Preparing your Teen to Leave Home part 2
Preparing your teen to leave home part 1 asked you to make a list of the skills that made a self-sufficient young adult and then over time and beginning early asked you to begin teaching your teen these skills. How far did you get? Did you think about the list? Make the list? Did you actually teach one of the skills? Let me know how it is going.
Part two in this series involves teaching desired traits in your soon to be young adult. This is important for several reasons not the least of which involves socializing with others and making the almighty “first impression.” At a job interview, initial casual meeting, first date or graduate school interview, the first impression can make or break the deal. A few skills that are worth instilling are listed below.
1. The Handshake. This still says a lot about people. The death grip handshake can say you’re trying too hard to impress someone. The wimpy handshake can reek of poor self-esteem and lack of confidence. Your teen needs to establish eye contact and extend their right hand for a good firm handshake that neither breaks the hand nor misses the hand entirely. It is confident and yet humble.
2. Kindness. Kindness towards others leaves a lasting impression. Not everyone has the ability to give away cars and that is okay since it’s the small unexpected things that make the most indelible mark. Asking someone how they are and awaiting the answer, remembering someone’s recent surgery and offering to help out, complimenting someone on a new hair cut and saying, “Thank you” are ways we acknowledge the people around us and in doing so leave an impression that’s memorable.
3. Patience. If you can think it you can do it. You just can’t always do it today. Dreams take time. The patience to lose the weight, complete higher education, or complete a training program for that higher paying job all take time. Like watching water boil, it seems to take longer as one awaits their final destiny.
The ability however to understand that immediate gratification does not exist is a skill that will allow your teen to one day wait for the right spouse, the right job opportunity and the deserved promotion. In the history of the world, great men and women have taught us about patience through their quiet knowing that one day the time would come. This is why India was liberated from Great Britain, Nelson Mandela was freed and then went on to become the first president of a desegregated South Africa and it is why we in the U.S have the first Black president.
Teaching these traits begins in the home and are best taught through watching you, their parents exhibit these traits. So instead of hands in pockets, teach your teen to extend the right hand with a smile and direct eye contact. Let your teen see you hold the door open and offer to help as a new Mom juggles groceries, the baby car seat and her toddler while leaving the grocers and finally have the patience to watch your teen develop into the young adult you know they will be. Do this in such a way that you remove their own doubt because with your instruction they too will see their potential to do great things and in so doing they will be a great young adult. In fact, they will see that they already are.
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