How to Handle Difficult Relationships in 2 Steps
Our teens are not spared from relationship challenges in school.
They communicate with friends, teachers, school staff and classmates on a daily basis.
They are unlikely to get along with everyone everyday – there will be people whom our teens don’t have a smooth relationship with.
This is normal – even us adults face challenges when interacting with people whose personalities are not compatible with ours.
However, having a conflict-free environment in school is very beneficial to our teens, as we know. They may not get along with their classmate John, for example, but that doesn’t mean our child has to pick a fight with John every time they meet or skip school in order to avoid seeing him. There are better ways to handle such situations.
With proper guidance, our teens can interact with people they personally dislike with grace and manners.
So how can our teens take control of negative relationships (in 2 steps)?
Reframe the situation
Reframing is incredibly powerful. Instead of labeling a classmate as ‘irritating and selfish,’ for example, they can reframe some negative words as stated below:
- ‘Irritating’ – persistent
- ‘Selfish’ – focused, goal-oriented
- ‘Loud’ – vocal, extraverted
- ‘Strict’ – caring
and so on. They might require a thesaurus for this exercise. (just kidding!)
Highlight the positive
We can encourage our teen to highlight the positive aspects of facing challenging relationships.
For example:
- ‘Our teacher may be strict and fierce, but it has pushed me to be more careful and double-check my work in class.’
- ‘Kayla likes to make fun of my curly hair, but it has taught me to be a more patient person over time.’ (admittedly, this particular example is challenging for most of us. Many of us will be tearing our hair out to remain patient with such a character!)
- ‘I have a lot of homework today. However, this will ensure that I get ample practice before the exams next month.’
It takes time for our teens to grasp and practise concepts #1 and #2 above.
However, do not give up and praise him or her whenever a small positive change is noticed.
All the best
A Little-Known-Way to Boost Your Child’s Confidence
Today, we are going to learn how to boost your child’s confidence, spur him or her to achieve more successes and give him courage to take on new challenges.
As humans, we are preprogramed towards negative bias – we easily take stock of where we fell short, where we made (even the smallest) mistakes and so on.
It’s not easy for us – and our children – to recall and appreciate our (big and small) achievements.
This is the secret of many successful people. Successful people are often aware of their strengths and talents and are secure enough to acknowledge their past wins.
Research has shown that the more we celebrate our own successes, the more confident we are when facing new challenges.
This applies to our children and teens. In this exercise, we will be celebrating your child’s successes – no matter how small they may seem.
Step 1: Download the Success Log here.
Step 2: Complete the Success Log with your child.
Examples of successes: ‘I am good at drawing and my art teacher praised my work in front of the class before.’ ‘I scored a B – my ideal grade – for my Maths test last year.’ ‘I like helping my teachers and they appreciate it.’
Basically, include any achievement which your child or teen is proud of. It doesn’t matter if we *think* the achievement is small!
Further actions for you and your child:
Coax your child to re-read this Success Log when your child or teen feels doubtful or insecure about his abilities
Coax your child to re-read this Success Log when your child is fearful of taking a new challenge
When your child scores a new achievement, add it to this log!
I will guarantee that your child will feel good about himself and boost his or her self-confidence with this powerful exercise alone.
All the best.
5 Ways to Know if Your Child is Destined for Success
We know that IQ is needed for our kids to get into good schools, get good jobs, earn good money and lead good lives in future.
Do you know that there is one other factor which is as important – if not, MORE important – than IQ in determining your child’s success?
This factor is EQ – or emotional intelligence.
I don’t wish to bore you with details of how a high EQ equates to success (that will be for another blog post at another time).
Suffice to say that a healthy EQ will lead to
- better relationships
- better decision-making
- better conflict-handling
which brings
- better opportunities
- the best of careers
- the best of friends
and much, much more.
We’ll start with the basics.
Having the 5 EQ traits in the infographic below can predict your child’s success – even more than a high IQ (according to renowned researcher Daniel Goleman).
Unlike IQ, we can up our EQ levels through learning and experience.
And that’s good news for us!
The 5-Item Checklist for a Stronger, More Resilient Child
We’ve heard of this phrase many times : “Change is the only constant.”
