Praising your Teen
The Oprah welcome. You know, when you see the show start and she has just walked on stage and the crowd simply goes crazy. You would think it was a Prince concert instead of the Oprah Show. Oprah will say, “Everyone should feel like this when they go to work.” That is how our teens should feel when they do something great especially something as spectacular as changing a G.P.A. of a 1.0 to a 4.0 in one year! Instead, this teen looked my way, shrugged her shoulders and barely uttered an, “eh.” Wow! What else did she want to do that could possibly impress herself more? Cure H.I.V?
This is not the first time this has happened. Other teens have been unimpressed with greater or lesser achievements. This is not okay. You are either severely depressed, numb or you have the wrong idea of what it is to be arrogant. When you talk to this teen more, you learn that she does not say much. She mutters, “Why get excited. It could drop again.” When you ask her to make a choice as to her preference, she has no opinion really. She is happy to take what you give her.
Now, the world revolves with all kinds of people: confident, shy, conservative and arrogant, but there is concern for inappropriate emotion to a fantastic achievement. This response was going to be passed on to her toddler who would be looking up to her with a smile after very first steps and be met with a nonchalant, “good.”
Don’t overdo the praise and by all means do not be insincere about it, but praise for great achievements cause a smile in your teen that is hard for them to hide. They crave it. It’s like water, they need it to grow. Despite the proclamations of independence and the “I hate yous!” there is a teen who wants to make their parents proud. They want you to brag about them and every teen deserves to overhear their parent brag about them. It lets teens know they are on the right track to becoming an adult. They made their own decisions and they were able to make you proud. What a confidence builder!
All Oprah has to do is walk on stage. Surely a teen that brings a G.P.A. up from the bowels of a 1.0 to a 4.0 deserves something short of the standing ovation that greets Oprah.
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