Your ability to influence their decision making is always the result of two opposing forces: persuasion and resistance. The thinking is that to move a young person ahead, your persuasion must exceed their resistance. So most parents focus solely on creating persuasive arguments. Unfortunately, persuasion often exacerbates resistance.

When adults give children solutions, the children tend to develop more reasons for doing things their way. They start arguing in favour of their own reasons, buying into them, and persuading themselves that they don't need to make changes.

Adults make enormous efforts to reduce their child’s stress. This creates more problems in the longer term.

Think of stress and anxiety like a math problem:

Stressors / Ability to tolerate stress.

That means that to lower your overall stress, you can reduce the stressors, or increase your ability to tolerate them.

Stress-relief strategies and accommodations target are steps aimed at reducing stressors. The problem is that when stressors return, and they always do, we remain unable to tolerate them.

Increasing tolerance and strength (the bottom number) is the only way forward. This requires constant work.

We will be most successful with young people if we let them steer the conversation in any direction they like. Or, if they are open to listening, you might be more able to motivate some changes to his current actions with questions that focus on their reasons for not changing. Examples might sound like this:

It looks like you’re against doing any work at all.

It seems like you have a good reason for continuing doing things this way. What about the less-good side?

It sounds like you've given this system some thought. Could you tell me more?  

It feels like there are some of the objections that show up for you when you think about trying something new.

Teens love to be right. If these sorts of statements are wrong, they will let you know and give you the accurate reasons. If they are correct, teens feel empowered, understood, and cooperative. Either way, chances are that they will come up with some solutions. Even if they are less than optimal, by trying something different we will see different outcomes.

1. They feel that the other person is not listening to them.

2. They feel that they can’t trust the other person.

3. They believe that they’ve lost their ability to influence the other person’s opinion.

Are you using your logic or theirs? Do you understand their reasons for not changing, or are you just focused on what’s important to you? What language or analogies best resonate with them?

If you’re getting a ‘no’, they probably don’t believe that your ideas meet their needs, wants, or concerns. It’s crucial that they trust you and that will only happen if they feel understood.

Are you talking down to them or using authority? Are they acting to protect themselves from things getting worse, or are they doing it because they want things to get better?