Every Hero Needs a Guide
Leading Your Teen Series #1: Any novelist, screenwriter, or playwright agrees that every story needs a hero. And every hero needs a guide. In this story, you're the guide.
The hero is always on a journey, confronting an enormous threat they must defeat or overcome. Out of a cast of characters, emerges a guide; an ally who comes alongside the hero. Together, they develop a plan of action, resulting in a climatic outcome.
Rocky Balboa's journey through the streets of Philadelphia brought him face-to-face with the heavyweight champion of the world, who threatened to destroy him in the ring, along with the honor of his friends and family in his beleaguered neighborhood. Together with his guide, Mickey, they put together a plan of action to survive all 15 rounds, resulting in a famously climactic outcome.
In this true-life story, your son or daughter is the hero. Like a lot of heroes, they don't always feel particularly heroic during their high school years. The skills and abilities that will help them become a great novelist, or entrepreneur, or firefighter, or nurse, or teacher, or chef, or songwriter, are often unrelated to scoring touchdowns or starring in the school play; things that are important to them right now.
It’s hard to convince your teenager, “Don’t worry about that. Your day will come.” But what William Shakespeare wrote, is particularly true for teens:
We know what we are, but not what we may be.
The Hero: Regardless of any limitations or challenges they may have, your daughter or son is designed for greatness. They have the right to dream heroic dreams.
The Journey: They are on a crucial journey called high school, with:
- New friends,
- New teachers, and
- New coaches.
They are juggling changing physiology, peer pressure, and the emotional swings that occur when they ace a big test one day and get cut from the soccer team the next.
They will never again receive such an explosion of new freedoms, while having such a low level of experience!
The Threat: A storm is coming. A storm of binge drinking, drug use, and smoking that can leave a path of incredible destruction:
- Suffering grades,
- Loss of respect,
- Team expulsions,
- DUI’s and DWI’s,
- Wrecked cars,
- Loss of car privileges,
- Unwanted addictions,
- Overdoses, and
- Broken friendships.
And just when your teen thinks that he or she has heard the worst of what is as stake … they haven’t. The worst thing that can happen is that they harm someone else along the way, or set a bad example that their younger brother or sister follows.
The Guide: You, the parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are the guides! You're the trainer who has to help your fighter get through all four years!
The Plan of Action: The Just Say No Promise Agreement between you and your teenager can be downloaded for free at JustSayNo.org. This document:
- Puts teenagers in control of their life,
- Creates consequences to help your teen stay on track,
- Gives them a tool for resisting peer pressure, and
- Helps your teens gain enormous self-confidence.
This Story’s Climatic Outcome: Rewards begin immediately and victory comes at graduation when the hero and the guide shake hands on a job well done. Like all guides, your reward is seeing your hero, your son, daughter, grandchild, niece, or nephew accomplish their goal; to become the best version of themselves. Another reward is the great example it will give the younger kids to follow.
At JustSayNo.org, we root for the hero. We root for the guide. We root for you!