Teach Your Teen Mentee Six Steps to Good Decisions Whether they are deciding whether or not to approach a teacher about a problem or to use tobacco, teens need to learn problem-solving skills. Teach your mentee this six-step method for making decisions: Identify the problem. Ask your mentee to state the problem in her own words. If there is a conflict, have her state the opposite view. Think of all possible solutions. Your mentee shouldn’t try to judge whether the ideas are good or bad. She should just keep thinking of as many options as she can. List the good and bad points. Once your mentee has identified all solutions, it’s time to weigh them. She should think of the pros and cons of each idea. In this process, teens sometimes think of other solutions that are better than any they’ve listed. Make the decision. Now your mentee has to choose a solution to try. Sometimes, teens can choose two solutions and see which works better. Act on the decision. Get your mentee to talk about what will happen and what might go wrong. If teens anticipate problems, they are better able to deal with them. Evaluate. How did your mentee's solution work? Your teen should think about what changes she should make so it will work better next time. With your mentee, go through this process with one problem. Then ask her to try another on her own.

adapted from
Parent Connection
Virginia Beach City Public Schools