Teens and Dealing with Rejection Part 3
Rejection comes in various kinds of shapes and sizes for teens and young adults. It is something they will experience, it is only a matter of time. From their first crush not crushing back at them, to friends not showing up at their birthday party, losing out on their school sports team and more. All this, as we previously stated, will trigger a negative energy-in-motion on their inside. This is why it is important we help them know ahead of time how best to manage rejection, bearing in mind, teens and young adults are still trying to figure out their identity and how best to regulate their energy-in-motion.
Last week we started by recommending that we first acknowledge the rejection and call it what it is, no need to give it another name. Name it to tame it!
This week, we look at another recommendation.
Do not allow Rejection to define you, rather grow from the Experience.
Self-definitionspeaks of one’s entire being, consisting of all our characteristics, attributes, conscious, and unconscious, mental, and physical.
Experiencesome have argued is the best teacher and it is something one cannot buy in the market; one must go through something to have the experience of it. For example, a teenager cannot buy puberty, they must experience it and everything that comes with it.
Putting our second recommendation in context, assuming your teenager participated for the audition of their school's drama team and after the audition, they were not selected, meaning your teen was rejected, helping them go through the experience to give it the right definition in their mind, with a well thought out plan to grow from it, is very important.
Missing out on the lead role of the school’s drama team, as painful as it may feel should not define our teenagers. As a parent, you would need to help them go through this episode, supporting them to cope better with the rejection, converting their energy-in-motion into the right motivation.
In the words of Shaheensha Hafeez Khan, "It's easy to let external factors define us, especially the unfavorable ones, but only if we let them. Keep fighting & the unfavorable will become favorable".
John Maxwell puts it this way, “no matter the setback, you must first see value in yourself before you can add value to yourself”.
Thomas Edison said, " I never failed once at making a light bulb, I just found out 99 ways not to make one".
As parents, helping our teenager to acknowledge that yes, they did not get the role, but the reason is not because they are terrible at acting or totally worthless is very key in the moment. It is possible that if you help them look deeply into the reason they lost out at the audition, it may just be that they were not at their best on the day of the audition, maybe they were a bit sick, or it was an audition for a stage play which is going to be in front of a live audience. The experience from the audition revealed that your teenager seems to be more proficient in screen acting than in front of a live audience, feedback provided by the head of the drama department.
Parents should at this point help their teenagers to realize just like Thomas Edison, as an aspiring actor, they just discovered how different auditioning for a stage play and screen play can be. You guide and encourage them to commit to using this new knowledge to grow from the experience as they continue their own journey of discovering their own light bulb in acting, especially now that they know 99 ways not to.
Encourage your teens to have a journal where they have defined themselves, stating all their attributes. With their permission you can go through it with them just to be sure they are not over flattering themselves but keeping it very real. And the next time they go through any form of rejection, ask them to pick up their journal which should remind them who they are.
This is all for today, thank you for reading, you can also listen to this on our podcast on Spotify Podcaster by clicking the link.
https://anchor.fm/krisoaluta/episodes/Teens-and-coping-with-Rejection-part-3-e2a7p1i
Please feel free to share your own experience, we would also love to learn from you.
Virtual Mentoring Session Starting in October 2023
Are you a parent of a teenager that has attended our mentoring workshop? This is to inform you that To Be Honest with Uncle Kris is starting bi-weekly follow-up virtual mentoring sessions for teens between the ages of 9-16, where we would be using creative content to give teens practical steps to help them discover, develop, and deploy their potential as a continuation of things taught at the workshops.
This virtual meeting will be held as follows:
Saturday 14th October and Saturday 28th October
Time is 5-6pm (Nigerian Time)
Please click the link below to register your teens.
https://forms.gle/nrKzPX8QgbeCcWvh9
or send an email to tbhwithunclekris@gmail.comfor further enquiries.
Thank you.
Uncle Kris
Teen Coach & Mentor