Following on from my previous post here, in which I have my teen daughter in the car with me with nowhere else to go for a few hours and I started up a conversation about her grades, I dug deeper with our conversation, in which she surprisingly willingly participated, which brings us to this installment of what she discovered by using one of my coaching tools.
My teen has seen my coaching paraphernalia around. It was actually a timely question when she asked me about a week prior to our talk what the “being and doing” part of the system means.
She used every ounce of focus to listen (because I’m sure she regretted asking as soon as it was out of her mouth) as I described that who you are and who you are being should precede, in most cases, what you are doing. My example to her was, “a vegan should probably not be working in a chicken slaughtering plant” – I really do wonder sometimes where my creativity goes at times like this!!! I think she was more grossed out by the example than getting the point of it. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get a do over soon enough. I think at the very least she understands I want, so much, for her to line up what she does in the world with who she truly is.
Back to the car ride.
She conveniently had pen and paper at hand so I decided we would do a Wheel of Life exercise.
I asked her to draw the circle and label the outside with the headings of the things that were important to her. For her it was family, friends, relationship, swimming, school, health and appearance, fun, hobbies (writing, drawing, singing, music).
I explained how to mark them from 1-10 and also made sure she understood that marking a 3 in friends didn’t mean they were bad friends, it might mean that something isn’t working in that segment, like time with friends, or communication with friends. I wanted her to be clear that there is no judgement on anyone or anything regardless of what number she assigned. What I do know about teenagers is they are fiercely protective of their people and things and I did not want her being cautious about sharing. I’m very aware she only knows me as her mother and not a coach so she doesn’t know the experience of me as unattached to the “why”, only to what will help her learn about herself.
I’m driving still so I’m not overlooking her progress but I honestly think it wouldn’t have made a difference. She was very involved in her own experience. She was interested in her own discoveries.
Once she was done we started the next part of the conversation:
Me: “What area has a low mark that you would like to see improve immediately?”
Maddi: “My hobbies.” (this is not what I thought she would pick but I had zero attachment to her choice)
Me: “What number do you have your hobbies at?”
Maddi: “A number 2”
Me: “What does a number 2 look like?” (tee-hee-hee she was so into her experience here she missed the funny)
Maddi: “I think about doing one of my hobbies but I run out of time and I never spend any time doing any of them.”
Me: “And how does that feel?”
Maddi: “Not good cos those things make me happy and some of the other distractions don’t make me happy”
We continued to discover what a number 5 would look like and even a number 9. 10 seemed a bit elusive to her (and that’s a whole different coaching session – haha).
She came to a conclusion about something I have been on her case about since December.
She has decided for herself that this is an important elimination in order for her to make time and space for something that she couldn’t previously pinpoint was missing.
She has declared her hobbies as a “must have” in her life. She has a better understanding for her need for a creative outlet.
She is hitting different and much better milestones than I hit at her age. I didn’t declare what was important for me and so I let others decide for me and I went along with the group…….and that is a whole other story.
So, back in December, for the holidays, we relented and got Maddi an iPhone.
She cried.
She was so excited that at 13 ½ years old she could FINALLY be like all (I’m sure not really) her friends and be able to communicate with the world like a “regular human teenager” via text (cos she still doesn’t actually speak to anyone on the phone).
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Sigh. For the last 5 months that damn phone has been the biggest issue in our house!!
Anyways, the icing on the cake, for me, was when she says she wants help setting boundaries around her phone. She feels trapped in needing to respond when she sees someone has messaged her or else she thinks she will offend them.
She finally understands that she is responding to other peoples agendas.
She knows how limited her time is (she is a competitive swimmer so is in the pool up to 9 times a week) and she wants time for EVERYTHING that is important to her.
She doesn’t underestimate what a hold the phone and the social interactions have over her. She has asked for my help.
She has done the hard work of going inward and really discovering what she wants in her life right now. And showing a continued commitment to what she wants will require work also. I know how easy it is to mindlessly get sucked into my iPad or TV watching and then regretting how I spent that time. I have had whole Saturdays lost doing mindless useless stuff that I didn’t want to be doing.
If she can get used to redirecting herself this way it will be a gift always. She can shift her attention, intention and direction whenever she chooses. And I hope she chooses often because it’s way too easy to get into a busy rut and forget where you actually wanted to be heading. Can you relate? I know I can.
If I can teach her this, and she uses it often, then I’ll be happy……..for a short time at least. Look, I’m her mother and there are so many more lessons I want her to learn.
After a period of silence in the car she turns to me and says “you know, I hate when we have these talks, but then it’s always really great in the end.”
Me: “Well, if you’d just stop resisting and LISTEN to me we could have your life signed, sealed and delivered with a pretty bow – now wouldn’t that feel great” is what I wanted to say – but didn’t. I know when NOT to push my luck.
Momma really does know best.