Adults Need to Encourage Young People

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2008

"Discouraged teens believe that they have no chance to succeed or make progress," states Paul McKnight, youth development educator with University of Illinois Extension. "They lack confidence, have low self-esteem, and doubt that they can cope with the challenges that lie ahead of them."

Some discouraged teens seek recognition and significance in areas where they are more certain to be accepted. Often, they find recognition in negative ways such as fighting, drinking, "cutting up" in class, or by being sexually promiscuous.

Some parents spend a lot of time trying to get teens to be more successful and productive. While the intentions may be good, the methods often provoke resistance and promote discouragement.

Encouragement focuses on strengths so that teens can recognize their abilities and feel confident and useful. Encouraged teens take responsibility for their behavior and are able to evaluate their decision-making ability.

As explained in a University of Massachusetts Cooperative Extension fact sheet, encouragement is the process of focusing on a person's resources and giving positive recognition in order to build that person's self-esteem, self-concept and feelings of self-worth.

"Encouragers put an emphasis on working together, cooperating and making decisions jointly. They focus on the positive," states McKnight.

Good methods of encouragement include showing faith, building self-respect, recognizing effort and improvement, and focusing on strengths and assets. These four ways of encouraging teens serve as the foundation of a parent-teen relationship based on mutual respect.

Unlike praise, encouragement can be given when someone is not successful. Encouragement can be given for effort, improvement and even interest.

Encouragement shows appreciation of a teen's assets, personal resources, contributions and achievements. It doesn't reward; it acknowledges and recognizes.

Ten strategies for encouraging teens are 1) give responsibility, 2) show appreciation for contributions at home, 3) ask your teen for opinions and suggestions, 4) encourage participation in decision making, 5) accept mistakes, 6) emphasize the process not just the product, 7) turn liabilities into assets, 8) show confidence in your teen's judgment, 9) have positive expectations, 10) develop alternative ways of viewing situations.

We can learn the importance of encouragement from a story about a group of frogs. Some frogs were traveling through the woods and two of them fell into a pit. They tried to jump out and were not having much luck. The frogs on top yelled to them that the pit is too deep, give up.

After a while, one of the exhausted frogs heeded what the other frogs were saying, and he fell down and died. But the second frog kept jumping as hard as she could despite the hopelessness conveyed by the other frogs who kept yelling just lay down and die.

Finally, with one big jump, she made it out of the pit. You see, this frog was deaf. She thought they were cheering her on, and that made the difference.