9 important truths to help your teen reach their fullest potential

I hope you are all well.

Today’s newsletter will be short.

This week was the performance of the annual all-school musical, which I direct. 160 kids, about 18 more kids on the crew, a huge volunteer staff of parents, and I all went on a journey down the Yellow Brick Road.

The Wizard of Oz was a huge production, and I am completely exhausted, mentally and physically.

It was worth it, though. The show was beautiful, colorful, full of laughter and life. I watched young teens fill leadership roles and function at an adult level in terms of their responsibility. Last night was closing night. I watched the oldest students cry as they realized their last play at this school was done. I watched the youngest, newest students run around, starry-eyed and excited from their first taste of applause.

And I saw other adults, as tired as I was, exhausted after giving weeks and weeks of work and effort to create a wonderful gift for the students.

But one of the things I saw most of all were many signs that indicated to me that the students saw this as their play. It was their work, not merely mine or any other adult’s.

Over 35 years of directing plays for middle school students, I have come to the conclusion that teens can truly do just about anything. We often limit them, frequently laugh at them (and sometimes they deserve that!), but rarely do we really see all they can do.

One of the things I am most proud of in our productions at school is the leadership role that the kids have. The choreographers, crew members, the stage managers, the light and sound technicians—all of these are students. Every year I work really hard to find meaningful leadership roles for as many students as possible. Every year I see kids pull off incredibly complex, enormously challenging things. I often see them pull off things that adults would not try (I think because the teens don’t know how hard something is. They don’t know something can’t be done).

Over the last week, I watched in wonder as a crew of teens learned, practiced, then executed enormously difficult and complex set changes and special effects without adult intervention. I watched as they worked together to solve the inevitable problems that arise in live theatre. I watched them work together on-stage, supporting each other in their performances.

Doing these shows has taught me a few things about teens and achievement. Here are some key principles. I will be talking about each of these in more detail in weeks to come.

1. Teens really can do just about anything.

2. They must be motivated properly.

3. They don’t want to let people down.

4. If they know you love and trust them they will do all they can to return that.

5. They respond well to challenges when the challenge is named in advance.

6. They will fulfill their responsibilities when they know they are really responsible for something. You can’t simply give them a title and then do the work. When they know someone is depending on them, they will generally step up. If they know someone will step in and bail them out, they almost never will.

7. In all of this, they need to be taught carefully what to do, and the role of the adult is to create carefully-conceived, developmentally do-able tasks that they can complete successfully. This needs to be calibrated so that it demands a great deal of them, but not too much. It must stretch them without exceeding their reach.

8. They can sense genuine feeling, so this has to all be legitimate. You can’t fake any of this! They will sniff out any fake emotion immediately.

9. The things that teens do not have are experience, judgment, a sense of proportion, and the ability to do long-range planning. There are also detailed, technical bits of knowledge they lack. Adults are at their most useful and influential when they provide these things for teens.

Happy parenting—you’ve got this!

Best,

Braden