How to inspire your adolescent child?

You probably would have noticed by now that telling your child to do the things you want him/her to is much harder than you think. If this is you. Fear not, you are not alone. Keep reading......

If you are a parent, learning how to inspire your child is probably the most challenging but most rewarding task in your life.

why do you need to inspire your adolescent child?

“If you try to tell your child to do the things you want him/her to do, the chance that you will have some chance of success when your child is in kindergarten, but will decrease significantly when your child is in primary school. This will further decrease when your child is in secondary school, and become very low by the time he/she is studying tertiary education or working. It is like trying to open a locked door with force without the correct key. The chance of success is very low and even if you succeed, the door and the door-frame is probably damaged.

If you try to teach your child, your chance of success is probably slightly higher but still far from satisfactory. This is because people who are being taught but not inspired will stop learning once the teaching stopped or the teacher lacks the skill and knowledge to teach him/her. However if you inspire and teach your child, assuming you have the skill to do it at the right time at the right place, the chance is close to 100% and he/she will continue to learn and improve for the rest of his life. Having said that, why are there still so many parents in the world who either tell their children alone or teach their children alone without inspiring and teaching them. The answer is simple. "Telling" usually involves the least effort and the quickest result initially when the child is still small. Nevertheless, as the child grows bigger, he/she wants more freedom of choice and wants to choose to do the things they like rather than the things they are taught. They would resent to do the things they are told to without being inspired and taught.

Understanding your child's intrinsic nature is the key to inspiration

You need to spend time with your child to understand him/her. Every child is an unique individual with an unique set of personality, strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. There are no short cut other than listening to what they say, talking to them, do something together with them.

This is how you inspire your adolescent child

“A parent needs to understand your child's intrinsic nature. Then guide your child to understand himself/herself as who he/she really is. That includes his/her personality, personal interest, strengths and weaknesses. Show them what other people with similar personality, personal interest, and strengths can achieve in their unique career. In other words you are telling him/her the success story of people with similar personal attributes as your child. Provide your child with wide exposures of different things in life when he/she is young because the best way for anyone to find out if he/she likes or is good at anything is for him/he to try it.”

Once you have drawn your child's attention to something he/she considers valuable, achievable and is in line with their personality and personal interest, you have indirectly guided him/her to set his/her own goal. He/she will then begin to find out about the path to get there. Furthermore, he/she also wants more guidance on what, when and in what sequence should he/she do certain things. In other words, you have successfully inspired him/her to seek the dream of his/her life. Just take the example of parents who want their son to be a doctor. Assuming their son possesses sufficient intellectual capability, the parents still only have a very small chance of convincing their son to enter medical school if they tell him to do so. This is due to the amount of hard work he needs to put in, the time and other opportunities he needs to sacrifice. However if they teach their son the different methods and ways to enter medical school but without going through the meaning, purpose and contribution to the society behind a career as a medical doctor, their chance of success is higher, but not very much. They would have the best chance of success if they inspire their child in various ways about the virtue of becoming a doctor without any direct instruction of telling him to do so.