Scott Schimmel (00:06.038)
If you have a kid who's a teenager, it's the most important part of their life. It's the most critical time for them to figure out who they are. The big fancy word is identity formation. And the scariest part, if they don't figure out who they are, the world will decide for them. The world will tell them who they are, what their value is, what life is all about, and their place in this whole thing. And most critically, they need someone to guide them to discover who they are.
They need a guide in identity formation. That's where you come in. The teenage years aren't all about, you know, raging hormones, awkward moments. It's not all about preparing to get into a good college. It's not all about preparing to, I don't know, figure out how do your laundry. All those, those are all important things. The most important task of adolescence is figuring out their answer to the question, who am I? Who am I? What do I do here?
It's the timeless story of the book, Are You My Mother? I'm trying to figure out who I am, who I belong to, and how I fit in all this, in this whole world. So you think of a high school senior who followed their parents' expectations, oops, and did what they thought they were supposed to because they didn't know what else to do because they didn't have clarity on these critical questions about their identity. And so they go down the track, whatever the track is, pre-med track.
the business track, the engineering track, the education track, to try to get, let's say, the perfect resume according to their parents and the pressure of who's paying the bills and only to find out that they crash and burn in college because they never really figured out what they cared about. And kids who do not discover their own interests, who did not tap into their own motivation, who did not find a way to pursue goals that are painful to them will not have
the resilience to keep going. They will not be able to persist. That's where this concept of self-concordance comes in. Also a big fancy word. It's that ability to pursue goals that matter not to someone else, but to you. And you can actually opt into someone else's goals, but you have to go through the process to really reflect and think and choose for yourself. I don't want my kids to burn out. I don't want my kids to go down a path.
Scott Schimmel (02:34.006)
of least resistance or less resistance because I want them to because I'm afraid of their future survival. I don't want my kids to go down a path and end up having regret. I don't want my kids to go down a path where they pursue something and then find out they don't care about it and they just can't go on. Well, research shows that the adolescent brain is particularly wired for self-discovery during the teenage years. These are the years when kids are experimenting
They are exploring and they're trying to make meaning out of their experiences. And unfortunately, when their free time, the gray time, the white space is filled with time on their phones and technology and screens. They're losing out on their brain's ability to make sense of what they're experiencing. And so we're delaying the necessary crucial steps to build a really healthy life.
And if they don't figure it out now, they might struggle for decades. You know that because you do. You know that because your siblings do, because your friends do. You're still wrestling with these big questions. You're still trying to find your way. You're still hoping that it all works out. When you add in experiences that you and I didn't have, social media and peer pressure and external pressure of college admissions, and that will fill the gap if your kids can't be guided by you.
I don't mean to sound the alarm, but the alarm is ringing. So here are practical steps. I want your kid to be able to have the value for self discovery and the experiences of self discovery and the skills of it. Those are three different things. And I believe comes primarily through you, the parents.
Well, first of all, we need to model our own process of self discovery, ongoing self discovery. Your kids need to learn from you, not because you talked to them about this, but because they watch you continuously reflect on who you are. To reflect on experiences that you've had that day at work and ask the question, not what's wrong with them, not what's wrong with Janice in the other cubicle, but to ask questions like,
Scott Schimmel (04:53.238)
What am I learning about myself as I'm experiencing friction with her? They need to hear you have a value for and appreciation of self discovery, even at your age, you're not done growing yet. You're not done discovering yet. So for them to watch you, they will learn that that's important. They will learn that it's a healthy, normal part of life to be processing what your experiences are that day. What happened today?
How did I feel about what happened today? What am I learning about myself about what happened today? Those are the right moments in the car, at the dinner table, on family trips, late at night. And for you to model that is crucial. Secondly, we can help them reflect on their own experiences. What happened today? What happened? Tell me the contents of the day. You went here, you went there. Interesting. And just be very curious.
to understand how did you respond? How did you feel about that? I know you said your teacher was just like super unfair, but how did that make you feel? What was different about your reaction to that than the other classmates? Are those different questions than, you have fun today? Did you learn something new today? What's new?
And finally, to celebrate and normalize your kids self-awareness. And if you hear them say, I'm realizing that I, you say, wait, that's awesome. You're learning that about yourself. So we model it, we guide them to reflect about it, and then we celebrate and normalize when they exemplify self-discovery.
Self-awareness is critical, not only just to the teenage years, but the best managers are self-aware, the best leaders are self-aware, the best spouses, the best parents, the best people are self-aware. And it might take for some people later on in life, something terribly to go wrong in their lives, to start all of a sudden realizing, there's more to the story, there's more to discover about myself. But I would rather...
Scott Schimmel (07:07.756)
My kids have that as a normal part of themselves as they go. It's up to you. You have the opportunity to model it, to cultivate it and develop their skills of self discovery and to help normalize it. And I think nothing could be more important than that. We'll be back soon with another episode, the You School podcast.
