Your kids will be growing to adulthood in a century where the complexity of technology and the pace of change is unlike anything humans have ever experienced. This is one in a series of columns devoted to identifying core competencies that will help your kid be successful in this 21st century workplace. The focus of this column is on helping teens develop personal initiative and better self-direction.
Emphasize the importance of personal initiative. As always, kids pay attention to what you talk to them about, point out and model. Talk to your kids about the importance of personal initiative as a way to set themselves apart from other people. Tell stories about the impact of how personal initiative has benefited you or other family members. Work phrases into your conversations that refer to personal initiative and self-direction: taking initiative, self-starter, proactive; above and beyond, go the extra mile, doing things without being asked or told; looking for ways to help or improve things, a job worth doing is worth doing well. Look for opportunities to demonstrate personal initiative. Something as small as picking up discarded paper or an errant wrapper as you are going about your daily life can make the point. Make comments to yourself that your kid can overhear (the kind you would want your kid to make to themselves). “I’ll just pick this up and put it in the trash.” “What the heck. I might as well go on and do this too.”
Daily initiative. Prospective employees are often asked to provide an example of how they took personal initiative in their previous job. At the end of the day, at the dinner table, when you are stopping by to say good night, ask your kid for an example of personal initiative they showed that day. Even better, give your kid an example of something you noticed they did to show initiative.
Initiative day. If you have a day when the family takes care of household tasks like weekly chores, spring cleaning, etc., structure the assignments so your kid is required to demonstrate personal initiative. Have part of their chores be to find something that needs doing but hasn’t been assigned. You can leave it up to them or you can have them identify a possible personal initiative task. If they can’t find something, point them in the general direction without assigning it. “Go check in the garage to see if you notice anything there that might need doing.” (Note: work on a task does not stop just because the official time is up.)
A job worth doing . . . When they have a job to do, make it clear you expect them to do it well and thoroughly. Before they begin, take a moment to talk about what you expect. “I want you to take this seriously and do your best. I also want you to see if there is something I left out or forgot about that would also need doing and take the initiative on yourself.” Then, leave out some part of what you expect them to do as a chore or task. If they don’t catch it, send them back with a “there is one more thing that would also need to be taken care of even though I didn’t specifically tell you.” Use encouragement and insistence (“There’s one more thing to be done so go back and see what that is.”) rather criticism or shaming (“What is WRONG with you! Are you blind?”).
Taking the next step. Kids don’t always see the next step (sometimes because they don’t have the skill, sometimes because they think playing dumb might get them out of doing it). If you have a kid who seems to have trouble seeing the next (unassigned) step in a task, help them out. Review the task before they start. Have them identify the things that need to be done. Use leading questions to help them see what more they may need to do. “What else?” “Is there anything else that you could take care of since you are already doing that?” They’ll get the hang of it (in a year or two).
What else can I do? Set a time frame rather than a task to complete. (But, not “for the next 8 hours.” Start with small units of time like an hour or so.) Make sure there is more time than it takes to complete the officially assigned task. That way, they have some time to look around to find something else to do. Be sure to tell them they have to find at least 1 other thing that needs doing. No watching TV, surfing the internet or sitting and waiting. They are to practice taking initiative when they have extra time. (Note: Kids with attention problems are TERRIBLE at this. They are pretty bad at completing the clearly identified tasks in the first place. So, you will need to make some adjustments in how many times you expect it to take before they stay productively engaged; start with a hundred and see how far that gets you).
Surprise me. Leave them to their task with the encouragement to surprise you with their initiative (with what else they find to do). Be at least a little bit impressed with what they did. You might add “if you impress me, I’ll surprise you with something you might like.”
Notice personal initiative. You encourage by what you comment on. Make sure you notice and comment when your kid does more than is asked or goes past what is expected for some task or project. This is not always something big or obvious. Don’t miss the small instances of initiative and self-direction like helping with groceries without being asked, opening the door for someone, getting napkins for people at the table without being asked. These are all forms of good manners, and initiative.
Reinforce personal initiative. (even when they screw up) Brag on your kid to other people. “You know what Susan did?” Brag on your kid to their face. “You are a great kid.” Compensate them for their efforts with pride and admiration. As they are just beginning to demonstrate personal initiative, your kid will need to see that it is noticed and, sometimes, even rewarded. “You know, you went above and beyond on that task. Let’s go do something special you want to do.”
Pursue personal interests. See if there is some responsibility your kid would like to take over. This is not the same as assigning them chores. They are to choose to take on some responsibility. It is even appropriate to sweeten the pot by trading out some assigned responsibility they don’t like (even if you have to take it over yourself). But (and this is a big “but”) make it clear they will be expected to take real responsibility; monitor, manage, modify, complete or improve.
You first. Initiative is taking a step without being told. Have your kid make the first move in a situation, plan or family decision. “What would you do first? Go ahead. Give it a try.” Look for situations where they can take the initiative.
Entrepreneurialism. This is all the rage these days. “Small businesses will save the American economy!” “We’re a nation of independent spirits!” This may be the start of something big. Most kids don’t have a clue about how to go about setting up and running some kind of productive enterprise. (Notice I didn’t use the words business or money making. The productive enterprise could be profitable. It could also be something that makes a difference to the world without accruing financial benefits.) Got things in the garage that can be donated to charity? Does your kid have a natural interest that doesn’t involve playing sports or studying (see Pursue personal interest above)? The structure of it being a personal project could be what sparks initiative in an otherwise avoidant and resistant kid. There are a couple of books you might want to lay around the house (or be reading in an obvious way): Be the Change by Hunter, The New Totally Awesome Business Book for Kids by Bochner, Bochner and Berg, Bitten by the Business Bug by O’Neill and The Young Entrepreneurs Guide to Starting and Running a Business by Mariotti.
Go on. Take some initiative already.
originally published on www.brentwoodhomepage.com
