Self-Confidence - A Personal Achievement Remembered

I think of myself as a self-confident person, probably because every now and then I try something audacious, work hard, and actually make it happen. I sometimes wonder where this strength comes from - what helped form it.

Meredith Bell once posted a video on her blog, Your Voice of Encouragement, in which she suggests that writing down your Top 50 personal achievements in a "Victory Log" can help boost your self-esteem. Not that I feel I need more work in this area. But I've been interested in the exercise, because my previous attempts to list my personal achievements had never exceeded 20 items. So, curious about what the other 30 might be, I've been letting my brain wander in search of so-called "lesser" achievements.

This morning, a memory popped into my head.

When I was nine years old my family made a road trip to McGill, Nevada to visit my grandparents on my mother's side. My grandfather was a powerful authority figure. Head of a family of 16 children, he was a leader in that Mormon community. One day he and I were walking down the main street of town, and I asked him, "Grandpa, who made this town?"

"God made this town."

It wasn't the answer I was looking for. "What do you mean?"

"God created all that is. Everything in the universe."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

I pointed to the sky. "Did he create that cloud?"

"Everything, son. He created everything."

"The sun and the moon?"

"Yes."

"That saloon?"

"Yes."

My little nine-year-old brain questioned that. That didn't seem right. Why would God create a saloon? He may have created the sun and the moon, but surely, I thought, people created some of the things in the world. "Did he create our car?"

"Yes, God created the car. All the cars in the world. He created everything."

I decided not to pursue the matter with more questions. I sensed that my grandfather meant well and wanted to reinforce my faith, but I knew he would just continue to insist that God made everything that ever was, is, or every would be, and that was that.

But in my heart, I didn't believe that was the way things were. And from that moment on, I saw my grandfather as a fallible person. I concluded that I had to trust my own judgment on my emerging journey towards figuring things out.

That incident may seem trivial to you, but it was, in retrospect, momentous to me. And I haven't thought about it until today, nearly 60 years later. And I have to say, it's definitely on my Top 50 list of personal achievements.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from fotolia.com)

When Wisdom Isn't Enough - The Hard Work of Self-Improvement

Do you seek the kind of wisdom you find in that rare article, video or book - the kind that stimulates your mind and touches your heart - the kind that can change your life?

The fact that you're here reading this post on this blog indicates that you're a life-long learner, a person who is open to growing stronger as a person.

But I have a question for you...

When you feel inspired and motivated, is this enough for you? Or are you also interested in changing the way you act?

Because learning something important to you - even understanding it and agreeing with it - isn't the same thing as applying that knowledge in your life.

Knowing is not the same as doing.

Knowledge is good. It can help you make decisions. Even better, it can also lead to changing your behavior patterns, so you don't have to consciously figure out what to do. You can just do the right thing automatically.

But going from insight to action takes work, whether the action flows from a conscious decision or from an established behavior pattern.

So what do you want to do with the wisdom? Will you be happy to simply integrate it into your mind?

If you want to manifest the wisdom in your behavior, then here's what you'll need to do...

1. Consider what the wisdom teaches you.
2. Focus - Decide how you want to apply it in your life.
3. Action - Implement your plan.
4. Reflection - Think about what you did. Learn from your successes and mistakes.
5. Repeat this sequence again and again until your actions become habitual.

In life, when you're involved in everyday work and relationships, you usually don't have time to think things through. You just do what you usually do, the way you usually do it - out of habit. If you want to be effective in your relationships and your work, you need habits - behavior patterns - that work.

Unfortunately, most of us are a unique mixture of strengths and weaknesses. A lot of people take the attitude, "I am what I am," content to muddle through with the habits they acquired over a lifetime.

Other people get frustrated when things don't go well and are willing to change to get better results.

But change doesn't automatically come with a sincere desire to change. Wisdom may be the first step, but it isn't enough. Motivation and inspiration may help move you forward, but they aren't enough either. You gotta do the reps.

To improve a serve in tennis, a player will have to repeat the new technique hundreds of times. Regardless of the sport, all players understand that they need to "do the reps." A quarterback has to throw countless footballs to receivers racing down the field. A swimmer has to swim countless laps, performing the stroke the way the coach explained it. And not just reps in practice. Reps in real, competitive situations. Likewise, if you want to change a behavior pattern, you'll need to repeat the action many, many times in your life.

