Cat Coluccio is an educator, life coach, and author of the “21 Hacks” book series. Her latest book, 21 Hands To Rock Your Life: The Teen Edition – which would make a great gift this Christmas – helps encourage teens to create good habits now, for a successful future.
Cat’s also got your back as a parent of a teen. Here, she shares three of her hacks for you to lead by example and to motivate them to make the most of their time and create a lifestyle they want.
HACK #1
Ditch multitasking
How many times have you stood in your kitchen making dinner, fielding phone calls from your boss, flicking through emails and messages, catching vague replies to your question, “How did you day go?”, from your partner?
Possibly every week night?
While we could stop right here and talk about your stress levels which are probably off the charts, let’s look at something else going on: What are you modelling to your teen?
You are modelling that very thing so many women consider a mothering super-power to be proud of – multitasking. Unfortunately however, while this is a skill our teens already possess due to growing up in a world where they are never offline, it’s not one that is going to support their need to learn.
Stopping the multitasking is critical to helping your teen focus on what really matters in life.
HACK #2
Use a Timer
Your family have had to adjust to a number of changes over the past few years, including your teens having to learn-from-home thanks to Covid-19 restrictions.
As a mother of two, a former high school teacher and a six-year homeschooling veteran who lived to tell the story – I fully get it. Set timers to allocate focused time for school work (and that goes for your own work too). Separate work and study from relaxation, so you can get the best of both worlds.
HACK #3
CREATE YOUR TEAM
We know that trying to achieve a personal goal can be exhilarating, frightening and overwhelming all at once. So much so, that far fewer people go on to achieve their goals than the number of those who intended to.
There are many things you can do to help set you up for a greater chance of reaching your goal (hire a coach, take a course) and it’s important that we teach our teens this too. Otherwise we risk them failing one too many times, resulting in them giving up all together.
Imagine how much greater your teen’s chances of reaching their sporting, artistic or academic goals will be, if they have a mentor or trusted team of people in their life, who they know have their back.
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