Should We Tell Teens They Can Do Anything?

There are plenty of parents who tell their teens that they can be anything they want. Every parent would like to motivate their children to pursue their interests and not be limited by society’s perception of their abilities. However, such an extremely positive and apparently motivating attitude can have very unexpected consequences.

First of all, unfortunately it’s not true that anyone can just become anything they want, or maybe they can be, but the path and sacrifices it requires are so strict that the teen should also be aware of what lies ahead. He may want to become a top athlete because he likes making so much money or being famous all over the world, but he doesn’t really like sports or is not attracted at all to the strict lifestyle that this goal requires .

In the end, it all comes down to issues like genetics or our ability to suffer that set us apart from the rest. In addition, we must not forget that luck and chance also play a very important role: our body is relatively fragile and it is therefore not surprising if it gets injured when we push it too much. When a teenager chooses a certain path, he should be aware of it.

In addition, several studies show that when we set very ambitious goals for ourselves, those goals can eventually become harmful to us. For example, they can lead to less ethical behavior, such as doping, to make it easier to achieve those ambitious goals or to prevent us from feeling like failures if we were not able to actually achieve the goals we set for ourselves. reach.

Setting a goal without clear directions is harmful to a teenager

Telling teens they can do anything without helping them map out the way can have very negative consequences. Motivating children to set very high goals for themselves, but never helping them further or not telling them about how to achieve these goals can generate very extreme frustrations that children are a long way from dealing with or simply cannot handle want to deal with.

Moreover, it is very difficult for teenagers to judge for themselves whether they are exerting themselves enough. In addition, they may even start to think that wanting something is enough or that it will always be the case that they have a great talent for something.

It is better to help children see that important achievements are not easy to achieve, even to help them accept that happiness plays a key role in life (for better or for worse), and then help them map out a route that will will lead to their goals. Erica Reischer, author of the book What Great Parents Do: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Fantastic Kids , proposes something she calls the three P’s road map.

The three Ps

Instead of telling your teen he can do whatever he wants, Erica Reischer suggests you teach him about the three Ps: practice, patience, and perseverance.

• Exercise: Effort accompanied by feedback is essential for a child to develop their skills and achieve excellence.

• Patience: Mastery and achievement only occur after a long time.
• Endurance: The potential for hurdles is high, and difficult times occur in any business.

Erica Reischer suggests that we should point out to our children that success is defined by effort and progress, one step at a time, not by comparing yourself to others.

Before we become teenagers, we are all children

It is said that a colleague of Thomas Edison once surprised him by surrounding him in his workplace with thousands of failed experiments. “I have tried everything, but I have not failed. I just found ten thousand ways that don’t work.” This is optimism and the ability to learn from your mistakes.

When your child shows that he feels powerless and starts to take a pessimistic attitude and says he can’t do anything, tell him this story instead of showing him that it is possible. And then tell him that any challenge or problem requires time and effort to overcome, and that the more time you invest and effort you put in, the closer you will be to achieving your goal.

Your child will be able to go very far on his own if he is able to face the challenges that will arise and yet have the courage to keep going. Your child doesn’t need the answer, but rather opportunities to learn and face their frustrations.

However, it is also important to tell children that what matters most is that they have fun in everything they do. Maybe your teen wants to become a professional soccer player, but before he can achieve this goal, he has to play a lot of games with friends and just enjoy it. Great achievements just require you to start during adolescence and gradually work your way up to it.

Before becoming a teenager, a child has to have fun and as long as the demands and frustrations don’t arise, he can freely dream about everything he wants to be when he grows up, he can even change his dream daily. This is a stage of discovery and therefore it is a way to explore the world with his imagination and your helping hand. Think about the fact that the more time we spend doing something, the better we will become at it, and the better able we will be to make a choice when the time comes.