I've been reading the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens with my daughter this summer, and although much of it is over her head -- and although she starts each one of our reading sessions with the fervent declaration, "I hate reading!" -- there are two or three things that have really hit home and made a difference for her.
One of them was the idea of making a mission statement for yourself. We went through the steps in the book, thought about her strengths and weaknesses and what she wanted for herself, and came up, quite amazingly, with a very effective statement, an acronym using her favorite color, yellow. It's stuck up on her mirror now, and she regularly says to me, with confidence, "I'm feeling yellow today."
As we face down a new school year, putting together a mission statement may be a good way to work with your own teen on setting goals and addressing fears. And conveniently, the Mission Statement Builder that my daughter and I did in the book is also available online. Sit with your teen and go thoughtfully through the steps, and see what you come up with.
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The link is no longer active. I have used it before and it was great! I hate to see it gone.
Happily, they just moved it. I’ve updated the links above. Thanks for pointing this out!