How to Help a Teen Recover from Self-Sabotage

There seems to be an epidemic of teens failing at school, teens failing at success and teens failing at life. Clearly, the big question on so many parent’s mind is how to help a teen recover from self-sabotage.

As teen life coaches, our job at World Wide Youth Mentoring is to empower teens to help them recover from self-sabotage.

Here are four tips on how to help a teen recover from self sabotage.

Just-in-timers to Good Enough-ers

One of the big challenges teens and young adults have today is that they are too smart for early school years. Clearly, there are some who can get good grades or “get along” in the early school years without much effort. Effectively,  they have untrained themselves to have good study habits.

This ends when they hit a grade level where their grades drop precipitously and they are “no longer magic”. Now come the coping mechanisms. Many end up saying to themselves “if I choose to fail and I do, then I’ve won”. Subsequently, you have the beginnings of self-sabotage.

Step One in how to help a teen recover from self-sabotage

Find a teen life coach. A person who deals with the different ways teens self-sabotage. Who knows how to redirect self-sabotaging teens towards focusing on goals, challenges and sign-posts of success. Interestingly, that is the recipe to change a teen’s mindset from fear and anxiety to problem solving

teen-self-sabotage
Finding ways to help teens who self sabotage succeed

. They learn to search for ways that work.

Step Two in how to help a teen recover from self-sabotage

Separate yourself. Allow your teen mentor to do their work. Make sure they invite you to have input through email communications. You get a vacation from being judge, jury and executions and get to be a supportive parent again. Send emails to the teen life coach on issues ranging from school failures, hygiene issues, communication issues etc. Let the mentor and your child work on those issues and then share with you when your child is ready.

Step Three in how to help a teen recover from self-sabotage

Discovery: A life coach for teen’s most powerful tools are establishing goals, determining sign-posts of success, creating a daily routine and learning with the client in a judgment-free environment. First of all, this needs to be a time where the teen life coach and the teen find what works and what doesn’t work. As Wayne Dyer would say: “Either I’m getting it right, or I’m learning”.

Step Four in how to help a teen recover from self-sabotage

Teamwork: As your child begins to succeed, it is time to reacquaint yourself with this new successful person. Find a teen life coach who specializes in helping families work together. This work should be done only after the successes begin for your child.

Know a teen who could use help to recover from self-sabotage? Find out more here

Know someone who would like to mentor teens recovering from self-sabotage?  Click here

Author: Ken_Rabow

Ken Rabow is the Mentor's Mentor for Troubled Teens, Young Adults and their Families