Coaching for Change

CONVERSATION STARTERS FOR TEENS Vacations can be a great time to socialize and to forge new bonds and renew old ones. But for youngsters (especially shy ones) it can be a stressful time. Some of them do not know how to carry out a conversation with people they meet for the first time or with the ones they hardly meet. This is a generation that is more comfortable texting than carrying out a face to face conversation. Throwing this bunch in front of strangers can leave them at their wits ends. “Conversational Competence might be the single most overlooked skill we failed to teach” as Paul Barnwell writes in The Atlantic. Here are some things that have helped some of the youngsters I have coached hone their interpersonal skills. 1. Ask your youngster “What would you like to be asked about by others? “ It is a good starting point to get them to start thinking about topics to talk about and then think which ones will be appropriate for which age groups they meet. 2. One Q...

I dedicate this article to my favourite age group… the youth of today. This is a topic about which a lot has been said and written and yet it remains an enigma to most of us when it really shouldn’t be. It should be as easy as it is for a 4-year-old to tell a story. Recently I was invited to mentor a bunch of kids to polish their Public Speaking Skills. These kids were going to present their project to a group of judges and the best idea was to win an award to fund their idea. I first asked them to tell me about their project. As they told me about why they chose the project, the passion, enthusiasm, and energy in their gestures and body language was apparent. Then I asked them to present their idea to me as they would to the judges. Suddenly the whole dynamics changed, the same bubbly bunch became uptight, nervous and robotic. When I asked them what the reason was, they said:  -It’s a formal presentation so we need to look and feel serious. -It feels weird to stan...