7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens-updated for today’s teens

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is something I could have used as a kid. There was very little direction in my house and I just drifted from class to class in high school. If you pictured my life as The Breakfast Club, I was Brian. The difference was, while he got too much direction and pressure from his parents, I didn’t get enough. It doesn’t sound that bad – but it wreaks havoc with your confidence.

 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens are the same as the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (be proactive – sound familiar?) The difference is this spins all of the habits in a way that is more relatable to Teens.  Why? It’s very interactive – so much, in fact, that there is a personal workbook devoted to all of the activities that go with the book. The first part is my favorite – what are your great habits? What is great about you? That’s good stuff. People need to keep thinking about what they are good at as well as what they need to improve.

Sean Covey is the author of the book.  If that name sounds familiar it’s because he’s the son of Stephen Covey.  Stephen is the author of the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens has more than 5 million copies in print and one that I would’ve benefitted from had I read it back in the day.

The latest edition is updated with tips and stories for the digital age.  Of course, by the time I write this the whole ‘digital age’ moniker may have rebranded as the downloads or some other term that anyone over 40 doesn’t understand.

Overall I would say that this book is extremely effective if you can just get your child to read it. There is so much junk going on in the media – from relatively new issues like social media and gaming to the more traditional issues like sex, drugs and alcohol. We should add positivity to balance out the negativity in our kids’ day-to-day lives, especially with the kind of hormone levels in teen bodies. If we want them to grow up and be happy, productive people we have to get them in the mood.