Goal Setting for Teens

Teaching financial literacy has been my passion. Over the years I’ve had an opportunity to speak to parents who want to know how to talk to their children about money and want tips to help them become more independent before they go off into the real world.

For many parents it seems like just yesterday that your children were on their way to kindergarten, but now that they’re in middle school things seem to be happening way too fast. Tweens seem to go from having play dates to group movie dates right in front of your eyes.

And they’re fashion conscious and brand sensitive far earlier than we ever were. This is all the more reason for us to help them get a financial grip on money and the need for saving by talking to them early and often about ways to save and spend money responsibly.

Here are a few things you can do to get your tween ready for the day when you’ll need to cut the strings and watch them spread their well-prepared financial wings.

Giving your tween an allowance is a great money move. It will help you as a parent reign in their budget-busting requests while teaching them the value of a dollar and saving for the things they really just “must” have.

In her book, “Kids and Money: Giving Them the Savvy to Succeed Financially,” author Jayne A. Pearl says this about giving your children a fixed spending budget. “Allowance is an effective way to start transmitting to your kids financial literacy, values, and decision-making skills.”

When tweens have access to money they can better understand the meaning of it and the proper ways to use it. Trying to help them understand the basics of money management using something that they have earned and saved for is powerful. Often that new “thing” they just had to have when you were paying for it becomes less important to them when they come to realize that it will greatly reduce the amount of money they will have left.

If your family doesn’t embrace the allowance concept but still wants to help your children have first-hand experience with money management, another way to teach tweens about money is through interactive learning experiences and board games such as:

Life
Payday
Monopoly Jr.
The Allowance Game and
Cashflow for Kids

These are all wonderful ways to teach lasting lessons in an entertaining way. Not only will these games help your child strengthen their math and problem solving abilities, they’ll also understand basic money concepts.

Finally, encourage your children to save with a purpose and if possible offer to add a small percentage to whatever they have saved. This teaches the lesson of compound interest and how money grows if left untouched.

The next time your child wants a new bike, skateboard or series of Karate lessons use it as a chance to challenge their desire for what they want by having them save for it. As an extra incentive agree to match their savings dollar for dollar up to a set amount or a specific period of time.

The benefit of this to you is that your child will develop discipline and a habit of not spending every dime they get their hands on. Plus, when you make the goal one that’s reachable even if they fall short, you can assist them so they will be encouraged to try again next time.

The biggest thing to remember is to encourage their new saving habits and find ways to support them so they’ll actually think of it as something fun. Once that happens you’ve created a situation that will develop a positive attitude toward saving for a lifetime!

The word Gang causes a great deal of controversy and fear every time it is uttered. There is a great deal of myth and misconception about just what is a gang, how they recruit/operate and the danger they pose to our society, our families and children. Working with gang members for a great number of years, I’ve watched as they have become more sophisticated and violent as time has passed. What was once given short shrift or ignored as an anomaly is now recognized as an incredibly complex problem, not only for law enforcement but for our society as a whole. This article is a good starting point for parents and youth who want to see the truth about what gangs are, and are not.

When we hear the term “Gang” it conjures images of drugs, bullet ridden bodies, money and fear. The reality is; gangs are not new. In fact there is documented evidence of gang related activity going back as far as 1400-1500 AD. What is changing is the increased communications and cooperation on joint criminal ventures between gangs that would traditionally be at war or in competition for the same drug territory. Expertise and even technology are shared in an attempt to evade law enforcement and increase the bottom line. If it’s beginning to make gangs sound more than just a little like a business, it’s because they are. The only difference is that their products are crime, fear and death. 

When you take a close look at how many gangs operate, patterns begin to emerge. Gangs want the same thing as any corporation. They want to grow and expand in their territory/target niche. Profit is the bottom line and ruthless business tactics are often employed in the name of gaining a competitive edge. To further the corporate analogy, gangs also use brand recognition and targeted advertising to reach their target demographic. Every gang member I’ve ever known describes himself as a “businessman”.

We won’t be discussing the different types of gangs in this article. That’s a whole separate discussion and best left for another time. Nor will we examine the complex social problems that allow gangs to flourish. These issues are far too large to explore in one article and are best digested in small doses.  Instead in this article we will examine some risk factors for young people being targeted for recruitment or victimization by gang members and the some of the myths and misconceptions that abound with this topic in general.

