With Teens, Make Sure to Distinguish Temporary from Permanent Understandings
He gets you, agrees wholeheartedly, and even starts to crack the books, until his best pal or girlfriend offers to drive him to the beach.
You thought you had a meeting of the minds, and you did, but it was only based on a temporary understanding.
You feel let down because you sought a permanent understanding, but it didn't happen.
For him it was permanent, until a better offer came along.
Who is to blame?
Teenagers are like those trapped wolves you hear about who look a lot like tame-able dogs, but the second they're in captivity, they do everything to break free, including the unthinkable: chewing off their feet to emerge from the traps that you so carefully laid for them.
They're wild at heart, to borrow the title from a memorable movie of a decade or two ago.
It summons to mind the wisdom of Peter F Drucker, my MBA teacher for two and a half years, and internationally renowned management guru.
He said, "We don't solve most of life's problems. If we're lucky, we'll outlive them."
Teens finally grow up, if they, and we are lucky. Only then, do they look back at their wild years in astonishment and admire our patience and forbearance with them.
And that's when, at last, temporary understandings morph into permanent ones.
Related Tags: parenting, negotiation, teenagers, keynote, conference, convention, ucla, speaker, communicating with teens
Best-selling author of 12 books and more than 1,000 articles, Dr. Gary S. Goodman is considered "The Gold Standard" in sales development, customer service, and telephone effectiveness. Top-rated as a speaker, seminar leader, and consultant, his clients extend across the globe and the organizational spectrum, from the Fortune 1000 to small businesses. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles
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