Anyone who has the privilege of mixing with teenagers, whether as a parent or teacher, will realize that it can be challenging. As a high school teacher with over 30 years experience and the father of four children who were all teenagers in the same year, I know something about this.
We tend to give teenagers a lot of advice but what they really need from the authority figures in their lives is more like coaching in the form of

• affirmation,
• encouragement and
• unconditional love.

This is not to say that, as a teacher in the classroom faced with a rebellious, unruly mob or a parent about ground their offspring for the term of their natural life, discipline is out of the question - it just has to be administered in an affirming, encouraging and loving way.
If your natural demeanor is to be fair, prepared to listen, kind and compassionate, then the discipline is accepted more gracefully. One student, for example, shook my hand at the end of a lesson during which I had disciplined him. You'll even find that some potential confrontations just won't happen.
I wasn't always a positive teacher - a Christian teacher yes, but I didn't always apply Christian principles to my day to day teaching style. When I did and applied the three principles mentioned, the results were amazing.
We all need to be affirmed but this is particularly true of those in their adolescent years when it's all hormones, turmoil, having friends (losing friends) and being cool. Throw in a few assignments due next week and keeping their room tidy (easier for the naturally meticulous teens but almost impossible for others) and it all gets a bit much at times.
Affirming teenagers is giving an honest appraisal of their innate worth and abilities. All of us are fearfully and wonderfully made in God's image. Everyone has unique talents and abilities.
Some talents and abilities are more obvious than others - a great singer or academic, for example - but everyone is gifted in some way. Take every opportunity to build your teenagers up. One time, after congratulating one student for a sensational performance in a school singing contest, another student asked, "Was I sensational too?" I assured her that she was and I could tell from her smile that she believed it.
At the school where I last worked a student told me after I had described her work as amazing that they all appreciated any encouragement they received. Each student had a diary not just for recording important events and homework but it also had a section where teachers could write good comments (merits) and bad comments (demerits). Although there was only one line allocated for each merit, I got into the habit of writing several lines for each one which included words like "brilliant", "amazing", "the best" and "sensational."

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I started reading on my own quite early, I cannot pinpoint the exact time now. But my mother was a school teacher, and drilled us on our reading once we could speak clearly. That was when I was too young for formal after school-lessons that were common in my city in those days. We would come back, have lunch and then be forced to get into bed for an afternoon nap. I must have been in grade two or three at that time, so maybe seven years or so. I wasn’t in the mood for siesta most times, but though I did sleep, what was more likely was that I smuggled a book with me.

I have to confess that for me there’s just something about books and the written word as a means to take me outside myself while still remaining very personal. The writer takes me to a new place, either physically or emotionally and plumbs my depths. I was a quiet child and even when surrounded by my siblings and other people, I would often find myself lost in my own thoughts. I loved daydreaming and the books I read were like the epitome of this fantasizing. It’s like an imagination that came true because it’s been written down. It became so easy to travel to distant, sometimes imaginary lands, meet new people, and experience new cultures.

And so in this way, books became my ticket to escape. The best part about books was that I got to allow my imagination free rein and put the pictures to those words myself. I should explain that I don’t remember my parents buying a lot of fiction for us back then, except you count the books required for school, including the primary readers and story books including ‘Eze goes to school’ and the rest. However, I seemed to manufacture a steady supply from my classmates. It started with the Ladybird fairytales, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, and all the other princesses. I also read the Brothers Grimm and some other fable compilations.

There were also the mysterious cartons my parents had scattered across the house. They were from the time before we children came on the scene, and they started off life taped off or simply out of bounds. With time, the cardboard wore down or cockroaches ate through them and in some cases, my parents wanted to take something out. However it happened, the contents of the boxes became accessible. In them were music books, DRUM magazines, some old women’s glossies, my father’s esoteric books and some novels including James Hadley Chase and Nick Carter. I got through all of them before I entered secondary school. Yeah, I’ve always been precocious for my age, at least when it came to reading.

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