Young people become involved in gangs for a lot of different reasons; a sense of belonging, family/friends involved in gang lifestyle, money, protection, etc. The point is; everyone is potentially vulnerable to or affected by gangs on some level. As parents we need to recognize the potential warning signs of attempted recruitment and acknowledge that while we can’t reduce all of the risk factors in our children’s lives, but we can give them enough resiliencies to deal with the problems when/if the time comes.

Parents always ask how they will know if their children are becoming involved with gangs. You will notice changes in their behavior and interactions with family, authority and society in general. Some of the changes that parents would notice immediately would include;

I think it’s important to note that these indicators are not definitive. I know a lot of teens who display several of these identifiers and are no more affiliated to criminal gang activity than I am. What these warning flags should do however is alert parents/teachers and anyone working with youth that there is a potential for recruitment/association if early intervention does not occur. There are other risk factors that cannot be controlled such as;

For every risk there are also resiliency factors. Resiliency is the product of a set of influences and circumstances that would pre-dispose youth away from negative lifestyle choices. Strong family ties, involvement in organized activities and strong adult role models and community involvement can go a long way to helping young people keep from becoming involved in gangs and other negative activities. It’s important for parents to realize that in many ways they are the ones on the front lines in the war on gang/criminal activity.

There are a great number of myths and misconceptions around gang culture. Some of them are loosely based in reality, but utilized by gangs to increase recruitment and perpetuate the fear/respect and “silence through intimidation” they need to operate. One of the biggest myths is;

Gangs will protect me from my enemies. The facts would indicate otherwise. It is physically impossible for any gang to protect their members 24/7. The United States Secret Service spends billions of dollars and has tens of thousands of agents to protect a very small number of individuals. Gangs, no matter how much money they are making from the sales of drugs and other criminal acts have neither the financial resources, the training, nor will to protect a lowly foot soldier on the street. Replacing them when they are killed or incarcerated is easy. Finding and training a new foot soldier is a much more cost effective business decision than paying lawyers. Secondly your risk of death increases dramatically when compared with actuarial tables of youth not involved in gangs. A police officer well known for his expertise in these matters summed it up beautifully. He said;

“The moment you join a gang, you automatically gain one hundred new enemies you never even knew you had.”

Gangs also rule by fear and intimidation of their own members. This means that in addition to the risk of being kidnapped, assaulted or killed by rival gangs; gang members often face the same risks from their own group.

Joining a gang will give me respect. This is one of the most common misconceptions in gang culture. When gangs talk about respect what they really mean is fear;

“Respect is earned and always there. Fear is generally present only when the object of the fear is nearby. Fear often coincides with hate. It is the power of illusion.”

We need to understand and convey to our young people that they are not the same things. Gangs must rule by fear in order to maintain their control over a very competitive drug market and other crime related activity. If their enemies don’t respect/fear them, then their drug markets will be taken over and their runners “jacked” and assaulted. If their members don’t respect/fear them, then they could potentially rip off the gang by running independent operations and skimming profits. Let’s face it; one of the best ways to control a violent criminal is to be a bigger and more violent criminal yourself. 

Gang members are my friends. Over the years I’ve come to know a lot of young people involved in gangs. Many of them had friends and family involved in the gang lifestyle. Unfortunately many of them are also dead, or know a lot of other young people who are. Although there is the perceived loyalty to the gang and its members it is always interesting to note that the loyalty only goes one way. An average gang member who is working as a runner/soldier for any gang is not making a lot of money. Don’t let all of the cash you see them being arrested with confuse you. That money is the proceeds of crime and the property of the gang’s hierarchy. Foot soldiers no more get to keep the proceeds of their criminal activities than the salesman at car dealership gets to keep the money for the sale of a new BMW. In fact those arrested are likely on the hook and fined by the gang for the loss of the drugs and money. Gang members are paid a salary like any other employee; they just get the added privilege of needing to wear body armor to work and going to jail and/or being shot at as a condition of their employment. Secondly if gangs are so loyal to their members, how come they never seem to use any of the millions that they are making on drug sales to get incarcerated members the best lawyers possible?

