The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens How to relate this to our students

2. Habit one: Be Proactive • Take responsibility for your life! • Examples of reactive behavior: • Reacting to someone bullying, call them names back • Just give up when things don’t go your way • Examples of proactive behavior • Talking over conflicts • Continue to do your best • It is easy to blame others for our problems, maybe it makes you feel better short term, but does it change anything long term? NO! • Think before you act, bounce back, find a way to make it happen or work on what you can fix! • Proactive people: Michael Jordan didn’t even make his 9th grade basketball team- did he blame the coach or his parents? No, he practiced all summer and tried again!

3. Habit two: Begin with the End in Mind • Define your mission and goals in life! • Ask students about their goals! • How do they plan to get there • If we don’t have our eyes on the prize we can easily be lead astray • Ambition! • Do you want to be seaweed that floats around with no roots, or a coral reef that takes hold and continues to grow? The coral chooses to take hold and does not let waves deter it from its growth! • Willpower! • Are consequences that come with alcohol, smoking and sex worth it? Which do you want more– to reach your goals? Or a short- term fix like drinking?

4. Habit three: Put First Things First • Prioritize, do the most important things first! • The 4 quadrants: • Using a planner, making weekly plans, daily plans and lists • What is urgent? • What is a “time- sucker” • Being able to say no, to family, friends, extra curricular activities • How to do this respectfully

5. Habit four: Think Win- Win • Have an “everyone can win” attitude! • How win-win is better than compromise, each person feels they got what they wanted, not that they got half what they wanted and had to give half up! • comparing ourselves to others is a unrealistic measurement • Be yourself, everyone else is already taken! • “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” • Try to apply win – win to examples in your own life, we can model this to our students • How can we teach them to use a win- win mentality in social and academic settings? • Group projects? • To avoid fights? • Thoughts?

6. Habit five: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood • Listen to people sincerely! • We have two ears and one mouth, coincidence? • Our deepest need is to be heard, understood and valued • What conflicts with parents and students and even each other would be avoid if we listened and allowed another to speak first and truly hear what they are saying (verbally and non- verbally) • Ways to fail as a listener • Spacing out • Pretend listening • Selective listening • Word listening • Self- centered listening • Judging • “listen to children when they want to share the little things, for one day they will be grown and to them they have always been sharing the big things”

7. Habit six: Synergize • Working together, we can achieve more! • 1+1=3 • Celebrating differences, trying new things, open minds • Understanding our natural differences to enhance our team • Finding more appropriate ways to help students enhance and balance each other? More appropriate groups and partner work?

8. Habit seven: Sharpen the Saw • Renew yourself regularly • Mind, body, heart and soul • Self care • Making time for health and wellness • Could we integrate way to be healthy and well at school? • We promote nutrition and athletics but are there other things we can try? • Ways to promote mental health, emotional wellbeing

9. The Personal Bank Account • How you feel about yourself • Like a checking account • Negative thoughts and actions make withdrawal • Not giving yourself time to improve, having negative self-talk • Positive actions and thoughts are deposits • Giving yourself time to enjoy hobbies, keeping promises to yourself • How do we teach this, model it for kids! • If you know a student is particularly hard on themselves would you be willing to let them write positives down and keep them in a small box or envelope so they have a visual… • Discuss self- talk with students, good ways and bad ways to “talk to yourself”

10. The Relationship Bank Account • Similar but this bank account you keep with others • Making fun of a friend will be withdrawals • Breaking promises • Have students “overdrawn” their bank account with us before? Promised to do better, or turn in assignments? • Show them visually what an overdrawn relationship would look like • Distant Lack of trust Lack of friendship Ultimately may end a relationship Apply to dealing with parents, friends, dating, siblings, friends

11. The Relationship Bank Account • Making deposits! • Kind words and actions • Keeping promises • Being the friend you would want to have • Give your real life examples to kids! • Why is this important: • Pay it forward • Community service • Let kids share examples– when have they filled a bucket or made a deposit

12. Paradigms and Perspectives: • Paradigm= fancy for point of view! • What’s reframe? • Change your perspective • We can cry because roses have thorns or rejoice because thorns have roses… • Which kind of person do we CHOOSE to be?