Raising Kind, Resilient Teenagers in a World of Uncertainty

How can we help to raise kind, resilient teenagers when the world is so full of uncertainty?

At the moment, more than at any other time in my career in teaching (which spreads across four decades now!), I see pressures on teenagers that are both intense and constant. While there is excitement and pride in much of what they do, there are also nerves and sometimes a touch of worry that affects parents too. Tests, deadlines, social media and the bigger worries that seem to be headlining the news day after day.

Parents will of course ask whether their child will succeed, and are they prepared for what is to come. While qualifications are important, as a means to open up opportunities, we must make sure that our metrics are not so narrow, and we recognise that lifelong qualities of character, resilience and kindness will ultimately be more important for them.  

Parents are naturally anxious about what the future will bring, and nobody (I would hope) would swap mental health and happiness for a graded outcome. Similarly, universities and employers are looking for a diverse skillset, and learning values and agency throughout education should be given equal weight to knowledge consumption for the world that awaits beyond the school gates.  

Kindness costs us nothing, but is worth so much.  It is not a zero-sum game in which we use up our daily allocation; instead it is something that grows exponentially across a family, a school or a community. As for resilience, this is not a question of pretending that life is easy and we can all be what we want, if we wish hard enough for it. Resilience is an acknowledgement that things will go wrong, but we can keep going, and be stronger for the experience. My favourite source of quotations, Vince Lombardi, the unmatched head coach of the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, says 'It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up'.  Defeat isn't final unless you decide that it is.  

What can we do in school or at home to help our young people to flourish?  

• Model the behaviour that you want to see, because teenagers will learn by watching adults
• Value the process, not just the outcome - a pupil who works incredibly hard for a test deserves praise, even if the result is not as high as we might have wanted
• Make time to have downtime (not screen time!) - sleep well, talk often and spend time with others
• Talk about what matters to you - the language we use reflects the values we hold, whether that is kindness, resilience or integrity

In order to achieve this, it is really important for us all to work together. Experience tells us that children are quick to exploit inconsistency and difference of thinking, but we must also remember that for all of us, our starting point has to be to be on the side of the child. We want young people to be proud of who they are, proud of being a part of their house and school, and proud of the things that they seek to achieve. With resilience and kindness at the heart, young people will not just survive, but have the opportunity to flourish, so that this generation will be young people of character, who will meet the future with confidence and compassion.

Have a very good half term.

Chris

(With credit for this week's theme to Shaun Fenton, Head of Reigate Grammar School, whose thoughts on this topic inspired this week's notes)