I will be at the top someday. Realistically there is next to no possibility of this happening. An average foot soldier would likely have no opportunity to become the leader of a large gang. In order for this to happen it would involve surviving; the street, jail, internal dissent, rival gangs, etc. Then potential leader would actually require some business acumen and organizational talent, because as mentioned previously gangs are in the business of making money period. They are just involved in a huge array of criminal offences and operations to fulfill this goal. The facts are that sometimes gangs are controlled by larger criminal organizations much as a subsidiary company would be controlled by a large corporation. They have the ability to engage in independent action, but the overall organizational vision is determined by the more powerful entity (Organized Crime).

I can’t get out now that I’m in. Not all gang members are created equal. Don’t get me wrong, gangs are a huge problem and need to be dealt with. We can’t treat every gang member like they are the head of a Triad and spend inordinate amounts of money protecting society from them after they have caused untold damage to people’s lives. It is counterproductive, costly and mostly ineffective. Most gang members are not members of the leadership or upper management whose knowledge of the groups operations and intelligence would make them a liability to the gang should they attempt to leave. Most gang members are foot soldiers who are involved in the day to day operation of a small part of the organization as a whole and likely not in possession of any knowledge that could seriously damage the gang’s leadership or operations. Many times gang members simply walk away with no repercussions whatsoever.

In other articles we will explore the world of gangs and gang culture and look at topics such as;

In the meantime, take the initiative to find out what resources are available in your community and avail yourself of their time and experience in educating yourself on this issue. Believe it or not what you don’t know can hurt you. There is a lot of excellent free literature available online to give you an overview of general information on this subject. Talk to you children about the dangers of gangs and know their friends. Know who/where they are hanging out and any potentially dangerous areas to avoid. Educate yourself and your children on Personal Safety and basic Self Defense and teach them how to reduce as much risk in their lives as possible. The best you can do is provide them with as much Resiliency as possible and hope that it can outweigh the risk.

Kerry Sauve

StreetSense Safety and Security Inc

http://www.streetsensesafety.ca

Goal setting for Children is never easy. How do we help our kids set appropriate goals? Motivate them to achieve these goals and act as their mentor to guide them when the going gets tough.
Following the four easy steps below will make goal setting for your children a whole lot easier
1)Define the goal. Without a clear vision of what it is that you want to achieve its easy and likely that you will get side tracked. Write down what it is that you want to achieve. If your kids are too small write it down for them, if they are bigger it’s a great practice to get into. Writing it down helps to clarify want it is you want to achieve and keeps you on track.
Having a written copy of our goals helps us to remain focused on the job. This is a skill that our children need to learn and master if they are to accomplish their goals. The clearer we are on our goals the easier they become to achieve. The clarity of our goals makes it easier to spot what we need to help us to achieve our goals. It also helps our children to filter out all the background noise that is constantly around us these days.
2)Know your Why behind the goal. Knowing why you want to achieve your goal is often overlooked in goat setting. Yet it is critical in stopping you and your kids from giving up. This is how you develop passion in your kids to achieve something.
It is also an important and very useful tool to refer back to when you need to motivate your children to overcome obstacles or when they lose interest to keep going and finish the project.
3)Be your kids mentor and not the doer of the goal. In others do not take over or do the task for your kids. It’s your job to guide your kids, motivate them and build up their confidence. It’s not your job to do it for your kids. This only deflates their confidence and motivation. Taking over, will also deny your kids of the satisfaction of achieving something that is important to them.
As a mentor we need to be able to help our children set realistic goals that they are capable of achieving, know what their limitations are and how to best help them achieve it.
4)Kids need realistic and positive feedback on their performance. We all need to know we have done a good job and our kids are no different. In fact our kids need to be continually reassured that they have done well. Descriptive yet positive feedback works best. Our kids need us to give them realistic feedback so they can learn to honestly assess their abilities. This in turn is a key step in helping them to develop into independent and confident adults.
5)Make it fun. I can’t stress this point enough. Our kids are easily bored and tune off if they find something boring. Let them learn from their mistakes without criticism and always focus on the positive. Remember the journey is just as important as the end result.

