Top 5 pitfalls pdf joel penton by Joel Penton

TOP 5 PITFALLS to avoid when trying to reach teens

The world is changing. You know that because you got this article in an email, not an envelope. Technology is driving rapid culture shifts and there is no age group more affected by this than teens. For those of us who want to influence youth, the competition has never been stiffer. Teenagers receive hundreds of messages every single day about what they should eat, how they should look and who they should be. Companies spend millions of dollars in advertising to influence the teenage consumers. How can you expect your voice to be heard amongst all the noise? Reaching youth today is a tall mountain to climb, but it can be done! With hard work you can do it. However, you may need to sidestep some pitfalls along the way.

PITFALL #5 - too much negativity January, 1999. I was a 15-year-old kid sitting in my first class of drivers ed. They had about 50 of us crammed into a little basement classroom with no windows. I guess the thermostat must have been in a drafty room upstairs because it was 10 degrees outside and about 110 inside that room. After a painstakingly long lecture on 3-point turns, the teacher said in his monotone voice, "Now, we are going to watch a video about the dangers of operating a motorized vehicle." I was relieved that we were doing ANYTHING other than listening to our teacher lecture. As my classmates talked amongst themselves, he put the video in the VCR and pressed play. Instantly, the mindless chatter stopped when dramatic orchestral music filled the room. The opening shot was the scene of a horrific car accident. The camera slowly panned down to show the black pavement. Streams of blood slowly began to flood into the shot as the roll of the timpani

reached its crescendo. The title dramatically appeared on the screen: "Red Asphalt: The Dangers of Drunk Driving." The classroom froze in awkward silence for a moment. The next second, as if on cue, it erupted into laughter. Soon the mindless chatter resumed as the video rolled on. I’m not sure anyone in the class caught a single word. This was not the reaction my teacher was going for. This driver’s ed experience wasn’t the first (and certainly wasn't the last) time as a teenager that I was educated using a negative approach. Even now as a full-time youth speaker, I see it all the time. Students are CONSTANTLY bombarded with negative approaches to making the right choices. They hear things like, “If you do drugs or you drink alcohol... you will DIE!” While these approaches are effective to a certain extent, a major roadblock quickly arises: students become desensitized to this method. They become all too familiar with the scare tactics used to correct and prevent bad behavior. They start to view these approaches as “over the top” Over time, students learn to tune out the negative things that adults have to say to them.

SOLUTION: take a positive approach. Do teens need to hear about the consequences that come from poor decisions? Absolutely. However, it may be even more important that they hear about the rewards that come from the right decisions. They need to know that they have just as much potential to do something great as they do to mess everything up. Don’t just find role models who have “hit rock bottom” and turned their lives around – find some positive examples to put in front of teens. Find people who never went down the wrong road, people whose lives are proof that you really can make the right choices. Teach teens to dream about success rather than have nightmares about failure.

PITFALL #4 - talking down When I was in high school I watched too much MTV – way too much. Like everybody in my school, I was into the cutting-edge, reality TV shows like The Real

Life and Road Rules. All of these shows I watched had one big thing in common: they featured the lives of college-aged students. Strangely, when I actually got to college, I realized that nobody my age watched MTV anymore. I thought that was weird because the shows were clearly about college life. What I DO remember are tons of people who lived in my dorm watching The Bachelor, a popular show about single adult life. That’s when I realized that each stage of a child's life involves some type of yearning to be older and reach the next stage. Babies envy toddlers, toddlers watch and learn from children, children try to act like teenagers, teenagers wish they were in college, and college students wish they were out of school and in the working world. We all aspire to be at that next level of maturity until we are handed our college degree. Then, but not until then, we wish we could go back and be a kid forever. So what’s my point? In the same way that MTV was ahead of the game in creating reality TV, they were also on to something in communicating to teens. They capitalized on the teen desire to reach the next stage in life. MTV reached me as a high school student by communicating to me as if I were in college.

SOLUTION: be more like MTV. When you communicate to a teenager, treat them like they are a little bit older. I know it seems counterintuitive (especially when they are acting like children) but it IS what they truly desire. If a teen gets even a whiff of being treated as a child, they’ll turn you off entirely. If you speak to them as if they are in college or even older, you gain their attention and respect.