Because for an action to become habitual, you have to rewire you brain. Each repetition stimulates the brain cells to grow tiny filaments (called dendrites) until they connect with all the brain cells involved in the action. When all the cells are interconnected, the circuit is complete. And an action that used to require concentration now has the wiring to make it super-efficient and automatic.

Mental rehearsal can help speed the process, and it helps to observe others doing the action right. But you can't ingrain a new way of doing things sitting on the bench. You have to get into the game and apply what you know in the real world.

You gotta do the reps.

And if you do, the wiring for the old way of doing things will still be in your head; but the new wiring will be more efficient, more effective and more satisfying. So you'll do it the new way instead. It will be as if you built a new superhighway in your brain. You'll automatically use it instead, and the clunky old country road you used to take will fall into disuse.

It helps to have coaching, encouragement and accountability. But in the end, changing behavior involves a lot of work. Basically it's simple. You figure out what you should be doing, and then you actually do it - over and over again until you rewire your brain and the new pattern becomes a habit.

I can still hear the motivational speaker saying, "You really gotta wanna." And the high school coach who said, "Do you really want it, kid? You gotta want it bad."

So...how important is the wisdom to you? Will you do the work to manifest it in your life?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

A Pleasant Fantasy - Everyone on Earth Becomes an Effective Listener

Today I did something I've never done before. I imagined what the world would be like if every person on Earth was a highly skilled listener.

Bringing that image into focus wasn't easy.

I'm a trained listener myself, and I've read all the best books about listening. For over 25 years, I've designed assessments for listening skills, and I've created and conducted training courses on listening. I've written articles on listening, including these posts:

The Top 5 Personal Strengths that Support Effective Listening

The Real Secret of Mark Goulston's Book, "Just Listen"

Why Listening Is the Master Skill

Listening - The No. 1 People Skill

I've invested a generous chunk of my life trying to help people improve their listening skills, but I had never imagined what it would be like if I (and others who do what I do) actually succeeded - if everyone in the world took all this writing and teaching seriously.

People would...

• Pay attention to each other
• Invest more in face-to-face conversations...and less in social media
• Stop interrupting each other
• Show more interest in what others have to say
• Check to be sure they "get the message" right
• Learn more from each other
• Resolve conflicts more often

The world would be a less primitive place. There would be more understanding and appreciation - and less resentment.

As I continued my day-dream, I couldn't imagine any downsides. Such as, if everyone were great listeners, would people express themselves less? Would they become more passive? I don't think so. I don't think there would be any downsides to a listening revolution.

Actually, this break from reality refreshed my mind and boosted my sense of optimism for helping people improve their listening skills. From time to time I do meet a really good listener, and it's such a joy to talk to that person.

And so back to work. These days an important part of what I'm doing is to help parents build a solid bridge of communication between them and their teenager, which is the essential foundation for maintaining a loving relationship and helping a teen grow up to be a happy, successful adult.

I let my imagination play with that image, and it makes my work easier.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

The Magical Moment in the Life of a Teenager

What's the most high-impact event in the life of a teenager - the one that changes everything? Well, it's not the party celebrating the 13th birthday. Or the first date, although that's the perspective of many young people.

No, the magical moment in the life of a teenager happens when a caring adult gives the young person a "heads up" about the daunting changes and challenges he or she is about to experience throughout adolescence, along with the consequences of making wrong choices.

I hasten to add that for most teenagers, this magical moment never happens.

In my research about the teen years, only one adult has told me he had a legitimate "heads up" conversation when he was young. Most of the people I interviewed were told nothing when they were teens - not even about sex. I've written before about why adults have a hard time having these talks with teens. The magnitude of this lost opportunity is mind-boggling.

That's why I wrote the books, Conversations with the Wise Aunt (for girls) and Conversations with the Wise Uncle (for boys) - to fill that gap, to tell young people things they need to be told.

The books tell the story of a relationship between a young person and a caring adult who mentors the child during the teen years. The wisdom that is shared is life-changing, the kind that can give a teenager a huge edge as he or she deals with the challenges of the teen years and prepares for adult life.

A typical question: At what age should you give your child the book?

The answer is that if your child has reached puberty, he or she will better appreciate the significance of the conversations. And if your teen experiences the book before high school, the wisdom can help him or her make good choices when challenged by the youth culture and peer pressure.

