Everyone knows that having a sense of purpose has a positive impact on many different areas of your life. But is the same true for adolescents? A group of researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign set out to find out.
Their study was interested in the relationship between adolescents’ sense of purpose and their satisfaction and subjective well-being.
A total of 200 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 19 participated in the study. Every day for 70 days, the teens were asked to rate their level of perceived purposefulness, their satisfaction with their lives, and the level of positive and negative emotions they felt.
Although more research is needed to clarify certain issues, the researchers found that the teens who reported higher levels of purpose also reported more positive emotions than those who did not. In addition, feeling purposeful on any given day led to a greater sense of well-being. In other words, the study found that purpose was directly linked to positive outcomes.
As Stanford School of Education professor and psychologist William Damon says, “The biggest problem with growing up today isn’t really stress; it’s meaninglessness.”
So now that we know that feeling meaningful can have a positive impact on adolescents’ well-being, how can we help them develop that sense of purpose? Here are three things you can do today to help your teen find greater satisfaction and happiness.
How to Help Teens Find Purpose
1) Give your teen opportunities to participate in transformative experiences
As parents, we cannot dictate a sense of purpose to our teens, but we can provide opportunities to help them discover it for themselves.
The easiest way to do this is to help them participate in new activities and experiences. When you expose your child to new ways of looking at the world, you give them opportunities to develop their own sense of purpose.
There are many activities and experiences to choose from – summer camps, volunteering, attending different events, exhibitions, museums, shows. Remember that the most important thing is to expose your teen to as many experiences as possible to increase the likelihood that he or she will find something that fits.
Teens have been known to seem “uninterested in everything”. But remember that even if the experiences they are exposed to seem to have no impact, they can still play an important role in shaping their lives down the road.
2) Help your child learn to reflect intentionally
Teenagers are rarely asked to reflect on questions that can help them develop a sense of purpose:
– What do I want?
– What kind of life do I want to live?
– What kind of person do I want to be?
– What do I want to accomplish?
– What are my strengths?
– What does success look like to me?
– What kind of work do I see myself doing in the future?
– What can I do today to have the life/success I want?
– What do I find meaningful in my life today?
Instead of telling your teen how hard life can be, try something different and ask them to imagine the life they want, write down their thoughts, and think about how to achieve their goals. Don’t just ask them verbally, let them really think and write things down.
3) Focus on your teen’s strengths
Deepak Chopra once said, “If a child is poor at math but good at tennis, most people would hire a math tutor. I would hire a tennis coach.”
The strengths-based approach to parenting is about identifying and focusing on your child’s strengths rather than their weaknesses.
According to Mary Reckmeyer, author of “Strengths Based Parenting”, dwelling on your teen’s weaknesses and your desire to fix what you think is wrong with them prevents them from developing their innate talents. She argues that pushing children to perfection in areas where they are less inclined means striving to live up to other people’s standards.
Strengths-based parenting is about understanding that each of our children are unique and helping them identify their strengths and the values that are most important to them. When you focus on your child’s strengths, you help them build their inner resources.
Once you know where your teen’s strengths lie, invest in them. Suggest activities that play to those strengths and their personalities.
While it is unrealistic to focus solely on your child’s strengths and ignore everything else, considering your teen’s strengths and interests can help motivate them to learn skills they may struggle with. For example, your social teen may find it easier to study chemistry with a friend.
When it comes to helping our teens develop a sense of purpose, it is important to remember that while we may not be able to identify a purpose for our children, we can provide them with multiple choices and help them make choices when necessary.
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