Teenage Whisperer

I love that bit at the end of the 'Italian Job' when the back of the coach is hanging over the precipice with Michael Caine and the gang in the back working out how to stop the gold and themselves from plunging into the valley. We never find out what happens, as the 'self-preservation' song kicks in and the credits roll. (Watch the end scene & listen to the song here if this is new to you or you want a reminder).

So what do they do? Do they defeat imminent death by banding together and hatching a joint plan, or do some of them jump 'bus' leaving others to fall to their doom? There's also the added question of the gold. What is the worth of the cargo relative to the worth of their own, and the other gang member's lives? It's a decision of the 'we' over the 'me', or the 'me' over the 'we'. What will each decide?

Ever have one of those days, weeks or months that exhaust and frustrate you to your core? We all have them, but how do you stop them from taking over, from stopping you from being effective, from literally ruining your ability to be you at your best?

Whether you work in business, in social care, youth work, stay at home looking after the kids or take trips to the moon, your pathway to sanity, to staying at your best and staying motivated lies in the answer to the question: Why do you do what you do?

Navigating the mindfield of friendships, trying to fit in and still be true to yourself is a process that each and every teenager has to go through and for some it is easier than for others. Peer pressure is something that everyone experiences but it is a particularly difficult issue for teenagers as they are in the middle of establishing 'who' they are in absolute terms and relative to other teens. This can shift on a daily basis depending on who they are with and how they feel in that moment. Helping them to understand and cope with this, to 'listen' to themselves and to fight negative thoughts about self with positive ones can assist them in making the best choices for themselves.

Available now to download for free is a high quality programme of peer pressure worksheets and activities designed to help teenagers explore these issues and to ensure that they are in control of their relationships. (more...)

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that you can’t make a teenager do what he or she doesn’t want to do. You can't make them change. You dig your heels in, they’ll dig theirs in further. You shout at them, they’ll shout louder.

Coercion can get short term results, but as a long term strategy it is fundamentally flawed. It is not only exhausting, but in the end resentment will build and as soon as they sense you no longer have control, they will revert to their preferred behaviour which is the exact opposite of what you want for them.

Respect for one another and real change cannot thrive in a purely coercive environment. We must remember that teens are on the pathway to independence and if you do not recognise and respect this inevitability and deal with them as cogniscent, thinking people with their own opinions, then you are eventually going to come unstuck.

This doesn’t mean that you are powerless, far from it. With the right tools at your disposal you can address their behaviour and help them navigate the difficulties of teen life in a supportive, respectful way. (more...)

As much as we may wish to deny the reality, Christmas will soon be upon us. Our inboxes fill up with Christmas marketing emails, catalogues come in the post and the shops fill up with decorations. While the organisation involved in ‘doing’ Christmas can seem overwhelming, for the majority of us, the pleasure, the fun and the social occasion that is Christmas usually outweigh any organisational headaches beforehand. We cope with the logistics by focussing on the positives and usually that involves talking about it with friends, asking how the Christmas shopping is going or asking where and who we are spending it with (if not working that is)! Our spirits are lifted and we increasingly look forward to it.

However, in our personal excitement we can easily forget that for many, Christmas is the worst time of year. Rather than Jingle Bells, it is Jingle Hell. (more...)

This may come as a shock, but you don't know everything. It will undoubtedly come as a shock to most teens that they don't know everything too. How many times have we heard the old rhetorical when speaking to teens about something that they don't want to talk about, "What do you know?".

“Help, I don’t know what I’m doing” is a common cry from social work students about to go on placement or newly qualified workers about to start work. But why? You’ve just finished a substantial period of training. It should all be fresh in your head, you should be sorted, ready to burst onto the practical social care scene, raring to go, ready to make a difference. Well that is, if you have received practical training in how to communicate and engage with different client groups. Problem is, while you might be an encyclopaedia in the law and in process, what increasing social work students and graduates are saying, is that there is too much emphasis on this, and little on the actual practical ‘stuff’ of social work.

You cannot have a neutral impact on someone that you see on a regular basis- be it your child, a young person on your social work or youth offending caseload right through to the person that you rub shoulders with at work every day. If you are a ‘regular’ in their lives then you are having a regular impact. You might think that they aren’t listening to you, you might not speak to them much, but by virtue of the fact that you are there- you are making a difference. As a result how you mentally approach each and every interaction is of more importance than you might initially realise.

It is an eternal truth that nobody likes being negatively judged. Even if the judgement is ultimately correct or has elements of truth and you know it, the hackles rise, you are offended and you reject out of hand what is being said. Everything- truth, shards of truth and the rubbish- is chucked on the garbage heap- “what do they know?”

When was the last time you did something creative- made something, engaged in creative writing, acted, sang or danced? And when was the last time you did any of the above in a session with a young person? Why? What does it matter, you may ask? Well your ability to help them change their lives has a lot to do with it actually.

Take a glance at the behaviour of a difficult-to-engage young person and ‘logic’ is generally not a word you would immediately associate them with.  Words such as ‘chaotic’, ‘impulsive’ and ‘unthinking’ trip off the tongue far more easily.  However, while these readily accessible words describe the appearance of their outward behaviour, they do not get anywhere near helping you understand what is really going on in their lives.