The September 27, 2007 issue of USA Today carried an extensive article on the teenage brain. Two items from the article deserve special attention.

The first is a study finding that when kids showed resistance to peer pressure, the prefrontal cortex thickened, and areas of the brain showed more connections. This illustrates an association between brain function and structure and resistance to peer influence. One of the prime advantages of teaching the Marvin Marshall Hierarchy is to help young people understand the difference between external motivation (referred to as level C – cooperation/conformity ) and internal motivation (referred to as level D – democracy) Here is a further description.

The second item states that more than the teen brain is at issue. "It's important for parents to be aware of this developmental phase, but the bigger issue is as a society, we need to re-evaluate our values. The nurturing we are doing falls short of the teenagers needs." Too many parents have the misconception that to raise healthy and responsible children, young people need to be protected from anything that could impinge negatively on their self-esteem. Examples abound, such as all children being given rewards just for being a member of a team, scores in games no longer kept so there will not be any "losers," and everyone's being a "winner" so as not to have any youngster feel bad.

This misconconception has given way to what is commonly referred to as "helicopter parents"—those who hover over their children in an attempt to protect the young from having them experience ANYTHING negative. In the process, such parents fail to practice a critical principal for promoting healthy, responsible citizens—namely, "Do not do things for young people which they can do for themselves."

The greater exposure young people have to understanding the concepts of internal and external motivation (especially peer influence) and the more they experience the "ups and downs" of life, the more they will be able to handle major challenges without resorting to external agents—be they alcohol, drugs, or victimhood thinking.

A writer for Best Life Magazine asked me how to respond to the following question: "My daughter wants to get a tattoo. How can I persuade her she'll live to regret it?"

I responded that the most effective approach is to induce the daughter to influence herself. The key to this approach is asking reflective questions and prompting the daughter to evaluate. I gave the following suggestions:

"Project ahead five years. Is the short term fun worth the long-term frustration when you want it removed?"

"How about making a list of all the advantages and the disadvantages and then comparing them!"

"Remembering that the emotion of making the decision will not outlast the emotion of being sorry if you want it removed, what are the consequences if you decide to remove it?"

We so often want to protect our children for something we as parents believe that they will regret. But people learn by their decisions. As long the decision is not life-threatening or harmful, the most effective approach is for the parent to allow the problem and its consequences to be her daughter's. In essence, the situation becomes a problem to the parent when the parent labels it a problem.

The most effective approach may not get what the parent desires. Is that so critical?

The parent will find that the best chance of the daughter's not getting a tattoo and retaining good relationships is by (1) letting the daughter know that the parent will love her whatever she chooses (after the parent lets the daughter know that the parent detests her having a tattoo), (2) by the parent's empowering her with the choice (after expressing the parent's desires), and (3) by the parent's prompting the daughter to reflect on the short-term peer influence of external motivation versus the long-term decision of internal motivation of not succumbing to such peer influence.

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To gain greater understanding, please read this first.

To change behavior of a young person, treat the youngster as if the person were already what you want the person to become.

For example, if your daughter is shy, rather than sending messages of her difficulties with her own social needs, respond to her as if she were verbal, popular, and socially confident. Some children need the confidence of others in themselves before their own confidence grows. If you communicate that the person has the power to encounter the situation—instead of trying to solve it for the youngster—the person will learn effective ways to do so with her or his own resources.

parents cannot fix problems they don't own. The problem invariably resides with the person's self-talk to the situation. Talking to the child in empowering ways can do much to help the youngster change his or her own self-talk. The more you send messages that the persons is competent in the area under question, the greater the chance of the youngster's changing her or his own self-talk.

One key to this success is to resist evaluating the young person as the person is and have a mental picture of how you would like the person to be. A positive vision will always bring more success than a negative one.

Here is how a school librarian who knows the Marvin Marshall approach uses it to have students return books. Before adopting this smart approach, the librarian would send out overdue library notices on three different colors:The first color was a notice that the book was overdue.

The second colored notice announced that a book was really late and that the next notice would be a detention.

The third was a notice that the book was three weeks overdue and that the student had to serve a detention.

The process had turned into a bit of a joke with students who learned that the first two notices really didn’t count. The librarian was sending out more than 200 notices each week.

This is what she wrote in the announcements with a smart approach:
“What would a responsible student do today to renew or return a book before overdue notices tomorrow?”

The only problem with the approach was that the librarian was overwhelmed with students returning or renewing their books that day.

She sent almost no late notices the next day. Wow!

If we would only remember that positivity, choice, and reflection are less stressful and more effective than older, negative, and threatening approaches!