Look at Your Teen but Imagine Your 35-Year-old

Recognizing that the teen years are a bridge to your child transforming into an adult is at the heart of how you should parent.

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When you stay focused on the future, your vision on how to parent today sharpens. Pressure in the moment lessens.  Your understanding of what success looks like broadens. It allows you to wisely focus on the strengths to recognize and build within your child.

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A note of caution: Don’t make this the centerpiece of your discussions with your teen. Always talking about the FUTURE is just...too...much…pressure on them today. It could lead to them having anxiety about the future, and that can interfere with their ability to make thoughtful decisions.  Rather, this is about how you shape your guidance for them and your understanding of what successful parenting looks like. 

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When we focus only on the child in front of us, we might narrowly gauge their success by the grades or scores they are receiving or whether they’re happy in the moment.  That’s Pressure!! Instead, we should build the strengths of character and commitment an adult will need to thrive throughout life. Think of this as parenting for the 35-year-old (and 50-, 70-, and 95-year old!).

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As we are building future adults, let’s shape them to have satisfying and meaningful lives while being positioned to creating a kinder world.    In “Congrats You’re having a Teen! Strengthen Your Family and Raise a Good person,” we offer deeper dives into the hows.  For now, just take a breath and remind yourself what really matters.

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You hope for your 35-year-old to have these strengths and more:

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• Purpose: Adults thrive when they know they matter. They are happy when driven by meaning and grounded in relationships. They understand work is important, but family is central to their sense of meaning, and friendships enrich them. They have self-compassion, so they have the stability and energy to care for others. 
• Wonder: The happiest adults celebrate the child within them and embrace their curiosity and creativity. They love being challenged by lifelong learning. 
• Morality: Adults must be grounded in concern for our earth and humanity. They need the strength of character that guides them to consider how their actions affect others and hold the potential to uplift those made vulnerable. 
• Compassion: The 35-year-olds we hope to nurture are generous and compassionate. They will not ignore human suffering. They must solve our problems by learning from and reaching across our differences rather than stoking division. Future solutions will be built by well-worn paths between neighbors. 
• Flexible: Adults flourish (and succeed!) when they are flexible, committed to innovation, and open to creative ideas. They experience failure as a misstep and learn from it how to do better.
• Tenacity: Successful adults reap the benefit of hard work. They can delay gratification and have a stick-to-it attitude. They learn to overcome obstacles rather than give up. 
• Growth: Successful adults see constructive criticism as needed for growth rather than experiencing it as an attack. They believe in trial and error and relish and respond to feedback.  
• Respect: Adults who succeed are genuine collaborators. They listen, observe, and then respectfully share their own views and experiences. They do not dominate or diminish others. 
• Collaboration: Adults thrive when they can harness pooled intelligence, meaning they use collaborative thought to solve problems. They harness complementary skill-sets to generate a shared positive outcome. They listen to people with lived experience who are closest to the problem because they know they can shape the most effective solutions. 
• Diversity: Adults poised to make a difference honor diverse thought. They recognize they will grow best when exposed to people from varied backgrounds and experiences.
• ‍Resilient: The 35-year-olds who thrive will be resilient. We can’t entirely protect people we love from life’s curveballs. But we can prepare them to recover and gain strength and wisdom from their experiences. 

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This piece is adapted from Congrats You’re having a Teen! Strengthen Your Family and Raise a Good person by Dr. Ken Ginsburg.

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