TheTeenDoc.com

Changing the World One Teen at a Time

“What are your grades like?” She blurted out, “Bad.” And then she just started tearing up and the tears just kept rolling down her face.  She literally did not speak one more word throughout the remainder of our time together.  She just kept wiping away tears.  She’d failed geometry and it was eating her up.

A lot of teens have trouble with geometry, advanced placement history or insert the name of some other class here.  The difference between those patients and this young lady was that somehow she had defined herself by her one bad grade. Her other grades were As through Cs, but it was the failure that she let control her thoughts of herself.  It is hard to understand that you are more than a grade when you have to take summer school for a failed class and there are whispers of where are you going to college and what career will you choose?  She viewed herself by this standard of her one failed class and so as she’s developing her sense of self, she is saying to herself that she is a failure.  The fact that she failed makes her feel ashamed or less than. This is a problem.

We are not going to succeed at everything we do, remember Michael Jordan as a minor league baseball player?  Depending on your age, probably not, but Michael Jordan the basketball player with the memorable leap into the air with his palm cupping a basketball about to slam dunk is forever in your brain, that was what he was really good at, but it didn’t stop him from trying.  The key to success is trying and then learning from the things that we don’t do well so we can capitalize or concentrate on the skills that we naturally possess and perfect them.  This allows us to find the relationship between those things so we get on with the business of doing it.  This makes our failure more of an opportunity to learn about ourselves.

Teen life is a constant state of change.  They are learning about themselves and coming to terms with their strengths and weaknesses.  Their weaknesses teach them about themselves just as much as their strengths.  This is when our failures make for great opportunity to learn about ourselves not define who we are.  If we can teach teens how to keep this two tasks straight, they’re going to be fine.

Related posts:

1. Your Teen Is Not Their Failure
2. Teaching Teens about Sacrifice
3. 3 Things Teens Learn From Their Mistakes
4. All The Opportunity In The World
5. Is Your Teen Proud Of Their Grades?