Back then when I was 13 and I was struggling with learning the long academic answers to pass my exams, My mom helped me with a Mantra, “Likh likh ke yaad kar, ho jayga or likhne se baatein banti bhi hai or yaad bhi rehti hai.”
Honestly, I am following the mantra till date and I can’t thank her enough for the same. Yes, I made writing a habit of my daily routine. From morning till the time I go to bed again at night, I pen down all my important tasks. Honestly, writing as a habit helps me to stay organized. I write down about the things I have to do in the office, the small stuff that I have to shop on my way back home and write down how much I spent for the day. Few major additions in writing also take place depending upon what my day looks like. I am a big believer of “The secret” (the book by Rhonda Byrne) hence I do write my desires too, that I want to manifest.
Well now that I talked about “The Secret”, I remembered a very powerful quote on writing. “Each of us can, through our writing, discover our super power”.
Words have phenomenal power. Well, let me put this more appropriately, “word after a word after a word is power”. And how will you derive the power? Of course by writing. A lot of you must be thinking, yes, we know all of it, but do tell me how to make this a habit in my teen :P. Here we go but remember these tips require the parent's presence:
Ask your teen to read more: When you and your teen are spending quality time together, make them read for you. Be it their assignment that they have completed or need to complete, or a fact from the internet you want them to learn or maybe a motivational quote that you want them to go through. Ask them to read it for you. Once they have completed, you can raise questions and request them to explain certain stats or quotes. Do this exercise daily and keep increasing their reading time smartly. You never know which word, quote or fact they pick and start implementing in their everyday speech. This will also help them to increase their vocabulary and knowledge
2. Bring on the power of highlighting: When you don’t want to have a discussion or you have a meeting to attend, request them to read a chapter from their academics or newspaper journal. Provide them the highlighter and ask them to understrike or highlight the pointers that they feel are important. Once they are done with the same, discuss what made them think that the highlighted is important. Make ways through discussion and appreciation. This exercise will make their perception and analyzing skills strong.
3. Play along the keywords: You made them read everyday and along with that they are also into highlighting the important pointers, how about buckling them up for writing down the keywords that they think will make a gist of the exercise or the good read? Keywords do help all of us to remember the context a piece of content is serving.
4. Make them frame the summary: Now that they already have a fair idea of how the keywords are a way of framing the sentences, the next stop you can head to is to make them write the summary of the content they are reading. Suppose it is their civics chapter about the roles and Importance a president holds. Once they have given the chapter a deeper read, ask them to write the summary of the whole chapter. Read the summary your teen has written down and make corrections, if any. Do remember that without appreciation and empathy you cannot make your teen learn a skill at an advanced level. Have patience and let them get good in writing the summary. This not only deepens the understanding of the things they are reading but it will also make their communication skills better.
5. Ask them to research about a writer every week and why they like/dislike them: The thing with writing is the more anyone reads and understands the content, the more they will excel in the field and hence more will be their productivity when writing comes into the picture. You can introduce them to a community of good writers and ask your teen to pick any small book by an author and read through it. Once they are done with it, sit down with them and try to understand what they liked about the book. This will also act as a discovery journey to find their genre. Do remember reading and writing are the cornerstone of building communication. One cannot write well if they haven’t read a lot.
6. Make writing a fun exercise: Honestly teens won't entertain something that doesn't entertain them back. While making them indulge in the writing practice try to introduce fun activities. For example: Make them write in different dramatic fonts, ask them to reframe a story their way, give them character count to write about a trending topic they read yesterday or maybe a piece of write ups which has 10 new words that they recently highlighted. Doing the above will make this habit an interesting task for your teen and trust me they will be looking forward to having this quality time with you.
7. Introduce them to a diary: Choose this stage carefully. Don't do it if you sense that your teen is not at all interested in this writing exercise anymore. Because writing a diary plays a very important role in releasing the words we all have inside our heart and mind. If your teen has already participated in the above 6 stages, go for it. A diary helps you to keep your thoughts organized. By writing down your thoughts and memories, you can release some word chain from your brain. It also plays a significant role in keeping a brain dump down in the pages. And yes, it will also act as a small memory lane for you, when you feel you have moved pretty fast in your life. Make sure you also teach your kid to set targets and goals for their coming months and years via writing down in the diary. As thoughts can change and re-shape themselves but something once written in the diary prints hard in mind.
8. Ask them to pen down what their day looks like : Once they have taken over their diary lesson, introduce them to the final step. Teach them about making their to-do for the day and the advantages they will derive from it. There is a thing about teenagers, you have to explain all the logic behind the requests and suggestions you are bringing to them. The best way to grow fast and be better everyday is to take baby steps towards being better and organized, everyday. Teach them the importance of writing down the tasks that they have to complete. This helps them boost their memory and discover the responsible and growing up phase of life.
PS: Once I complete my to-do for the day, striking through the tasks feels great with a complimentary feeling of productivity. You can take this clear hack from.my daily routine for free!
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