These insights are so important that they can give your child a major advantage, regardless of age.  I believe the most effective approach is for you to read the book first to get ideas for one-on-one talks with your teenager. Once familiar with what it says, you can say something like, "I found this amazing book for teens. It's a story about a boy's (or girl's) teen years, and it contains a lot of practical wisdom, things most kids never hear about. I wish I'd been able to give you a copy a few years ago, but it wasn't available then. I'd like you to have it anyway."

Then, after both of you have read the book, you can talk about how the insights can make a difference in your teen's life.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Habit, Emotion, and Decision-making - 3 Paths to Action

I am biased towards action.

I have a PhD and 95% of what I know today I learned on my own after earning that degree. So seemingly my head is full of knowledge. Some people have used the word "wisdom," and that's probably true, too. But none of this wonderful knowledge ingrained in my prefrontal cortex is worth anything unless it leads to action. In the end, what matters is not what I think about something, but what I do about it. Reflect while there's still time, but what gets results is action.

There are three ways to get to action...

One is habit, AKA routines, skills, and behavior patterns. Habits are formed when an action is repeated so many times that brain cell dendrites involved in the action have grown together to form physical wiring in the brain. You repeat an action - any action - and the dendrites start growing. After many repetitions, your brain literally wires itself to execute the action. The physical network of brain cells causes the action to happen quickly and automatically, without the need for conscious thought.

Habit-formation is a survival mechanism. After the brain cells that fired together are wired together, the connections are permanent. No delete key. Of course there are good habits and bad habits, but the brain doesn't know the difference. For good, useful habits, this is a good thing. How far would you get if you had to wake up every morning and have to figure out what to do all over again? Only a habit-forming species can survive.

A second way of getting to action is to react emotionally. It may not be what you usually do, and you don't take the time to think it through. You just let your emotions trigger your actions. Emotions like anger, pain, fear, worry, panic, excitement, and lust.

A habit typically engages many areas of the brain. In a given situation, your perceptions may excite certain memories, thoughts or feelings, which automatically trigger certain actions. But an emotional reaction involves mostly the amygdala, which is located in the inner "mammalian" part of the brain. When you find yourself in an unexpected situation, if you react emotionally and act impulsively, conscious thought will play little or no part in the action.

The third way of getting to action is conscious decision-making. Faced with the need to take action, you ask yourself, "What's the best way to handle this?" The process is called "critical thinking." Instead of doing what you always do, you consider whether you should do something else. You think of the alternatives and imagine what's possible. You visualize cause and effect. You compare costs, risks and benefits. You weigh advantages and disadvantages. You consider the opinions of others. And you check your gut - whether a course of action feels like the right thing to do. And then you take action.

Conscious decision-making involves the prefrontal cortex, which is the large area behind the forehead that facilitates comprehension, imagination, analysis, evaluation, problem solving, decision-making, planning and organization. This kind of decision can override habit, and it can override an emotional reaction. In other words, it can save you from the effects of a bad habit and the disastrous results of an impulsive action.

But for the conscious decision to be a robust thought process, a person needs strong critical thinking skills. In other words, the prefrontal cortex needs to be well-wired.

What most people don't know is that this wiring happens mostly during the development of the prefrontal cortex in adolescence, roughly from age 12 to 24. At puberty this area of the thinking brain "blossoms" with many times more dendrites than will ever be needed. If the young person uses the prefrontal cortex a lot during that period, the brain cells that fire together will wire together. After this period, all the unused dendrites will be absorbed by the body. Only the often-used, now wired -up connections remain - an individual's foundation for critical thinking. Use it or lose it - permanently. Later in life, an adult can't build a large intellect on a small foundation.

It's a huge challenge for a teenager, but it's a momentous opportunity. Will the teen overcome habit and emotions to think things through often enough to wire the prefrontal cortex? Many do. These are the people who become adults with "good minds" and "great minds," who create happy lives and successful careers.

At the other end of the spectrum are people whose lives are driven by emotion and habit - folks who have a hard time connecting the dots and thinking things through. They may be good people, but they make a lot of poor choices. They may not have the brain power to get a better job, and they may have a hard time dealing with life's challenges. At the extreme are cruel and abusive people. Criminals. Fools. Maybe you've noticed some of these people along your life journey.

Diversity is important; it takes all kinds of minds to do all the jobs that make the world work. But there's too much hatred and ignorance in the world. We need to grow more adults who think before they act. Yes, if we could do that, the world would be a better place.

