How parents can use coaching tools to support their teen’s transition to adulthood

For the past 18 years you’ve been in the driver’s seat of your children’s lives. You’ve been the navigator, steering them in the right direction. You’ve been responsible for protecting them from dangerous hazards on the road and getting them to their destination safely.

You’ve been in control (most of the time anyway).

Finishing year 12 signifies the end of childhood. Going to university signifies the beginning of adulthood and thus, your children beginning to learn to drive themselves.

The thought of your children behind the wheel can be terrifying.

But as we know, only when we begin to drive will we learn to become better drivers and hopefully by the time they get behind the wheel, they’ll have a good understanding of how to use the car, thanks to all the years you have spent preparing them for life on the road.

Your role changes

Many parents have expressed to me, that they feel that their role as a parent might become obsolete when their children transition into adulthood, but your role doesn’t become obsolete, it simply shifts from being ‘the driver’ to becoming ‘the passenger.’ Which is similar to being a coach.

A passenger’s role is to listen to the needs of the driver and help them navigate to where they want to go. A passenger’s role is to support, advocate, challenge and be a non -biased sounding board and help the driver navigate through obstacles to help them reach their destination more quickly.

A passenger’s role is not to tell the driver what to do. We respect that the driver is the one who is steering the wheel and pressing the accelerator and we try our hardest not to tell them to ‘brake!’ ‘brake!’ brake!’ all the time.

Why is the transition from school to university so challenging?

When entering the world of university, young people’s sense of belonging becomes disrupted because they move away from being surrounded by familiar friends and teachers at school every day to being thrust into an unknown environment with new people.

They essentially feel alone again and in cave man times, when we were alone, we felt threatened. Being on our own today, is not a life-or-death situation but it is normal that young people worry about ‘fitting in’ because it’s hard wired into our brain. Being part of a group or tribe and being accepted by others was critical to survival in cave man times.

According to psychologists, Baumeister and Leary (1995), belonging is not just a desire but a need. Belonging influences everything. If a student feels a sense of belonging, they are more likely to go to university, stay in university and succeed at university.

What can parents do to help?

Validation is one of the most important things a parent can do to foster healthy psychology development in their children (Hall & Cook, 2011).

Validation is about seeing someone’s emotional experience as real even if you don’t understand it and even if it doesn’t mirror your own experience.

Validation looks like:

·       Listening without interrupting

·       Asking clarifying questions to help you understand their situation

·       Normalising their feelings

·       Stopping what you are doing, being present, giving them eye contact.

Validation is not:

·       Judging their emotions as right or wrong ‘you’re being too sensitive.’

·       Trying to fix the problem ‘I’ll call your uni lecturer and tell him you need an extension’ or offering unsolicited advice ‘I think the best thing to do is...’

·       Sharing your experience with them ‘you think you had it bad, you should hear what happened to me…’

·       Telling them ‘shoulds’ ‘you should have started your assignment earlier’ ‘you should be grateful’ or other expectations

Examples of validating statements…

‘Tell me more’

‘That must be hard for you’

‘What I’m hearing you say is that…’

‘It makes sense you feel… because one of your strengths is….’

Validating using Strengths

I tend to use the last statement a lot because I like to find opportunities to remind students of their strengths not only because they are their ‘superpowers’ to help them through tough times but also because it gives them more understanding of why they might find the situation so difficult.  You can learn what your strengths are by taking this survey https://www.viacharacter.org/account/register

Examples

Here are some examples, if your child is…

Feeling lonely and disconnected.

‘It makes sense you are feeling lonely because one of your top strengths is love which means you have a natural desire to give and receive love’

Has a falling out with his best mate over a girl

‘It makes sense you are finding it hard to forgive your friend because ‘fairness’ is one of your top strengths and this situation is very unfair.’

Feeling stressed because they are not getting the marks they need to get into medicine. 

‘It makes sense that you don’t want to give up because one of your top strengths is ‘perseverance.’ 

Your role as a passenger…

Overall, your role as a ‘passenger’ is to do more listening than talking. Validating their feelings has 3 positive outcomes:

1.      It makes them feel listened to, understood and not judged which in turn strengthens the bond between parent and child.

2.      It deescalates intense emotions

3.      It models how to validate feelings so they can help others to belong.

(Kocabas & Üstündağ‐Budak, 2017).

They won’t always invite us to travel with them on their new journey. But when they do, our role is to meet them where they are at, not where we think they should be. Our role is to sit beside them and listen, ask questions, encourage them, guide them and offer different perspectives. Like a wind screen wiper, we might help them to see things more clearly.

They may leave us for a while as they discover their own route and we will wonder where they are and how they are going.

As long as we aren’t ‘back seat driving’ all the time (giving unwanted instructions, criticizing their driving skills, fiddling around with the car’s GPS, complaining about speed) they will pick us up again because they will appreciate our perspective and our understanding that they are ultimately in control of where they want to go.

Want more practical tips?

Sometimes it’s helpful to have a more ‘qualified driving instructor’ to help your children navigate difficult roads and assist them in reaching their destination faster.

That’s what I do as a coach. I look at where they are now and where they want to be and ask them questions and offer new perspectives that help them achieve their goals. If you want to know if coaching is the right move for your teen, get in touch.