Having Realistic Expectations For Your Teen: It Could Save Their Life

Close your eyes and imagine your teen 2 years from now, 4 years from now, 10 years from now. Do you imagine them walking the halls of your alma mater? Do you imagine them following in your footsteps into a profession that closely resembles yours? Are you imagining outcome? What is success after all?

In the last few months and as recently as last weekend, I read or heard about a number of teen suicides. These kids should have been the success stories; star students, star athletes, popular, and all around wonderful young people. Where is the disconnect? 

Sometimes our kids absorb the expectations of everyone around them, and put their own ideas about who they want to become on the back burner. They feel the power of your pride in their successes, and the power of the responsibility they feel toward their teams, their school, their friends.

The video below is by a high school student who has witnessed a recent cluster of suicides at her high school in Palo Alto Ca. Her first hand observations are quite powerful. 

Watch this video with your teen, and ask the hard, but very important question: Do we put too much pressure on you? What could we do differently? Give your teen the gift of acceptance and understanding. It is way more important than honor roll. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LLnY_JBAAg