I want to tell you about a great new resource for parents who may have lost a little control over their teenagers. I actually have personal experience with an earlier product by a knowledgeable guy named Josh Shipp.
Josh is an author, global youth empowerment expert, and acclaimed speaker. He has vast experience dealing with youth bullying, drugs, responsibility-challenging and even teen sex…helping teenagers who may be dealing with those tough issues during difficult periods of their lives. I believe Josh has even been referred to as “The Teen Whisperer”! I like that!
My son turned 22 years old (which makes me feel REALLY old!) this past weekend. He has had his struggles with many common grade school troubles years ago. Back then I was worried and didn’t know what to do and I came across a program by a young guy, Josh Shipp, who went through tough times himself and decided to spend his life helping other teens.
Now, this was nearly 10 years ago so I may be mistaken about some of the details, but you’ll get the idea. The program I had ordered for my son was a DVD delivered in a small box. There was a note in there for the parent to leave the box for their teenager to find and not say anything. Honestly, I don’t remember if I watched or listened to the whole thing after he finished it, but a couple days later, my son came up to me out of the blue, gave me a hug and just said “Thanks, Dad.” We didn’t talk any more about it, but it helped my son feel better right then.
In Josh’s new book “The Grown-Up’s Guide to Teenage Humans” Josh talks about setting up house rules to get the pressure (and high-emotion, knee-jerk threats at the kids) off of the parents and the responsibility back on the kids. As he says, “House rules are effective because they take the pressure and emotion out of following through on logical consequences. Since both you and your teen agree to the terms ahead of time, they know they have no one to blame but themselves if they screw up.”
The house rules become a contract between the child and parents and everything is written during a time of “calm peace”. The document clearly states what is agreed on and if that is violated, the consequences are also clearly stated.
Let’s say you and your child set a house rule and agree they must be home by 10 pm on weeknights. If they come home after that, they agreed ahead of time to lose car driving privileges for a week. So, in this case, they have no choice but to go along with the lost privilege because they agreed on it before.
After all, teenagers are nearly adults themselves, so it makes sense that they should be taught about keeping their word and creating contracts. Heck, adults have to agree to contracts every day…from signing an automobile service agreement to a loan for a new house.
This is only a small part of what Josh talks about in his book. Having experienced his material personally years ago, I am a big supporter of his knowledge and advice!
You can purchase the new book or download a free chapter of it by going here: http://joshshipp.com/book/
Note: I have not received any free product or pay for writing this…Josh’s material has helped my son through a difficult time in the past and I am freely supporting his new book.
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