Empowering Teens and Young Adults Archives

Rising Above ADHD Challenges: The Power of Parent-Mentor-Child Teamwork

Being a young adult with ADHD can be a challenging experience. However, with the right tools and support, you can help your child improve their focus and achieve their goals. One of the most effective ways to do this is by working as a team with a mentor and your child.

Mastering ADHD is all about developing specific skills and strategies that can help your child overcome their challenges. By working with a mentor, your child can learn how to better manage their symptoms and develop strategies for success.

The first step in this process is to find a qualified mentor who has experience working with children with ADHD. At World Wide Youth Mentoring, this is one of our specialties. It’s essential to find someone who your child can trust and build a strong rapport with. Our mentors provide your child with a safe and supportive online environment where they can explore their strengths and challenges.

Once you’ve begun our mentoring program, it’s time to start working as a team with your child. This involves sharing issues with your child’s mentor through emails. Allowing you child and mentor to set clear goals and expectations for themselves, and communicate regularly with you through emails and “Parent Time”. You can help your child by providing your mentor your observations of the effects the mentoring is having at home.

One of the most effective strategies for helping children with ADHD is to establish a routine. That is what your mentor will do guided by your child’s input on a way that works for them. This will be challenging and there will be many false starts. By keeping the lines of communication open with your mentor, you will help the mentee/mentor team know what works based on your observations.

Remember Pavlov! In some ways, all the false starts in the past may make our mentee’s parents respond to any of the “old routines” as a panic-inducing fear that this will not work. If we have our mentee doing 30 minutes of a routine, followed by a break and then another 5 minutes of a routine, we have built the framework for success. It will take a while. However, that success may still look to the parent as nothing has changed when seeing the 15 hours a day of video gaming continuing. (It used to be 16 hours 🙂

Communication with your mentor and asking what they are working on and how it is progressing can keep the Pavlovian pooch at bay.

Raising a child with ADHD can be a challenging experience. However, by working as a team with a mentor and your child, you can help your child develop the skills and strategies they need to succeed. By working as a team with your mentor through emails and Parent Time, you can help your child overcome their challenges and achieve their full potential. With consistent support and encouragement, your child will thrive and succeed in all areas of their life.

When you a ready to see if Mentoring Young Adults is the right step for you, click here.

Failure to Launch: Building Micro-Successes with a Mentor’s Help

by Ken Rabow

Many young people face the challenge of Failure to Launch. This is a phenomenon where a young person struggles to move forward in life, finding it difficult to transition into adulthood. This can have a significant impact on all areas of their lives, from school and work to self-care and communication. However, with the help of a mentor, a young person can learn how to overcome these challenges and build the will to succeed.

The first step in helping a young person overcome Failure to Launch is to understand the root causes of their struggles. These can include a lack of motivation, poor organizational skills, difficulty communicating, or simply feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of adulthood. Once these challenges are identified, a mentor can work with the young person to develop a plan for addressing them one at a time.

The key to success in this process is to focus on building micro-successes. These are small accomplishments that gradually build the young person’s confidence and sense of accomplishment. For example, if the young person is struggling with organization, the mentor may help them set a goal of cleaning on part of their room or organizing one section of their schoolwork. Once they achieve this goal, they will have a sense of accomplishment that can motivate them to take on bigger challenges.

As the young person builds these micro-successes, they will also build the will to succeed. This is the inner drive that pushes them to keep going, even when faced with obstacles and setbacks. By working with a mentor to build this will, the young person will become more resilient and better equipped to face the challenges of adulthood.

Of course, building micro-successes takes time and patience. It’s important to avoid overwhelming the young person with too many goals at once. Instead, the mentor focuses on one or two small goals at a time, building one success upon the next and celebrate each accomplishment along the way.

In conclusion, Failure to Launch can be a significant challenge for young people as they transition into adulthood. However, with the help of a mentor, they can learn to overcome these challenges and build the will to succeed. By focusing on building micro-successes one at a time, the young person can gradually build their confidence and sense of accomplishment. This slow, steady process will ultimately lead to success in all areas of their lives, from school and work to self-care and communication.

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COVID-19 MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT

Mental Health Support is sorely lacking these days for Millennials and Generation Z young adults (people in their teens, 20’s and early 30’s). For them, mental health issues pose a great challenge.

At MentoringYoungAdults.com we have been helping young adults with Mental Health issues since 2001 with issues such as: anxiety; depression; bi-polar disorder; schizophrenia; and situational related issues. Our success helping young adults comes from using a mentoring support system created by Ken Rabow.

In our regular mentoring work, many of our mentees talk about so many of their friends suffering from mental health issues with no one to talk to. With that in mind, we are now offering one of our greatest resources: Helena Mihelic-Rabow. A registered nurse with over 25 years experience in the mental health field as a psychiatric nurse.

Helena will be offering 30 minute and 60 minute consultations. She is here to help young adults suffering with mental health issues choose a path forward and provide a sympathetic ear.

Many young adults find that self-sabotage is a great challenge in dealing with their mental health issues. Our program can help diminish and eventually eliminate self-sabotage.