I think of the project as "creating better adults." But such an effort has to start with teenagers. More adults need to do a good job of getting teens to use their prefrontal cortex - so that young people wire their prefrontal cortex while the window of development is still open. Parents, teachers, coaches and mentors - help these kids make better decisions during the wild ride of adolescence, while building a robust foundation for learning and critical thinking as an adult.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Teen Suicide - What's to Blame?

Johann Eyfells, portrait by Kristin Eyfells

Not long ago I was sitting at a table drinking coffee and talking with Johann Eyfells, the world-famous Icelandic sculptor. At some point, I used the word "luck."

He quickly seized on the word. "Luck. What is luck?" From a man who has been on the planet 20 years longer than I have and who has energetically read and thought and taught and created that entire time, I knew this was not a question that comes from ignorance. He wanted to engage me at a deep philosophical level. I think he wanted to test me.

"I think luck is just a word we use when something happens to us that isn't a consequence of our action or failure to act. If the result is beneficial, we say we've been lucky." As an example, I told him about my trip to our meeting. On the way, a speeding car passed me. The driver probably wasn't paying attention to what he was doing because he cut back into my lane too quickly, and he almost hit me. I told Johann that I considered myself lucky because he was driving carelessly and could have turned even sooner, causing an accident. "I was lucky that he didn't," I said.

"So luck is just a way of talking about events that affect us but are beyond our control." He seemed satisfied with that, and we continued talking. I love these challenging conversations.

But my mind took off in a different direction. I imagined a father sitting on a couch, starring at the opposite wall and seeing nothing. His daughter had committed suicide that morning, the authorities had just left the house, and he was sitting quietly, numb. After a while, he went to his daughter's room. The bed was unmade, and it seemed impossible to him that his daughter would never return to her room again. He was on the front end of grieving and was far, far from acceptance.

He, too, was thinking about luck. He thought, how unlucky can a man be? He hadn't seen this coming. It's the worst thing that can happen to a father. Bad luck of monumental proportions. Then he thought, Maybe it wasn't bad luck. Maybe I'm partially responsible....

My imagination goes wild sometimes. I was losing track of this precious opportunity to talk with Eyfells, so I put the image out of my mind.

But days later an article in the paper on teen suicide in Russia rekindled these thoughts. Apparently only two other countries (Belarus and Kazakhstan) have a higher teen suicide rate than Russia - three times higher than that of the U.S. According to the author, Will Englund, at a time when young people need to seek their own identity and work towards independence, suicide can be the result of parents demanding unquestioned obedience and social conformity. And in Russia there's a cultural stigma about seeking help outside the home. "Suicide is an attempt to seek relief from all that, by taking charge." Russian psychiatrist Anatoly Severny: "At home, you order, you enforce, you punish your kids instead of trying to understand them."

In the U.S., suicide is the third leading cause of death for teenagers. On average, about five teens commit suicide every day. More girls than boys attempt suicide, but more boys than girls complete the act successfully. This is a shocking and tragic statistic, but teen suicide is so common that it is rarely reported in the news media.

So, was the father in my imagination unlucky? Or was there something he could have done about it?

Teens aren't famous for using good judgment. They're famous for acting based on emotion and impulse. The part of their brain that handles comprehension, judgment and decision-making is "under construction," so they don't always think before they act. And it's hard for them to foresee consequences.

So imagine that this father's daughter wasn't popular at school. Maybe she suffered from low self-esteem, and her attempts to fit in hadn't been successful. Her moodiness and poor performance in class may have drawn criticism from her parents. She resented the restrictions her parents placed on her, and she felt they didn't understand what she was going through. She believed that neither her school-mates nor her own family members treated her right. She had been bullied at school. She couldn't imagine a time in the future when people would respect her and like her. She felt her life was miserable and intolerable and there was no one she could talk to about it. If she attempted suicide, it would get their attention. It would teach them a lesson.

Kids at that age can have a hard time relating cause and effect. They may have a poor understanding of what death is. To them, suicide may be an act of rebellion or a way to seek relief. They may not fully comprehend the finality of death.

So what could my imaginary father have done to prevent this worst-case scenario? The answer is simple...

• Unconditional love
• Reinforcing self-esteem
• Strong communication skills
• Support and guidance

The "big four," in my view. But doing these things well isn't so easy. Adolescence is a perilous time of life, and it takes work to help a child prepare for a happy, successful life as an adult.

