Peter Pan's Lost Boys

The Family Coach and boys.  When I think about boys today I often think of the film Peter Pan. In today's life our boys need a Peter Pan to fight for them and a Wendy to bring them home...safely.

Hmmm!  So, today I was researching some more stuff about boys.  I have read in depth about raising boys and I am a real advocate of men being the leading partner in a loving rather than dominating relationship.  As I single parent I regularly feel the weight of having to do everything and I get really mad about women who rubbish their husbands and partners when the partner seems to be geuinely good, honest, loyal and faithful and trying his level best in todays world of 'the modern man'.

I also beleive young boys need the encouragement of another male, preferably their Dad and one of THE most worrying trends in our neighbourhood is that of underage teenage pregnancy.  I came across yet another 17 year old girl yesterday full of the joys of pregnancy with a Mother who has vowed to stand by her (what else can she do?).  The Father of the unknowing unborn baby, an equally young and naive man and what hope?  Forgive them for they know not what they do!  Another innocent child about to be born out of wedlock and possibly, long term without a Father around.

Now, if that baby is born a girl, well some hope but girls do still need , their Dads love and care and encouragement and if it's a boy, well start at the beginning again.  Boys definately need the encouragement of another male preferably their Dad.  When will young women realise this?  If the Dad is not present then they need strong male relationships for their boys in the form of Uncles,  friends, neighbours, church community, not oodles of other young single Mums in similar situations to hang out with.

Inspiration of the Sea

So, here I am dreaming about being back by the sea.  Its such an inspirational place for me which s why I called the business Ocean People Development.  Most, the sea inspired all my great ideas.

Today has been a good day, I went to see my Pastor yesterday and we were talking about my business.  He suggested that I should contact our local radio about the Surviving the Teen Years course.

So, today whilst I was musing, I picked up the phone.  “Hello, can I speak to Rachel Sloane please”.  “Oh! You won’t find her here today – she only presents at the weekends so, she won’t be ere, let me see who’s dealing with her stuff”.  I take the opportunity to say a quick prayer, as I do often throughout the day, simple stuff – “dear Lord, let this call be fruitful”. A surprised same voice says, “oh, I can’t believe it – we actually have found Rachel Sloane in the building” Ah! I love instant answers to prayer, it doesn’t always happen like that!  He was certain that she wouldn’t be there!  She took some details about some work that I have been doing and said that they would get back to me either later today or tomorrow and that I can have a slot on a Sunday morning. Hallelujah!

Seven Ways to Talk to your Teenager and then Love Them

The more I work with teenagers, the more I love them, the more I hear about parents with their teenagers the more my heart goes out to them.  It becomes clearer and clearer, the reasons why we must take a coaching approach to talking to our teens.

One of the main problems for teenagers is that they feel that no one listens to them. One of the main problems for parents of teens is that they feel that their teens don't listen to them. 

Communication is key in the parent teen relationship.  Teenagers want their parents to value them even though they are sometimes not able to show it during the teen years.

The one thing that I have learned about teenagers especially what we would describe as 'the naughty ones' is that no matter how bad it gets for them, no matter how much trouble they are in - MUM is still the word.  

 On parent as coach we teach the eight ways of:

Love; Respect; Listening; Understanding; Appreciation; Support; Resonsibility; Independence.

We know that these work with teenagers we have tested them again and again.  One of the most inspiring parts of being in self employment is knowing that you have an idea that is a winner.  After that it becomes a matter of promoting it correctly and getting it to those who need it most, in our case parents of teenagers.

Thou shalt not commit, commitment!

So, we have just finished our first Surviving the Teen Years teleclass for parents.  Gladly, it was a resounding success and the next one begins on 12th April.  The parents were very complimentary and one of them commented that it had been 'life changing' for her and her teenager. So, all the hard work in planning and design has paid off - we know that it works!

So, my thoughts turn to another piece of work about how you inspire teenagers who feel that they have missed out on their upbringing.  The really intersting thing is that teenagers whose parents have not really bothered with them or worse, left them totally while they were children can absolutely tell you what has been missing from their parents. It's incredible how often people want to hide behind their life experience as a reason for not moving on.  So, we focus on how to get these young people beyond that at an early age.  But when all you know as a teenager is how to smoke cannabis and drink in order to escape the boredom of no work and a small town, what options are there?

 Belief and respect are big words for these young people.  They want respect, yet often don't know how to give it because when they did it has been abused  They have little real belief about their job prospects, but more importantly, these young people really need a great understanding of committment.  Committment is something that not many people have given them and so they are often unsure as to how to give commitment and the reasons why they should.  Couple that with the usual teenage growth, incorporating rebellion, the search for identity, changed body clocks and you have a recipe for a r!eally interesting and challenging development course.  Hmmmm!  More to follow