If you would like to take one our mental health consultations, click on the link below to book a time that is good for you.

Cost: $60 for 30 minutes. $100 for 60 minutes

Book 30 minute Consultation with Helena Mihelic-Rabow – Click Here

Book 60 minute Consultation with Helena Mihelic-Rabow – Click Here

A Life Coach’s Take on Nicole Arbour, Fat-Shaming and Bullying

A letter to an online bully:

Hello Nicole,

You are not alone. There are lots of people who look like you. Lots of people. When they see someone like me who is overweight, they make judgments. There is a word for that: bullying. When I am at my present weight (I have gained and lost Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body weight several times over during my 50 odd years) and go into a swanky coffee shop and order a low-fat chocolate, they always ask me, “Do you want whipped cream with that?”

Once I lose 20 more pounds, go to a coffee shop and ask for low-fat hot chocolate, they say, “You don’t want whipped cream with that?”

When I am at my perfect body weight (for me) they never ask me for whipped cream.
What do we learn from this? Nicole, you can’t begin to understand what it means to be someone who needs to protect themselves with a layer of fat to feel safe, or the joy comes from the forbidden fruit that is the cocoa bean, the white bread rush, or the sugar buzz.

For whatever reason, your clan chose to find solace in belittling others as a form of comfort. I did notice that you had $300 worth of cosmetic paint on your face. You seem to thing that artifice is art.
Here’s what I have to say to all those with a bad body image: look for real beauty and stop bullying.

A remedy to bullying
It is not in your body, which shall betray the best of us with time. Look for self love first, because a loving man or woman is always kind and inspires instead of ridicules. Seek out those who are kind and help inspire you to be your best, who challenge you in those moments of weakness when you feel the need to get the buzz that bad food gives you, and to forgive the skinny people who don’t understand. There are people out there who are in great shape who have kindness, who admit their struggles and don’t need to sensationalize by shaming others.

And to Nicole: yes, you seem smart. You have good comedic timing, but shame on you. Yes. You got fame (for a second). You got notoriety. But you have proven the thing that I try so hard to teach the Millennials I work with who feel there’s no point in working hard at school when you can get more famous being mean, stupid, or embarrassing in this world: that being a good person and living in the non-digital moment is what life is about. You have shown how bullying can travel. Look. I’m writing about you. Now, goodbye. Learn from Elwood P. Dowd, the character in Harvey. (It’s a black and white film… give it a try).

Bullying antidote: Kindess

“Years ago, my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be.’ — She always called me Elwood — ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.”

This article was published at Huffington Post on Sep 8, 2015

Looking for a mentor for young adults who can help with bullying? click here

Interested in training to mentor young adults dealing with bullying? Click here.

The Slacker’s Guide to Success – Step 12 – A Full Life

Helping Millenials Have A Full Life
Just imagine… A happy, successful, life where play-time is as fulfilling as work-time and learning-time. Relationships become opportunities for joy, sharing and lots of close, meaningful contact that is mutually satisfying.

But seriously, we’re talking about a full life for teens and young adults. Let’s face it, the teenage years are not easy and they’re not drama-free. Basically there’s lots in them that sucks.

Tell yourself: “You can have a full life that still sucks from time to time. You can have meltdowns and do some really dumb stuff. The difference is, unlike Bart with Rock Paper Scissors, you can learn from it all, if you choose to”.

To the parents: The best way to teach is by example. Try the following exercises and share the experience with your child. Wait for them to ask to try some of it on their own and if they don’t, find a challenging moment for them and when the dust settles, ask how mindfulness might have changed how they would have dealt with the situation.

Being mindful. We all have moments when we are at our best and nothing can throw us off. Sometimes it can feel like we are outside of ourselves watching the events take place and just knowing what the wise and just responses for anything that comes our way would be. That is being mindful. Then there are the times that we aren’t so mindful. Times when our antics get the ‘rents to ask us: whose kid are you anyways?!?

What follows is a way to get yourself to be present and aware in all circumstances so that on your worst day, you are making conscious choices that can lead to great moments of clarity. I have been teaching this to young adults for the past eleven years and it always has met with success. Just know that sometimes it takes a bit more time to take hold. Don’t give up. It really is worth it and if it was easy, everyone would do it.

It starts with quieting your mind at the beginning of a new day.
Take a few moments upon arising to breath in slowly and deeply, then let out the breath even more slowly. Try to focus, if you can, on the flow of your breath. Imagine letting go of any stress, tension or worries and breath in qualities such as calm, peacefulness or good health. Do this for a few minutes every day.
Taking a few moments to empty your mind of word “noise” can help you throughout the day perceive what is happening around you without your emotional filters getting in the way.

Repeat a meaningful phrase to yourself of something you wish to accomplish that day: i.e.
a) Today, I will focus on being present for all conversations that are important to me and I will be great at it!
b) Today, I am calm, centered and open to being my best.
c) Today, I will share my thoughts deeply, honestly and with kindness.
d) Today, I will be a team player, thinking about what will help us succeed.
e) Make up your own here _______________________________________

Now we shall bring this concept into our learning, work, play and relationships.