PITFALL #3 - trying too hard to “be cool” In high school there was this mom of one of my classmates. She was 43 going on 16. She dressed and acted like all of the girls in our class. She wore tight jeans and the latest Abercrombie styles. She used words like "the bomb" and "sweet" and “totally,” and she hung out with her daughter and her daughter's friends

constantly. Yeah, she was THAT mom (there’s one everywhere). However, I didn't really think much of it until I heard the girl talking negatively about her mom. "Why is she always hanging around us? I almost feel sorry for her." The tragedy in this story is that the mother WANTED to make an impact. She WANTED to relate to her daughter. Her motives were in the right place – unfortunately the tools she tried to use weren’t. Trying too hard to be 'cool' is a real danger. We sometimes think teenagers are clueless (and sometimes we’re right!) but they can see right through misdirected attempts at being cool. Dressing too young for your age and using words that only young people use rarely make the impact you desire. What’s more, these attempts may actually backfire on you and come off as phony and weird.

SOLUTION: be cool without trying too hard to “be cool”. You can still build rapport and strong relationships with kids without turning into an overgrown child. Teens want and need authority figures that they can trust and respect. Work hard to relate but be yourself. They need you to be you.

PITFALL #2 - being “too adult” While one ditch beside the road to impacting kids is being “too cool,” the ditch on the opposite side of the road is being “too adult.” You don’t have to act like a teen to reach them but you do have to take their world into account when communicating with them. You see, culture has rapidly shifted from modern to postmodern communication. “Post-what???” Let me explain. The old, or modern, communication style was very “sender centered.” It was all about the SENDER having a beautiful message, an impressive presentation, a large vocabulary, a logical flow and a polished feel. The new, or post-modern, communication style is almost entirely the opposite – it is very “receiver centered.” The information RECEIVER craves authenticity and

honesty. The polished content is not as important, and can even be a turn-off in many cases. Evidence of too much planning and experience makes the audience member skeptical. He or she thinks it looks like a show and wonders what the presenter is hiding. Teenagers are at the forefront of this new, postmodern, “receiver centered” communication culture. When teens receive hundreds of messages every day, they realize that most contradict each other and therefore most are false. The result is a group of people who are extremely astute in assessing authenticity. However, they are also extremely skeptical. If a presenter gives a talk on the "5 D's of success" the students will wonder what material has been sacrificed to make each point begin with the letter D. People of a different generation might think it's cute and clever; bottom line is teenagers do not.

SOLUTION: get real. If you get real with teens, they will get real with you, and you can have a REAL impact. Make your communication open, honest and authentic. Whether we like it or not, the communication culture has shifted. They aren’t going to be impressed with your vocabulary but they WILL be captivated by someone with real experiences, real successes and real failures.

PITFALL #1 - not caring (or acting like you don’t care) I travel the country speaking to HS and MS students. Before the presentation, I always speculate on how well the crowd will receive me. Funny enough, I can get an accurate read not just by observing the audience but by observing the administrator or teacher who introduces me to the student body. If the principal is enthusiastic and shows that he or she cares about the assembly, 9 times out of 10 the crowd is immediately on my side. If the introduction is half-hearted (or just plain terrible), I know I have my work cut out for me. The students probably don’t

realize it, and definitely would never admit it, but they respond to the enthusiasm and energy of their administrators and teachers. They actually feed off of it. Sometimes the knee-jerk reaction to working with a group of people like teens who love to act like they don’t care is to follow suit and stop showing enthusiasm. This is a big mistake. Trust me, a long time ago, I learned the hard way. Teenagers act like they don’t care to look cool for their friends but they often times they actually DO care. Even more, they desperately need YOU to care. They need you to care what they are doing, where they are going and who they are becoming. They need you to genuinely care about them as people.

SOLUTION: Care.

Care. Care. AND SHOW IT!

Even if you are having a bad day - care. Even if you don't feel like it - care. I know it’s hard sometimes. Teenagers lead emotionally volatile lives and they need something solid to turn to in times of happiness and trouble. Showing a consistent caring attitude can do wonders in your relationships with teens by making you the rock that they can depend on. It all starts with caring. And not just half-hearted caring – truly, genuinely caring.

ABOUT JOEL

Joel Penton is a nationally known youth speaker who specializes in high school and middle school assemblies. As a former college football national champion, Joel knows what it takes to succeed in school and life. Joel speaks to students about the importance of not just making commitments, but following through and keeping commitments. He proves through his own personal experiences that ordinary people can accomplish great things by simply following through with their commitments.