For this simple blog, I will offer a critical and central truth that focuses on how to prepare your youth for true future success that parents and mentors must understand. It will truly follow from an example in a previous blog I posted and after I present this insight, I will add an example of how I ethically did this with a youth years ago; but will take it to a deeper scientific and realistic level. I will first point out how many are currently trying to prepare their Rising Stars to be successful and will then point out what is critical for truly preparing them for current and future success.
What many parents and/or mentors in today’s world envision is their objective is to simply give to their Rising Star the right answer; or the answer the parent/mentor thinks is right. When you look at this basic concept considering the Neuroscience concept, there is much missing.
The Problem:
So many parents and mentors today simply want to give the answer to them with no real understanding and such. In many aspects, they want the youth to simply give the same answer that the parent or mentor would say. This may not even be correct and in fact, what they are unconsciously doing is trying to make the youth do and be exactly what the parent or mentor would say or do. They are simply making the youth picture and be seen like the parent or mentor. There is really a degree of narcissism and self interest in making them do this.
So, what is the real problem with this common approach? It is simply that when you use that approach in dealing with your youth, you are cutting off their brain and in doing that, you are inhibiting their future success.
This is explained in Neuroscience and when you have this approach, you are shutting down their processing ability in their Prefrontal Cortex and in doing this, you are shutting down their ability to process Situational Factors and make successful decisions in this situation that does not just fit into your rote, academic thought. In doing this, you are shutting down their true decision making and preventing it from developing to a higher level.
The Key Truth:
When developing your youth, you must avoid just giving them simple word answers and throwing their Brain Awareness in the trash. Also, that many of the answers may be just a little different based on the external factors involved. To truly develop your youth for future success, do not just give them the simple answer that you want it to be.
What you want to focus on is by centering on their thought or issue but instead of giving just one simple answer (that may not always be right), develop in yourself the ability to bring out the real questions that will have your Rising Star truly Process the factors at play. Instead of setting the brain aside, you understand the questions that will help them truly develop the processing ability in the Prefrontal Cortex of their brain.
The youth have no benefit when they just voice the answer you gave them or the one that you want. As your youth grows and develops, a critical aspect that must truly develop is their Processing Ability because as an adult, not everything is going to be a rote academic situation with a single superficial answer.
I will simply remind the reader of one example I included in a previous blog that is very aligned with this concept here. There was a young 8th Grader who was doing math homework, and he was struggling and frustrated. He was a little league baseball player and the question he was struggling with dealt with the batting average for a baseball player. I did not give him the answer, but I asked him some questions and 4 questions I asked were as follows:
1.     What is your confusion about that?
2.     Have you ever seen a batting average greater than 1?
3.     Can you ever have a batting average greater than 1?
4.     So, what is your answer?
It blew him away in a positive way when he envisioned the correct answer. What I did got his processing ability going and it was highly successful. He brought the homework over to me the next day and showed me that his teacher made incredible positive comments about his work.
His Aunt was a friend of mine and about 2 years later she contacted me and said that he was so much more successful and in High School, he was awarded a Truly Honoring Mathematics Award, and he was so honored.
Finally, let me ask you, what must you change and improve as to how you are truly enhancing and developing their Processing Ability in their brains to fully improve their True Situational Awareness and Decision Making when they move forward in their life journey and fulfilling their dream?
Randy Swaim, Coaching for Relevance, LLC