Bringing you what's new in teen health from a pediatrician, parent, and globetrotter…
It is June. Exam and graduation time for many students around the world. In the Netherlands, our adopted home country, it is also the month when one of my favorite Dutch traditions occurs: graduating high school students hang flags on their houses together with their school bags to celebrate passing their exams and moving on in life. It takes a global village to raise a child, and I love that this rite of passage is celebrated in such a public way.
How many of us adults (or teens) actively embrace rejection or failure? Most of us try as hard as possible to avoid mistakes, particularly big, public ones. What if we risked trying something with the knowledge that failure was a distinct possibility and continued to try on a regular basis? That’s what 29-year social entrepreneur, global poverty ambassador and TEDx speaker, Caleb Meakins did in creating a 40-day challenge to try something new every day and probably fail.
I am ugly, stupid, ___ (fill in the blank). When is the last time you heard that nagging voice in the back of your head? We can all be incredibly hard on ourselves. With constant exposure to social media, pressure to fit into a peer group, demands from parents and coaches, and other stressors, teens nowadays are particularly vulnerable to being self-critical.
How many of you have moved from country to country (or even within a country) or have kids that moved from place to place growing up? Do you have parents that were born outside of your home country or a spouse from a different community or background? As evidenced by an ongoing survey we are conducting of cross-cultural teens and parents experiencing moves, transition, different cultures, languages and religions can be challenging for kids but equally so for adults.
The strength-based approach to screening and counselling adolescents in clinical settings has been proven to help build resilience. Developing resilience helps kids handle failure, which is an important predictor of life success as an adult. Recently, I had the opportunity to teach a wonderful group of pediatricians from across the Netherlands about working with teens and the use of a tool called SSHADES which starts with asking teens about their unique abilities.
Snowplow, helicopter, lawnmower: what do all these terms refer to? Believe it or not, they all refer to styles of parenting brought to light in the aftermath of the recent college bribery scandal in the USA. ‘Snowplow’ parents are defined as machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child's path to success, so they don't have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities. 'Helicopter' parents hover overhead. There’s a fine balance between being supportive and engaged vs being controlling or trying to engineer outcomes. If the snowplow approach prevents kids from facing obstacles and experiencing challenges what are better strategies? Here are some tips.
