Live your Values as You Parent Your Teenagers…It Makes Choices So Much Easier!

I took some time off yesterday. This doesn’t happen nearly often enough; I am a tough task-master when it comes to working. But my college-student daughter is home with us for a brief 10 days before she takes off to Colorado to spend the summer, and each available moment is treasured. I noticed how easy it was to make the choice to take time off to be with her… and it reminded me of how much simpler it is to make choices and decisions when you have clarity on your values.

One value at the top of my list is spending time with my children. Now that they are in college the available opportunities happen less frequently. So when the opportunities occur I walk away from work guilt-free; it’s an easy choice to make.

How clear are you in knowing your values? How might clarity in your values guide you to make different choices and decisions?

Steve Pavlina’s website offers a helpful guide to identifying, prioritizing, evaluating, changing and living your values. He says:

Values act as our compass to put us back on course every single day, so that day after day, we’re moving in the direction that takes us closer and closer to our definition of the “best” life we could possibly live. The “best” is your own ideal, but generally as you get closer to this ideal, you’ll enjoy increasingly positive shades of “better” even if you never reach “best.”

If you haven’t spent time examining this question, I urge you to invest some time doing so and Steve helps you do that in this article. It’s remarkable how empowering the clarity can be.

Steve shows us living our values is a fluid, ever-changing process. “Better” is an appropriate goal when we think of our ever-changing relationships with our kids. This is not a goal of achieving something, or reaching a pinnacle of success, it is process of being in a living, breathing relationship. And our relationship with our teenagers is particularly fluid because they are experiencing so much change, and their emotions and feelings are so intense. Of course we’ll experience ups and downs every day in our relationship with them. Our feelings and emotions will change in response to theirs, and some days will be better than others. This values-focused approach guides us to look at the big picture and to think in terms of continual movement toward “better.”

Coachville.com has posted a helpful article titled The Top 10 Reasons to Identify Your Values by Louise Morganti Kaelin. Several of her stated reasons speak to enhancing our relationships with our teens: Knowing your values…

• Helps you identify people, situations and things that don’t support those values;

• Helps you identify people, situations and things you do want in your life;

• Gives you an incredible sense of peace;

• Allows you to stop reacting, and start responding;

• Allows you to get rid of goals that really aren’t yours;

• Allows you to be very clear about the standards you set for yourself;

• Allows you to be very clear about the boundaries you need to establish for others’ behavior.

What values do you live in regards to your teenagers? Give it some serious and concrete thought; it can make an enormous difference in how you live, love and participate in your relationships.