What are good rules and rewards for teenagers? Why do we bother putting rules into place? Limits and guidelines during adolescence are an important part of getting the budding adult ready to leave home. During this preparation time, keeping focused on the end result (a successful adult) is important. When presenting and negotiating rules with your adolescent, begin by exploring the potential results of successfully following guidelines. Here’s what your list might look like:

Do all of the above and you’ve achieved INDEPENDENCE and maturity! Clearly all of these skills do not have to be accomplished for an adolescent to move away from home and succeed, but the majority of parents that I work with want nothing more than to raise a well-balanced and independent child. In the meantime, however, parents have to set rules that slowly but surely move the child toward independence. Rule categories might include: family time, academic expectations, use of electronics, household responsibilities, personal responsibilities, financial responsibilities, social limits, mind and body responsibilities, community responsibilities. Here’s what the rules might look like for a 13-15 year old. Rules: the following are our expectations to help guide you toward adulthood.

As the adolescent reaches 16-18 years of age, the rules change depending on your child’s level of maturity. Teenagers need continued guidance, like the rules offered above, but others need more freedom in order to exert their own judgment. I recommend adding a curfew for adolescents 16 years old and above. Allowing for more freedom at this age – allowing your children to make more choices, even some controversial ones – allows them the freedom to fail while still under your protective roof. Keep in mind that 18 is just around the corner. Learning important life lessons in your teens while living at home provides a safe environment in which growth can take place.

ONE The holiday destination and duration is a mutual decision – it’s a way for everyone to relax over a period of time, so if you don’t know where to go, ask your teens because they may have some ideas. You don’t want it to turn into a ‘what parents say goes, whether you like it or not’ because it has the potential to ruin the entire mood of the trip. My coaching client friend’s son actually knew a friend who’s parents had a batch they wanted someone to look after over the holidays, so they saved HEAPS on accommodation…plus they got to go jet skiing every day at lake Taupo (for free!). TWO The whole family goes. It’s one of the only rules I feel parents should enforce, especially if your trip includes seeing relatives. They’ll regret not seeing their family as much later on in life if they’re always given the option to stay home during family getaways. THREE Everyone’s idea of a holiday is different. I suggest you don’t do something crazy like ban cell phones or iPods. If the technology really is getting to you, you’re going to have to come up with alternative activities to keep them entertained. The lady I was coaching, her daughter was a TXT-a-holic, so the rule she decided to enforce was if her daughter’s idea of relaxing was lying on the beach TXTing, that was fine, as long as there were a number of other options available for them to do. FOUR Decide to complete one useful thing during the trip. During most of our getaways from the big city, because my brother and I were at school, my Mum used to set a goal that we will cover a whole history book, or take a piece of literature we would take turns reading in the car, and then analyze the story and characters. It sounds silly, but in parents’ eyes, they felt we didn’t get enough time to do this at school, so for us it was entertaining to learn a whole book, or history of a country, with our parents two-cents into it. I know one of my friends used to go away and come back with a whole scrapbook of their family’s history – this was their way of organizing loose family photos into one place, and find out a bit of their family tree history. Maybe you’ll want to plant an idea of shooting a documentary of the holiday, to put up on YouTube and maybe one day get discovered by a famous producer! Anything can happen! FIVE Remember this is your holiday just as much as your family’s. Take time-out to do what you need tod aswell. If you’re in a good mood too, everyone wins! * * *THIS WEEK’S FREE HELPFUL DOWNLOAD!http://sharecash.org/download.php?id=102361 The Self-Improvement Handbook, valued at USD$39, FREE to you! Because I love my readers! Take some useful tips out of this, and take that time out during the holidays for yourself!http://sharecash.org/download.php?id=102361 * * *HAPPY HOLIDAYING Eva-Maria – Bestselling Author of ‘You Shut Up!’, International Speaker and Certified Coach <3 Get a complimentary copy of the CD where I reveal… “7 Teen Secrets": www.trustyourfuture.com

For many parents, the experience of raising children can easily turn from an idealized dream of Halloween costumes, lunch boxes, first dates and prom pictures into a battlefield of miscommunication and misunderstanding that leaves both teenagers and parents emotionally scarred.

In this type of environment, each attempt by parents to connect with their teen is like walking through a minefield. Every step carries the potential of detonating an explosion of conflict and aggression. The result of this type of family dynamic is often a numbing exhaustion that permeates every aspect of family and personal life.