Being mindful in learning: It doesn’t matter if your are learning for school, work or a hobby. This is about seeing what learning style you are best at and how you learn. Use this awareness of your strengths to make your own successful learning methods.
a) Take a moment and look at what you need to accomplish today in your learning.
b) Break it down into sections and make a rough estimate of how much time is need for each part.
c) Figure out how much time is reasonable for you to prepare today, taking into account the best amount of time at one sitting for you to work and how much break time is reasonable.
d) Determine how you learn best. Are you visual (V), auditory (A) or kinesthetic (K). Figure out which is first, which is second and which is third. Adjust your learning so that you incorporate at least your two major learning styles in your work. For example if you are VAK, you might read the material, then repeat it aloud. If you are VKA, you might read it then write it in your own words (probably hand written would be best).
e) When you are engaged in learning something, be aware of where your attention is and when it drifts, gently return it to the subject at hand.

Being mindful in work:
There are constant opportunities at work to give more than what is requested of you. Each time you give a little more than what is asked of you from a caring, humble place, you set the forces of the laws of return in motion. The law of return states that: for every action, there is an equal or greater reaction. When you plant a seed and tend to it, you receive not just one seed back but a whole crop of whatever it was that you planted. If you are not rewarded when you have proven yourself, ask for that reward, if it is still not forthcoming, find some other employer who will appreciate your extra effort. Always give more than what is asked of you. You will get noticed for this and rewarded over time.

Being mindful in play.
There are so many aspects to being mindful at play. Not just in the details of the game but also in relating to the other players in the game. How do they present themselves? Will they be assets or liabilities? How are they when they win? How are they when they lose? How are they when something unexpected throws them off? More importantly, how are you in all those circumstances? This tells you so much more than just skill level can. Mindfulness in play is about being aware of the game, the people and a sense of proportion while seeing the metaphors for how to be in life in the act of play.

Being mindful in relationships.
There are those who are always in some sort of a “relationship” and those who have never been in a relationship.
If you are in a relationship, the two most important tools are
1) learning to listen and 2) knowing how to argue well.
Learning to listen requires putting aside what you think is right and understand things from your partner’s perspective. Knowing how to argue well means focusing on what is annoying you at the time, without bringing in the past, judging the person or blaming the person.
If you have not been in a relationship, one thing is for sure. Nothing will get you to grow more than a serious relationship. It challenges all your comfort zones, takes away time from serious vegging yet has so much to offer.
Think of the type of partner you would want in your life. Their qualities, their demeanor and then imagine the type of person you want to be to attract that person. This is still about being you but also growing in relationship maturity to get a mature relationship.

All of these different parts of being mindful make for a full life.

When you are mindful in these parts of your daily life, your life is one of being there. Of really living and not just killing time to go virtual. Learning to care and to matter may be one of the greatest commodities in the coming age of ideas because then your work, play, study and relationship times become places to experience, feel, think and grow.

Live each day like it was the only one you have. Care about people and learn from everything. Most importantly; write, blog, tell stories, share stories and listen to stories because all we have after we’re gone are the stories we leave behind. Leave a good one. Leave stories of a life lived on purpose that was well-lived and touched others in a meaningful way. That is a full life.

When parents embrace the idea that by living a full life we can have a greater impact than all the words, all the images and all the sounds running through a young person’s life today, we can truly change the world for the better.

Time-Stealers: The Enemy of New Year’s Resolutions

The perfect New Year’s resolution — You found it! You made it! What could stop your desire to make it happen? What could challenge your resolve?

Now meet your greatest challenge. The time-stealer. He (or she) is fun, charming, great to be with, someone you are happy to do things with, gets all your jokes, just all around great to kill time with. Yes, the time-stealer is a time-killer. You never get it back and yet you value the time spent with them.

What is their name?

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Sharing Your Old-Fashioned Passions With Your New-Aged Kids

What if you could future-proof your child?
Get him or her ready for a time when everything we know will have changed. Where practically all the jobs we now know of will be gone and will be replaced with jobs in fields we cannot even conceive of in today’s world. And what if I told you that this scenario may come to pass in the next 10 years?

Ever heard of nanotechnology?
How about molecular manufacturing, singularity in the 21st century or tipping points in the biosphere? They are real ideas right now. Some will become what they promise to become and others will fade away. You can be sure that something from left field will change the course of everything we know again… and again with regularity and greater frequency.

How do we inspire our children in such an ever changing, unknown world?

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Ten Tips For Fostering Creativity In Your Children

If you are a parent today in the western world, you have joined a very special club. A club of parents cast adrift, drowning in self-doubt while dodging waves of pyscho-babble lurching at them from every direction. It’s easy to throw blame around but what is the main question we all want the answer? “How do I help my child unfold to be their very best in today’s world?”

10 Tips to Foster Creativity in Your Children

Encourage your kids to sign up and embrace something that they love. Whether it’s drumming, hip-hop or clown school — give them opportunities to go out, sign up, and then make sure to give them the time and space to choose to do the work required at home.