10 Important and Powerful Concepts In Teen Life Coaching
Teen Life Coaching is one of the most rewarding areas professional coaches choose as a specialty niche. To influence teens and children supporting their growth into maturity is an exceptional opportunity.
Our childhood experiences profoundly affect our level of confidence and self-esteem. While both confidence and self-esteem can improve as we age, the chances of a child growing into a confident adult are significantly increased, if adults engage in practices that encourage and support youth throughout their childhood and teen years.
Teen Life Coaching involves several of the following principles:
1. As a Teen Life Coach, it is important that we always show a deep level of caring for our teen clients. We support our clients however they come to us, because in Teen Life Coaching we believe our clients come to us whole and complete. The Life Coach assists clients to achieve their personal goals, dreams, and desires.
2. In Teen Life Coaching it is critical to allow your teen clients to make their choices and decisions. The Teen Life Coach does not impose his or her personal ideas on their clients. Think of it this way, if you take the power position of another parent or teacher how do you create real rapport with your client. In the end, your client would still be seeking your approval just like with other adults.
3. Teen clients achieve their success by setting their goals. Teenagers feel empowered when they are allowed to do this. Our job in Teen Life Coaching is to help clients articulate for themselves what those goals are and to hold the clients accountable, for achieving their goals. The Life Coach makes no judgment about goals chosen. If a client is not successful in reaching a goal, the Life Coach will support the client through that experience by asking questions. These questions are designed to help the client clarify for themselves a way they can reach the target. Then, the Life Coach will guide the client through the process of re-framing or even replacing the goal with a goal that more clearly defines what the client wants to achieve.
4. In Teen Life Coaching we ask our clients specific questions that are designed to help the client look within, to discover those things the client is passionate about. Additionally, if a client is struggling to achieve a goal the Life Coach can facilitate the client to find out for themselves solutions to whatever might be blocking the client from successfully achieving their goal. By their very nature, teens struggle with articulating their thoughts; in part because of a lack of experience. The more freely a teen can speak without judgment, the better they feel about themselves and the easier they will find it to articulate a goal, dream or desire.
5. Teen Life Coaches encourage their clients every step of the way. So in Teen Life Coaching we want to point out the successful steps a client has taken on their journey to achieving a goal. Moreover, if a client is feeling discouraged, the Teen Coach encourages them by reminding them of how far they have come in a short period. Teens can feel discouraged very quickly; thus, a supportive word from their Life Coach can go far in restoring a teen’s resolve.
6. In Life Coaching, one of our most important responsibilities is to hold our clients accountable. During each coaching session, the Life Coach will have the client not only name one goal but also state the focus step(s) the client will take between coaching sessions, to move closer to their goal. Furthermore, the Life Coach will have the client state very specifically “when” they will engage in these focus steps (for example: “What day(s)?” “What time?” “How often?”) Teens, in particular, can “dream big”. The Life Coach guides their clients to “pare down” their goal, dream or desire into manageable pieces which significantly increases the client’s chances of success.
Just like the saying “How do you eat an Elephant?” “One bite at a time.”
7. In Teen Life Coaching we would never judge our clients. Further, a Teen Life Coach never judges a goal nor does a Coach judge the lack of achievement of a goal. Even if the Coach knows the goal a client has set may be difficult or even impossible to achieve, the Life Coach must allow the client to find that out for themselves. In doing so, the client will be better able to set a more realistic goal. Teens feel they are judged more than most adults. Teens are also easily discouraged and when discouraged very easily get down on themselves. The lack of judgment during Teen Life Coaching will provide much-needed support to the client, especially a teenager, and will help strengthen the client’s self-esteem.
8. Teen Life Coaches know that their clients have the key to their success. Clients know what they want. This applies to a teen client every bit as much as an adult. So with Teen Life Coaching the coach just guides their client, often by asking specific questions towards the client’s quest to achieve a goal. When a Teen Life Coach asks the right questions, the client can frame their responses and thereby more quickly discover and articulate what they want to achieve. Articulating for themselves boosts client self-esteem, and never more so than when a client creates their solutions.
9. Life Coaches remain objective. Clients, whether teen or adult may inadvertently slip into a conversation that lends itself more to advice giving or even therapy. This is never our role in Teen Life Coaching. If a client begins to drift into this type of dialogue with their coach, the Life Coach gently maneuvers the client back to the work that needs to be done in that coaching session. The client will take their clues from the direction the Life Coach takes in the coaching conversation.
10. Life Coaches give each client their full attention during a coaching session. While it is human nature to our minds drift, one way the coach can avoid this is to remain curious about what their client is saying and to be engaged in wanting to get to know more about their client.
In Teen Life Coaching we do not judge any statement the client makes or worse, judge the client him or herself. If a client makes a statement that seems absurd to the Life Coach, the Coach can avoid a negative personal response by being curious. Rather than the Life Coach saying to him or herself, “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard!” the coach might substitute “I wonder why this client believes that to be the case?” In turn, this will cause the Teen Life Coach to ask additional questions of the client, to get more information.
In this way in Teen Life Coaching we take a potential negative (judgment) and converted it into a positive (question). In so doing, the Coach encourages the self-confidence of their client and helps improve the client’s self-esteem, by the Life Coach remaining interested and focused on the conversation. This encourages and supports the client, which in turn can only serve the client well in achieving their goals.
Children are our future and coaches that choose to specialize in Teen Life Coaching take on an enormous responsibility and an incredibly rewarding career path. If you are a coach or considering a career as a professional coach, you may want to consider Teen Life Coaching as your focus.