A sense of hopelessness is common when a gulf in communication exists between parents and teenagers. A belief, steeped in resentment, that things will never be any different can keep families from seeing ways that respect and understanding can be restored.

With the right tools, applicable knowledge and commitment, parents can shift their relationships with their adolescent children from adversarial to respectful. By creating a space where parents and teens can hear each other in an open accepting environment the entire family can come together, reconnect and grow.

One of the best ways to start is by looking at the world that kids are living in. As much as one might sometimes question their choices, kids are the experts on their world. They have a common language that they share with friends, a set of intense likes and dislikes, and a way of looking at the world that is unique to themselves. The goal for parents is to approach that world with respect and learn to understand how things can affect a teenager in both positive and negative ways.

It can be difficult to set aside the time and energy to be present with children, especially with all of the expectations placed on parents to live up to our culture’s image of success. It is more than common these days to find both parents working as a means to sustain financial stability.

This same pressure to achieve affects teens as well when they perceive that acceptance and success comes from external achievement. The pressure to wear the right clothes, have the newest electronics, perform well in school, and be popular is very real to teenagers.

Having a safe haven within the family to decompress from these pressures is vital way for kids to maintain a strong sense of themselves while strengthening the family as a whole. Parents can encourage their kids to build on the strengths of their uniqueness showing them that they recognize the pressure they face to fit in.

As parents, it is also important to recognize when these pressures may be too big for your teen to handle on their own.  This is a time to find a qualified therapist who specializes in working with teens to assist them in dealing with the challenges they are facing.

As parents make space for the unique aspects of their teens to develop both adolescents and adults can create a place of mutual understanding.  By releasing judgment, misunderstanding, and expectation individuality can blossom and a healthy relationship can grow.

Learn More About Teens and Therapy at www.JohnSovec.com

We all know that the teen years can be viewed as a journey from childhood to adulthood, but consider that teen parenting can be seen as a similar journey. In the growing teen, they are dealing with getting older, accepting more responsibilities that they never had before, raging hormonal changes, discovering their own identity, and a struggle for independence. All of these things make teen parenting a challenge, since teens can go from one extreme to the other in the blink of an eye.

One more teen stress that needs to be considered is the inevitable want to fit in, to be accepted by their friends and peers. This force is incredibly strong, nobody wants to be unaccepted or shunned, so this is also something to consider when you are doing teen parenting.

Why are these facts laid out at the beginning? Because in countless studies of the conversations that take place in counseling centers across the nation, the phrases commonly heard by the teens regarding their parents are things like “you don’t understand” and “leave me alone”. It is true, as parents we tend to forget what our teen years were like just a few short years ago, where we had exactly the same issues to be dealing and struggling with, and understanding what is going on in the teen mind and what is important to today’s teen can go a long ways to having a better relationship and more open communications with your teen.

Teen parenting is also a struggle on walking a very fine line between enforcing rules and limitations without negatively impacting the teen’s sense of freedom. This is indeed a fine line and parents will inevitably cross that line sometimes, which can turn their once-cuddly little baby into a fierce alien from another planet. Teen parenting is not an easy task, and nobody will advocate just giving the teen free rein to do what they wish, since they seem to know it all anyway. Rather, effective teen parenting skills include patience, creativity, and courage to set and lovingly enforce the rules and boundaries that need to exist in a household.

This fine line should be seen as a challenge that you can overcome in order to teach your teen values and to know right from wrong. In the process of teen parenting, take the necessary steps to guide your child into adulthood by instilling social values, setting and achieving goals, which will aid their emerging independence and set a line for keeping things on the right track for the future. By all means, do NOT view this as a cumbersome task that you are just not up to. Teens will sense this and will stretch your patience to the breaking point. Maintain focus!

In teen parenting, it is critically important to keep a good solid and loving relationship in place, with a wide-open door of communications. While you are the parent, you can also be the best friend, someone they can feel free to confide in and to ask advice of. While not a topic to dwell on, let them know that you were once in their shoes, and you DO understand what they are going through and what they are struggling with. As strange as it may sound, that fact may come as a surprise to your teen, who might view you as never having been in your teens!