It's what I write about.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Cinnamon, Peer Pressure and Low Self-Esteem - Nasty Brew for Teens

"The Cinnamon Challenge." Young teens dare each other to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon in less than a minute without water. Many teens see it as a popular way to have a lot of fun. Part of the excitement is to make a video of yourself doing it and post it on YouTube. I checked and found this video, viewed over 6 million times. Pay close attention and you'll see the camera recorded two really cute animals. One of them clearly has more common sense than the other....



It's not only hard to do, but apparently dangerous. One teen, Dejah Reed, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, reported that she almost died from the experience. The powder got into her lungs and her right lung collapsed. She couldn't breathe and her father rushed her to the hospital, where she stayed for four days. It caused a lung infection and she had trouble breathing normally after she left the hospital.

My wife: "Why would anyone do anything so stupid?"

I had a ready answer: "Honey, these are teenagers. It's not so easy for them to analyze the consequences before they act because their prefrontal cortex is under construction. So they do silly things for no good reason. Plus, many of them are being dared to do it. They're vulnerable to peer pressure."

I once knew an adolescent who wanted to demonstrate how cool and smart he was. So he yanked his pants down, pulled out a cigarette lighter and ignited the jet stream as he passed gas. No, we didn't have to take him to the hospital. The trick worked. But even though some of his friends were awed by this act of daring, I remained unconvinced that he was either cool or smart.

And so it goes.

Why are teenagers so desperate to be considered cool by other kids? Why are they so vulnerable to peer pressure that they tattoo and pierce their bodies, have sex with people they don't like, and spend hours every day texting each other?

When I was in high school I remember a couple of really smart, confident guys. Even though I made straight A's, I knew these guys were a lot smarter than I was. One of them achieved a maximum score of 1600 on the SAT. He was a good-looking, low-key, confident and considerate fellow. But he was definitely not a member of the cool crowd, and I knew he absolutely didn't care. I admired that.

He would have felt sorry for anyone who wanted to make a video record of himself trying to eat a spoonful of cinnamon.

Why are some kids so self-assured, and others so desperate for the approval of others?

The answer is that some kids don't have strong self-esteem. This is one of the perils of being young. They haven't had much time or opportunity to do things that prove they are capable and worthy individuals. Also, the young lack knowledge and experience, so they make a lot of mistakes. So they may crave respect and friendship, but deep down they doubt that they are worthy of it.

So in hopes of being accepted by kids they think are cool, they desperately conform to whatever is expected of them.

If you want to prepare a child for the gauntlet of adolescence, help build his or her self-esteem. I'm not talking about praising every little thing the child does. This misguided tactic doesn't work because the child isn't stupid. He quickly figures out that the praise has no credibility or value because it's awarded regardless of whether the child put forth a strong effort.

Self-esteem can only be earned. First, the child accomplishes something at his or her own level. Next, the child acknowledges the value of the achievement. Adults can help by noticing and by confirming the achievement with feedback.

Imagine a scenario in which an adult family member describes a situation to a child, maybe something that's been in the news. He then asks the child what he thinks about it. The adult listens and encourages the child to continue, asking open-ended questions. He shares his own thoughts without trying to contradict what the child has said. He asks the child what he thinks of that. He then concludes by saying something like, "You know, I really like talking to you. You have some very interesting ideas."

I know this kind of conversation between adult and child is relatively rare in our culture. But if adults consciously tried to affirm kids' capabilities and worth, maybe by the time puberty arrived they would feel a strong sense of self, a liking for who they are.

And when their teenage peers encouraged them to do stupid things, they would feel comfortable not going along with it.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength .

Parents of Teens - Their Fondest Wish

I’m sure many parents of teens dream of someday saying about their grown child: “He’s doing so well. He’s a really, really smart guy.” (Or gal...)

And they hope their grown child says about them, “I had such great parents. They helped me so much.”

Because this would mean that all their love, support and sacrifices paid off.

As a writer about parenting, I sometimes think about my own parents. I have many fond memories about my childhood, as weird as it was. My parents loved me. I always knew that. They never abused me in any way. And they cared about my success. Without a doubt, they were good parents. I think they were always trying to do the best they could.

But to be honest, I wouldn’t say they were great parents. They never thought about parenting as such and never considered learning to be better parents. They weren’t great communicators. Neither of them were college graduates, and neither had above-average minds. My mother was a high school dropout.

