Scott Schimmel (00:31)
As a parent, one of the hardest parts of raising a kid is to watch them struggle with tough decisions and choices, where to go to college, what to study, which sport to stick with, who to hang out with. ⁓ And ultimately, you can't make those decisions for them. You know that, which is part of the problem. You want to influence them in the right way without being annoying or them shutting down. And it doesn't stop you, of course, from lying awake some of the nights, wondering if they're headed in a direction
that is gonna lead to their harm or even better, aspirationally, a direction that reflects who they are and what they care about the most, the best possible path. I am there. I have that with my kids all the time. My kids, especially the older ones, are in a time of consequence. The decisions that they make to study for a test or not, to join a club or not, to stick with a sport or not, to...
go visit a professor or a teacher at office hours. There's actually, can see where that leads. And when they have a big decision, I want to be able to help them in that moment. But what we're finding is in order to guide them well to their right choices for the right reasons, where they're fully bought in, fully motivated, requires that we as parents and guides and teachers and mentors have a particular ⁓ style or strategy.
And that's what we're going through in this series, guiding you to guide your kids to their best life. And what we want to do in this episode is talk about how you can help them make better decisions by clarifying their values and their priorities, which is on one level, a pretty obvious thing. Another level, the question is like, how do you actually do that? So here's an example. My youngest recently was deciding, really deliberating, I ⁓ sign up to run for student office or not?
And then she ultimately had to make a campaign video and campaign posters. And she was going back and forth. I don't know if I want to, or I do want to. I don't know if I do. I think it could be good for her. And I wanted to steer her and guide her in the right direction. So she said at one point, dad, what do think I should do? And I said, well, let me ask you this. And here's the example of what we get into in this episode. Let me ask you this. Why would you do it? That's part of the question. And that question, why would you do it is actually not a magic fix, but it changes the conversation.
to help them start thinking about what matters to them now and what's important to them. In other words, their values and their priorities. And what I heard her say as she processed it was when she was new at the school, there were other kids who welcomed her and made her feel like she had friends. And she would do it because being in the ASB would mean that she would be doing that for other kids. Now that's a value and that's important to her.
So then I said, well, what do think you're gonna do? She said, I think I'm gonna run. Fantastic. So much better than me saying, I think you should run. Should I? And I override her autonomy, which then, gosh, that's the, it's a recipe for disaster as you know, for his parents, but also research shows means she will burn out really quickly. She will lose interest. It won't be her choice. Now it's her choice. And I can remember that, help her recall that value that she has when she forgets.
So here's something that we've learned after working with really thousands and I'm not using hyperbole, thousands of kids, families, teachers, coaches, kids want to make good decisions about their lives. I believe that kids want to make the good decisions. They just don't know how necessarily and they get overwhelmed by things being pulled in so many directions and they've been taught mostly how to study, how to follow rules, how to build a resume, but not how to identify what matters to them. Their lives. That's not something that's taught.
So when they get to these big decisions, which is a prerequisite to going through adolescence and growing up, they have to make decisions, but how? And one of the best ways to do that really, as you know this as an adult, is to make decisions based on your values and your priorities. So instead of choosing between, I like it? Does it feel good? Will it be fun? Those are terrible. It's a terrible rubric. Instead, they can look at the decision through the lens of, this line up?
with what matters most to me? Will this help me live out my values and my priorities? Does this make me feel more like myself or less? And this doesn't just make life easier, it makes everything clearer. And that's clarity, which is what your kids need. So super simple exercise. And we have it in an article, which is a way better way to go through this content. But it's a really simple way to guide your kid so you're not putting words in their mouth per se.
but you're giving them a little bit of scripting to be able to choose their values because it's hard for most kids, my experience, to pull them out of thin air. So in other words, we just have ⁓ a bank to choose from. And when it comes time to make a decision, you do the same thing that I did with my daughter. You say, hey, I'm going to help you answer that question and figure out what to do. And you're to be able to do that with confidence and ease because you're going to know why you're doing it. And it's either yes or no.
And I want you to be able to say no with confidence or yes with confidence. So what you got to do though is, and then print this out, literally print this out. I want you to go through this list and you circle the ones that you resonate with. The ones that feel right to you. Don't overthink it, just go with your gut. And there's a handful of things in this bank that we have. ⁓ I want to become my best. I want to solve complex problems. I want to make other people feel welcome and safe.
I want to build things. I want to fix things. I want to organize people. I want to fight for what's right. I want to have deep friendships. I want to explore new things. I want to discover truth. And there's a bunch more. There's probably 20 more. And the exercise very simply is to go through, circle the ones that stick out to you, and then walk through them as you look at their list. Tell me about that one. Tell me about that one. See, I noticed a theme. There's a couple that sound the similar. What do you mean by that? Tell me more about that.
And then the exercise then is I'm going to hand it back to you and you have to pick three, pick three cross. You can only pick three of these. If you had to pick three, which is forcing your values to become priorities. ⁓ it's a neat little trick. If you only had three, which would you choose? And that's now a force exercise and it could take a little bit of time. Let him wrestle with it, argue about it, but you have to then take those three and rank them most important, least important to you right now. Not easy.
But here's what happens is they get clear about what matters to them because they're able to look almost as an observer to their own life. And it's not you, it's them. Now bring it back to the decision that they have to study for this test or not, to take the SAT or their ACT, to apply to this college or not, to hang out with this friend or maybe kind of walk away from that friend, to apply to this school or that major.
or that internship or that job or not. And you match it against their values and their priorities. It sounds simple because it is. And if you write it down and put it in a note on your phone, which is what I've done, it is something that can be useful not just for that decision, but in the future, the next time. Remember your values. Fortunately also this is backed by real research. It's called.
values clarification. It's been shown to boost decision making, autonomy, motivation, and long term satisfaction. When you choose things for the reasons that you feel are coming out of you, intrinsic reasons, you will persist and you'll be more satisfied. And this is something that we can offer to our kids that they're not getting in school for sure. And they're definitely not getting on social media. In fact, they're being told what to value, told who they are told what's most important and it's contrary to who they are.
So what I learned from my daughter, figuring out your values and then realigning, realigning to them every step of the way is a better way to live. So try this with your kid, print this out, go to the show notes, which will take you to the article on our website. And it's a piece of curriculum because we want to help you guide your kids to their best life.
