Teaching Resilience to Adolescents
You are helping your adolescent prepare for life as a responsible adult, living outside your home. What skills does your adolescent need to learn? What character traits? This is the time to assure your adolescent will be prepared to face real-life situations.
- Your adolescent should be doing his own laundry, making his own lunches for school, and learning how to manage his finances.
- Once again – volunteering is important for adolescents
- Don’t do tasks for your adolescents that they are capable of doing for themselves. (i.e. don’t pack their camping gear)
- Don’t ‘bail your teen out’ – allow her to face the natural and logical consequences of her behavior. “You didn’t study, so now you are off the sports team. I am sorry this happened, but I am not going to ask the principal to change the rule for you.”
- When your teen faces adversity, help provide hope and help your teen come up with a remedy. “What do you need to do to get back on the team?” Is there any thing I can do to help you accomplish this?”