Hi there! I just want to say welcome and help you understand what I do.
THE FIRST PART OF WHAT I DO
In the past on this site I was focused strictly on preteens, teenagers, and young adults. This blog came about from spending over 2 decades as a busy hairstylist listening to the good, the bad, and the ugly…mostly the ugly. Those observations taught me how to see patterns and those patterns gave me a pretty accurate ability to see how things would turn out.
I fell in love with teenagers long before I ever had my own! The frustration I felt watching these preteens, teens, and young adults, who had become people I deeply cared about get hurt over and over simply because they just didn’t know how to read patterns was and still is hard to put it mildly. It’s like they have a blind spot a mile wide!
Because of that frustration I decided I wanted to try to help these kids see what many of us didn’t see, way back when, so they wouldn’t have to go through some of the same messes we have.
It’s no big shocker to understand that many, not all, parents are far more concerned with their kids’ life choices than they are simply because we’ve often been where they are so we can see how horribly some of their decisions can play out.
The other factor to not be underestimated, in the least, is their brain development. Our brain is fully developed while theirs is under massive construction. Some of the most current research is telling us that our brain is not fully developed until closer to 30-years-0ld! That means we have an opportunity here to try to show them what we see through their mile wide blind spot.
With the help of some friends I decided to change that focus to you as parents and/or influencers of teenagers because helping you help them will give them a better chance at success! Parenting is hard. I have two teenagers of my own. I’m a single parent so I understand the ease of getting overwhelmed with so much on our plates.
My goal is here to help you see through the lens of these kids who shared so much with me. There is an awful lot your kids wish you knew and I’d like to share that with you so you can be a better parent and they, in turn, can be a more successful person in their life.
To be fair, the girls shared more than the boys. That’s not a huge shocker! 🙂 However, I was raised by mostly men who taught me a lot about what it meant to them to be a man, how women should be treated, how doing hard things was a part of life to embrace instead of avoid…..and that they have feelings too.
While the teenage boys may not have shared a whole lot with me, the men they grew into did. Older, more secure men, will talk about the struggles they had at that age and the ramifications of their decisions so the information is there. I just got it in a different way.
We have a running joke in my family, at my expense, that says, “Mom must have tattooed on her forehead, tell me your life story.” I have to admit it’s true. When I say I’ve been told way too much information or WTMI I really mean it! 🙂
The parents told me just as much as the kids, so I got both sides of the stories. I got to see how parenting styles worked out in the long run. I got to see that patterns are really not all that hard to spot.
Kids often go see a therapist after their life fell apart. I got to see is as it fell apart. But what if we could catch these kids before their life falls apart? What if we could see the mess coming and do something about it? What if we could develop the kind of relationship with our kids that would afford us a voice in their life when they so desperately need it?
What would you give to see your kids grow up to be happy and successful? What would you give?
I’m not about to sit here and tell you you can make your child make the decisions you want them to. That would be asinine and you would hopefully laugh at that thought.
Our kids have a wonderfully creative brain of their own that needs to be nurtured and fed. But guess what? They have a lot of pain that often comes from us, so at the expense of offending you over and over again I’m going to show you what they want you to know.
What is that going to require of you? I’m going to share with you an acronym from Brene Brown I think encompasses what is needed here
- B: Boundaries for yourself and others
- R: Reliability
- A: Accountability: own your mistakes, apologize, make amends
- V: Vault: keep in confidence what they tell you
- Integrity: choosing courage over comfort; doing what’s right over what’s fast, easy, or fun; practicing values over professing values
- N: Non-judgement
- G: Generous: You will assume the most generous things about their words, intentions and actions and you will check in with them.
There is so much to learn as a parent especially with how different each of our children are, but there are some key human things we need to apply. I will be the first person to raise my hand and say, “I am far from perfect!” I am learned right along with you! I still read, research and search for insight and encouragement a lot! I will give you lots of resources along the way and will have them on my resources page for you to check out to help you in your journey because after all, life is a journey, not a destination. 🙂
THE SECOND PART OF WHAT I DO
Speaking to your kids is my passion! They are my most favorite people in the whole world. No offense! 🙂 I have such a love and respect for them right where they are.
I speak at all sorts of functions teaching them what their peers taught me so they, like you, can see patterns and in turn make much more wise decisions rather than pick up the pieces of their lives like many of us have had to do simply because we didn’t know what we didn’t know!
It’s easy to think we know it all, but the older I get the more I realize what I DON’T know. Our kids can’t see that yet. They think they have it all figured out. That is by far the most dangerous place to be and research backs it up.
If you think I would be someone you would like to get in front of your kids, I’d be happy to consider it. Shoot me an email with as many details as you have and we can go from there.
xoxo
-Teresa
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