Tired of your mum nagging you to clean your room? A solution for you is at hand! Always agree on what they’re saying and promise them you will do whatever they’re nagging about. Try to slowly change the subject onto something they may be interested about. (What I find always works a treat is to ask for some help with your homework, it makes them fell smart!)
- Having a positive relationship with your parents
Here are a few tips to maintain a positive relationship with parents
- Be respectful when discussing any areas of disagreement.
- Be willing to listen to your parent's view.
- Stay calm.
- Be non-blaming, don't accuse.
- Stick to the issue - don't get side tracked into other areas.
In the next area, we will cover exams. Something boys somehow manage to have their periods on…
You slowly open your eyes. Ah, another beautiful morning. You think to yourself, "It's great not to have anything to worry about". Worry about? That thought starts to bother you. Is there something? OH NO! Today is exam day and you haven’t studied enough!
How can you avoid a situation like this? How can you deal with the mountains of stress that exams seem to create? Read on to find out some useful tips.
- Do exams really matter?
The answer to this question is 'yes' and 'no'. That’s not very helpful, is it? Getting good grades does make it easier to get on at school, to get the future study courses you want, and that can lead to a good job in future…BUT…there are other ways of getting the work and life that you want later, when you are older. Of course you may still have to do some kind of exam. If you break out into a cold sweat when you think about exams, then you need to get some help. Talk with your teachers about this as early as possible, so you don’t get to an exam in a real panic.
- Planning ahead
Get into a routine…
If you get started early enough before your exams, you will find you don’t need to put in any all-nighters. One good hour of study is better than a whole night, struggling to keep awake. Find the time of the day that you study the best. Pick a couple of hours and stick to this study time. Get to know how you learn the best. Your parents may not like it (they hardly ever do!) , but if you study better on the floor, listening to music, or outside, then that is how you should do it. Remember: one calm hour of study is usually better than 6 panicking hours of study
Also, if you think you’ve done a good job revising, reward yourself! This will give you something to look forward to.
The next chapter is a rather controversial one. Religion. Before we start, I would like you to know that the advice given to you in the following chapter is NOT obligatory and we fully understand if you disagree with the matter. However, the teenage survival guide is intended to get you through adolescence and will therefore provide you with any information that will help you.
Religion – never let this get in the way of your life. It has, and still is ruining the life of thousands across the world. A good example is Afghanistan, a country destroyed due to a handful of people that were determined to fight because “God wanted them to do it”. They may think that god is on their side; however I have yet to see the Americans getting blown up by some unknown force.
This guide is not written to persuade, it is written to inform. So please don’t run up to your mothers and stuff this in their faces saying it’s against the will of Allah or Jesus or whoever you deem necessary to give up your time for. See this as an unbiased guide.
You may ask, why shouldn’t we be religious? Well, my answer to that is a fairly simple one. Growing up in an average London comprehensive school, I can say that religion has led to fights, racism (The Ku Klux Klan is a perfect example!) and even bullying! Best thing is to stay neutral, stay out of it.
You may also have heard of people going to their places of worship on a weekend. Do you really want to go? Would you rather be somewhere commemorating someone who is dead or with your mates in the park? Your choices, but a word of advice, know the value of your friends. They are alive; they eat, feel and think. Would you really let them down for a person you don’t know?
Ask yourself this. What has religion done for you? Either way, you’ll find you’ll get through your teenage life s smoother without religion on your mind.
Section 4 we now come onto. Lying. A skill that can be used throughout life however comes in very handy during the teenage years. We’ll go through the steps on how to make someone believe you, even if you tell them the sky’s green.
Rule number 1, Have as little previous contact with the target as possible. Avoid lying to people who know your "true behaviour". Many years of experience has proved one thing to me; it's incredibly difficult to know if someone is lying unless you have had previous experience to his or her natural behaviour. The more you lie to someone, the more familiar he or she will be with your natural behaviour. Because they know how you usually act, they'll press you on the truthfulness of your statements, and be more likely to figure out that you lied. This is why the old quote: "a liar never looks you straight in the eye" is a load of bull. If the person doesn't usually look people in the eye as part of his normal behaviour, he very may well look you in the eye when he is lying. Lots of other tips you may have heard are also usually a load of crap (e.g., liars talk fast, their eyes dart around, or clear their throats a lot) It doesn't matter what someone does when they lie; it only matters if such behaviour is different from how she or he normally acts.
Rule number 2, practice. Actors are better at lying than non-actors. This is because actors have more experience. For the same reason, practicing your lie will make it better. If you have already practiced your story, then when it comes time to lie, you don't have to worry about what you're going to say. Practice also allows us to distance ourselves from our lies. We just pour out what we’ve practiced, and we actually forget that we're telling a lie. Purposely lying is tough. Lastly, practice gives you confidence, and confidence is a good sign of if someone is telling the truth. If a person suddenly seems less confident in what they are saying, you get suspicious.
Rule number 3, believe the lie. A philosopher once stated, "It's not really a lie if you believe it. If you can somehow convince yourself that you are telling the truth, then as far as your mind is concerned, you're not a liar. As a result, there will be no movement away from your natural behaviour. Because you think you are telling the truth, you will appear as if you are telling the truth.
"Huh?" you say. Well, let's say that a policeman asks you if you ever smoked marijuana, and for the sake of argument, you smoked pot yesterday. How can you lie persuasively?
What if you told yourself this: "The purpose of pot is to get high. You can only get high if you inhale. So, someone only really ‘smokes' pot when they inhale. I did not inhale. Therefore, I am comfortable saying that I did not ‘smoke' pot" When that policeman asks if you ever "smoked" marijuana, you could with complete ease answer "no" because you truly believe that you did not. You're free (and still entitled to be prime minister)!
To recap, remember what you've learned:
- Have as little contact with the target as possible.
- Practice. When Officer Lock-‘em0-up is standing in front of you, analyzing you for nervous behaviour, your well-practiced story of how you don't smoke marijuana because it's against your religion is safely stored in your brain. Now when it's time to talk, you'll feel confident.
- Use details to make you believe the lie. Mr. Lock-‘em-up is standing in front of you, asking if you smoke marijuana. Your answer is not, "No. It's against my religion." Your answer is "No. I'm a member of the Catholic Church, and it is strictly forbidden by our God to ingest any plant-based smoke. Would you like to attend a prayer meeting tomorrow at 4:00 am?" Okay, this is a little random, but you get the idea!
And there you have it! You now know all that is necessary to be a liar.
So we come to the end of this guide. Having covered the main topics of teenage life, you will hopefully have walked away from this guide having learnt something of use. A few key points to remember:
- stay out of trouble
- 1 hour of calm study is better than 6 hours of panic!
- Make the right choices
So live life and we’ll see you in our next series: “the first years of adulthood”
Cheerio!
Shayan Moghaddam
English Coursework