Growing up to be a happy, successful, independent adult means creating a self. This includes life skills, relationship skills, thinking skills, learning skills, character strength, values, attitudes, and more. it's a lot, and every child has to do it. Some leave home...
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Teens Need to Get Good at Future-Thinking
As I was coaching a twelve-year-old girl, I concluded with this summary: "In the future, some of your friends will want you to conform, so you'll need to stand up for yourself and be the kind of person you want to be." Her reply: "What do you mean by 'in the future'?"...
West Point Ingrained My Critical Thinking Skills
When I was in high school, I got an A in every subject I ever took. I didn’t find out until later that I hadn’t learned as much as I thought. But man, I knew how to make A’s! My dad was in the military, so I knew all about West Point. For years I wanted to go to...
Coach Your Child to Learn from Experience
The great thing about a mistake or any bad experience is that you can learn from it. But it's just as easy, if not easier, to not learn a thing. Kids make go through a lot of emotions on the way to growing up. They have so much to learn and the road can be pretty...
It’s Amazing What Your Child Has to Learn.
Heman Bekele is a 14-year-old boy who won First Prize in 3M's Young Scientist's Challenge for working to create an affordable soap that could treat skin cancer. Read more about him here... As a young man, he wasn't focused on being popular. He wasn't on social media...
Teens Who Take Their Future Seriously Have a Huge Advantage While Growing Up
An obvious fact: very young children don't understand about the future. If they're 6 years old, they simply can't conceive of the fact that in a few years they will be in high school. This inability to comprehend their own desired or possible future extends into...
For Your Child: the Top 5 Power Skills
As i write this, swallows have built a nest above our front entrance way, and the momma and poppa swallows are busy catching bugs and feeding them to their three hatchlings. On occasion, we see three little heads peeking above the rim of the nest. Before long, the...
A Teen’s Huge Window of Opportunity
At puberty, a child's brain is primed to develop the kind of critical thinking that will make them successful as adults. This fact of adolescence is massively important but all too easy to forget. At puberty, the brain cells in their prefrontal cortex, the part of the...
Tolerance and Patience Change the Game
A friend of mine wanted me to help him with a project. We met and talked about what might work, but we didn't agree on what to do. I told him, "Why don't you give more thought to what you'd like to do, and we can meet again to nail down the details." It was a good...
Before You Hand Over the Car Keys…
60 years ago, I drove the family car through the heart of Stuttgart, Germany. No one else was in the car. I was a responsible kid, and I was doing my best to stay safe and arrive home without a mishap. But like every young driver, I had a lot to learn. I was ignorant...