Our children – especially teens – experience changes every day.
Life will throw curve balls at them, plans may not go as planned and unpredictable things happen. At the same time, wonderful things happen every day as well!
It’s not enough that they face changes in school and even at home, they are also evolving mentally, emotionally and physically on a rapid level.
They may not be able to handle an avalanche of changes and challenges. But, they can be better prepared with the 2-Step Strategy and The 5-item Checklist for a Stronger, More Resilient Child.
The 2-Step Strategy
1.Be less rigid and more fluid
Tell your child that change is normal. As time passes, things, events and people will change. Expect and accept change as part of life. Nothing in life will remain the same.
Instead of wanting people and things to remain the same, they have to be open-minded and flexible. This means they will be quick-thinking and quick-acting when something happens. Lower their expectations and be open that sometimes things don’t go as planned – and that’s normal.
Just roll with it and go with the flow.
2. Change Means New Adventures
If your child or teen has a ‘catastrophic’ mindset and thinks that every change is a disaster, encourage him to re-frame his mindset.
This means to view the change from a different angle. Get him/her to write down the lessons he or she has learnt from this change.
Your child can go one step further and complete The 5-item Checklist for a Stronger, More Resilient Child below.
The 5-item Checklist for a Stronger, More Resilient Child
a. Is the change a wake-up call for me to do something differently?
b. Will the change open up more opportunities for me to grow and learn?
c. How will this change make me a stronger, confident person?
d. How can the change benefit me?
e. What have I learnt from this change?
You can also download The 5-item Checklist for a Stronger, More Resilient Child for your child here.
All the best!
How to let your Child be in Control of his or her Own Success
Jack Canfield calls this one formula ‘The Formula Which Puts You In Control of Success.’
What is this formula? It is the Events + Response = Outcome formula.
How can you use the Events + Response = Outcome formula to transform your child into a super achiever in school and in life?
Let’s say an ugly ‘Event’ occurs – your child’s school decided to set a difficult Maths mid-year exam paper this year.
The ‘Outcome‘? Your child scored a disappointing C5 in the Maths exam.
Both you and him are upset about it. You’ve enrolled him in Maths tuition twice a week (and spent lots of money!) and yet, both of you are not getting the B3 grade that you desire.
Your child can choose to ‘Respond’ in the following ways:
- Give up on Maths entirely because ‘Maths is too hard, anyway’.
- Approach his Maths teacher proactively after school for extra coaching
- Form a study group with Maths-savvy friends after school to do homework together
- Spend an extra 3 hours every week doing Maths assessment books
- Get motivated to work harder and smarter in Maths
- Get angry and blame his Maths teacher for being a lousy teacher
- Get angry with the Maths HOD for setting a difficult exam paper
- Believe that he is born bad with numbers and equations
…..and so on.
Many of us like to blame other people, the weather, astrological signs, the bad school environment, the lousy teacher, the difficult exam papers and so on for our unwanted ‘Outcomes‘. (refer to #1, 6, 7 & 8 above)
That is not empowering at all!
What do Super-Achievers do differently?
Smart teens and children change their ‘Responses‘ to unwanted ‘Events‘ until they get the ‘Outcomes‘ they want.
This means: your child can choose to do #2, 3, 4 or 5 above (modify his ‘Responses‘ and actions) instead of slamming external circumstances until he gets the ‘Outcome‘ he wants (which is, a B3 in a future Maths exam).
Let’s face it – we can only change our thoughts, our actions and our behaviour anyway.
We can’t change other people, we can’t change the school’s decisions, magically transform the difficult exam paper etc, so we might as well focus on things within our control.
Make your Child (and yourself) Feel Empowered in Life
So if your child did not get a desired ‘Outcome‘ in any part of his life, sit down with him or her and brainstorm ways for you both to achieve the desired ‘Outcome’ together.
You can start the activity with: ‘Let’s brainstorm ways for us to push your grade from a C5 to B3 in 3 months.’
After this activity, praise even the smallest improvements in your child’s actions or ‘Responses‘ – small changes lead to big changes in future.
All the best.