tell you, it’s great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people — ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signaling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you’ll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you’ll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

As you read through the responses to this question, you can easily see who the Guess and the Ask commenters are. It’s an interesting exercise.

Mic drop.

The concept of Ask Culture and Guess Culture really struck a chord with me.

I have spent the vast majority of my life as a Guess. As a teenager, I very rarely conflicted with anyone, because I avoided all conversations that might result in a no or any other kind of conflict. My parents called me the “easy child.” Other parents praised them for my obedience. I lived with a low level of very well-concealed anxiety that had me taking prescription medications to calm my stomach for a period of time. Everyone blamed school and stress.

In hindsight though, in the context of this comment, I believe that a fair share of that internalized stress was a fear of risk. A fear of the unknown, of failure, of a NO.

My father used to say, “What’s the harm in trying? The worst that can happen is they say no.” And logically, I knew it was truth. But emotionally, it was terrifying.

The commenter is right. The farther I wandered from home, the more I was forced to learn to interact as an Ask, but it is a conscious decision every time. In my heart of hearts, I’d really rather wait until the answer is 99% Yes before we talk about it. The only real exception is when advocating for others. Somehow asking is easier when it doesn’t feel selfish, right?

As a parent, I’m with my dad. I want my kids to ask fearlessly and not to dwell on the No’s when they happen. I want every question to be valid and heard, even when it doesn’t produce the desired result. And even then, the balance between bulldozer and fearless self-advocate is essential. I don’t really want kids who ask for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. Ask respectfully, but ask away!

So moving forward with this new awareness of the two ways to view the world, I’m hoping to be more intentional about fostering an Ask Culture in my home, by validating and honoring requests, even when the answer is No. As a Guess though, I’m suddenly aware of what I’m modeling. Am I being overly cautious or am I just being polite?

What about your experience and Culture? Are you an Ask or a Guess? Is your spouse the same? Are your kids the same? How does it affect your household interactions? How does it affect your teens in school?

Tell me in the comments. I’m fascinated and I want to hear more! 

Kelly Fann

Kelly Fann

Marketing Assistant

Kelly has lived in three countries and worked with teens across the world, encouraging them to pursue their passions and to be kind.