So even though I loved them, they weren’t my role models. I never thought I wanted to be like my mom or my dad. I grew up the oldest child in a family of eight children, and my parents were usually busy looking after my younger siblings. We lived a lower-middle-class lifestyle, and my parents couldn’t afford to send any of us to college. They didn’t see that as their responsibility, and they made no plans to help us with higher education. Only one of my sisters and I graduated from college.

And I have no memory that they passed along any wisdom or life skills of any kind. After I left home, I quickly realized that I had a lot of catching up to do. And now, half a century later, I still find myself learning things that I could have learned when I was a teenager. The best thing I got from my dad was a love of sports, which was a great legacy. From my mom, I got the freedom to go where I wanted to go and do what I wanted to do whenever I wanted to do it. Sometimes that freedom nearly landed me in serious trouble, but I was lucky. And that freedom helped shape my self-confidence, independence and creativity.

So even though I had good parents and I always loved them and they always loved me, I could never say, “I had such great parents. They helped me so much.”

But that is one of the fondest wishes of many parents of teens - that years later their grown child will have these thoughts.

This is why I write. I write for the parents who care enough to do the work to be the best parents they can be for their teens.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from Fotolia.com)

An Idea Whose Time Has Come - Teenagers Working on Personal Development

For over 30 years my work has been focused on adult personal development - personal strengths and people skills. My company, Performance Support Systems, has published some award-winning internationally recognized assessment and development systems, all brain and behavior-based. For nearly 20 years our flagship product has been 20/20 Insight, a flexible online platform for administering customized feedback surveys. During that time it has benefited millions of people worldwide - and not just leader-managers - all the people who work around them.

And then one day, not long ago, it dawned on me.

All these people we've been helping have been playing catch-up. They were working on areas of individual behavior and performance that they should have learned a long time ago. They were busy replacing old, dysfunctional habits with new, best practices.

Where did these bad interpersonal behavior patterns come from? They certainly weren't taught them in school. No, they learned them from their families and on the street. They learned how to be and how to act and how to communicate without even knowing they were learning it. Whatever seemed to work.

And then, decades later, they discovered that many of these ways of dealing with people were making relationships difficult. They were causing problems and holding themselves back.

That's why most people end up using our services, to do the hard work of changing a hurtful behavior pattern. The old way isn't working anymore. It's causing too much pain.

So yes, it dawned on me. All these people were learning skills and strengths they should have acquired when they were young. But when they were in high school and college, these areas of ability weren't addressed. And none of the adults around them, including their parents, could guide these young people or even knew that they needed guidance.

It dawned on me that what we were helping adults learn with ProStar Coach should be made available to teenagers. Yes, no one thought about it back then, and no one is thinking about it now. No one except me and my colleagues who work with me on ProStar Coach.

It's an idea whose time has come: Teenagers need to work on personal development. They need to start now to get strong as individuals so they don't have to play catch-up later. So they don't have to experience the pain of ineffectiveness in their work and personal relationships, and then desperately try to go against the grain of lifelong habits to rewire themselves for core skills and strengths as adults.

I know, I know. This idea is really outside the box. It's so different that you're probably thinking things like: "Most teenagers won't make the effort. As soon as they hear about it they'll laugh and call it bullshit."

My answer to that is that I expect the vast majority of teens to think this way. That's what most of them have been saying about mainstream courses for over a century - about subjects like science, math and English.

You can't make kids learn. They only learn what they choose to learn. I know that.

So I'm not interested in the kids who blow off their education. I can't help them. I'm really only interested in the 15-20% of teenagers who are already internally motivated to learn.

And I mean I'm really interested. It's my next big shot at making a difference. At my age, maybe it's my last big shot. I want to help teenagers work on personal development.

Initially, I'll communicate this idea to caring parents of teens. Through them, I'll build a bridge of communication to the teens themselves.

If you're interested, please visit my new blog: Strong for Parenting. I'm known there as the "Teen Brain Guy." The teen brain - that's my focus. As for the myriad of other teen-related issues, I plan to help parents gain access to all the excellent experts out there who address the more traditional aspects of parenting teens.

I also invite you to check out my two new books for young teens - mostly middle-school kids who are beginning the perilous and momentous 12-year journey called adolescence.

Conversations with the Wise Aunt and Conversations with the Wise Uncle.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from istockfoto.com)