Helping teens to develop and utilize intuition

Michael Riera, PhD Educator & Author, shares advice for parents on how they can help teach their teenage child how to develop and utilize their intuition
How To Help Teenagers Develop and Utilize Intuition
KidsInTheHouse the Ultimate Parenting Resource
Kids in the House Tour

Helping teens to develop and utilize intuition

Comment
85
Like
85
Transcription: 
One of the greatest tools that kids have that parents underestimate is their intuition. Because their intuition is really coming from who they are as a person and their family values. So one of the things that I think parents can make mistake is trying to give advice to kids in every situation in the world. We’re trying to come up with all sorts of rules that cover everything in the world and trust me, teenagers are the most creative beings on the planet. And you can come up with a 120 rules – they’ll come up with an exception to it. So it’s better off to focus on that intuition. Encourage them when they get in difficult situations to pause, to check in with themselves, “What’s the right thing to do here?” “What feels right to me?” “Let me see if I can sort my way through this?” And they have experiences in their life of intuition all the time that we can draw on, from the football player who gets the kickoff and is returning it and, “How did you know where to run?” “I just knew to run that way.” Or the guitar player that’s playing and all of a sudden switches chords in the middle of it and it’s the perfect switch, the transition, but you ask them how they knew and they, “I don’t know. It just felt right.” We want kids to recognize that feeling in themselves, so that when they get under stress, you know, “Check in with that part of you rather than look to everyone on the outside, look internally. If you can recognize that part, it’s usually going to be right and lead you in the good direction.” And what happens when you do this is kids will come back to you and report successful moments when they checked in with themselves and made the right decision. And each time they tell you, it’s like they’re turning the volume up, it’s like they’re turning the volume up on that knob, because they all have intuition. Our job is just to help them learn to turn the volume up whenever they need it.

Michael Riera, PhD Educator & Author, shares advice for parents on how they can help teach their teenage child how to develop and utilize their intuition

Transcript

Expert Bio

More from Expert

Michael Riera, PhD

Head Of School, Brentwood School

Michael Riera, PhD, Educator, Author, Media Personality, and Speaker. Michael Riera is the Head of School at the Brentwood School, best-selling author, award-winning columnist, educator, television commentator, and national speaker on issues of children, adolescents, families, and parenting. Mike is the author of Right From Wrong: instilling a Sense of integrity in Our Children, Field Guide to the American Teenager, Uncommon Sense For Parents With Teenagers, and Surviving High School. His most recent book, Staying Connected To Your Teenager, was launched with three appearances on Oprah! For eight years he was the Family Consultant for CBS The Saturday Morning Early Show and also hosted an award winning television show on the Oxygen Network, Life in Progress, as well as his own daily radio show, Family Talk with Dr. Mike. Mike has worked in schools for over 20 years as a head of school, counselor, dean of students, teacher and consultant. 

More Parenting Videos from Michael Riera, PhD >
Enter your email to
download & subscribe
to our newsletter