What your kids really need to learn to love life

Commitment, Responsibility & Discipline - 3 of the most unappealing words you can utter to most teenagers!

And yet… I am ALWAYS discussing them and sprinkling in invitations to my students at the appropriate time to be open to step more and more into all three.

It is my belief that this is what we need to sell our children on to enable them to find the true freedom, purpose and satisfaction that they all crave.

The torpor, apathy, lack of direction, boredom, frustration and anger that our young adults can often exhibit are in some ways linked to them simply not knowing how to get going in life, not trusting in themselves or others enough to reach for a goal, to say yes and to put their hands up for a greater level of participation or leadership. So instead they stay small, they stay meek and non-committal, avoiding duties and responsibilities and any other potential restrictions to their freedom in the erroneous belief that it will limit them in life.

What I spend a good deal of my time communicating with them is that the opposite is the case.

Commitment and responsibility set us free at any stage in our lives but perhaps never more so than when we taste the benefits of them in adolescence.

My greatest ever teacher taught me: ‘Commitment IS Freedom’.

Chew on that…!

Regular commitments, responsibilities and duties we have during the week put us and keep us on track, giving us an easy way to just keep showing up without thinking about it and in some ways fulfilling some basic destiny. We often reap incredible rewards, especially years down the line if we keep up the role or activity regularly, in return for a small sacrifice of time or energy.

The belief that we are most free when we are able to do whatever we want whenever we want to do it is a poisoned chalice that many of our young adults are deep in the process of exploring currently.

Gaming, scrolling away on their phones, binge-watching whatever series - doom scrolling and ‘bed-rotting’ (as one of my students described his Christmas Holidays to me this week) - they and many of us too spend our time free-wheeling in the abyss of online entertainment in the search for a greater sense of satisfaction or freedom.

A life lived for too long like this can quickly make us feel pretty lost and bewildered, whether we are aware of this and inclined to admit it or not.

Now of course there are huge benefits also from all this technology, communication and entertainment so don’t get me wrong, but with so many of our online activities we do have to be careful. We have to all learn balance lest we get completely sucked in by it all and made to feel like it is part of our deeper purpose when it is not.

Real commitment and responsibility is where people are depending on us to show up and contribute to them in some way, it’s when we have significantly furthered ourselves or others in a project or activity, where we have made some sort of tangible progress and affected the world positively, in however small a way, through specific efforts.

We are designed as human beings to get more intrinsic satisfaction and reward from benefitting ourselves and others than pretty much anything else. Nothing feels so good to many of us actually than being of some kind of use to other people, doing a great job or just making the people around us feel more loved and more happy.

That’s what I’ve been taught, in later life, that we’re here for and I LOVE this simple lens to look at my life and activities through.

It’s hard to live in fact without being of benefit, serving a purpose or making a difference to yourself and others, each and every day.

It’s hard to feel good in life fundamentally without showing up for others, working and ideally, if we can find a just cause, working hard!

I’m no task master in my coaching - far from it - but I love to instil work ethic in my students from this vantage. Nothing will satisfy them more or make them feel better if they can find activities and service that is aligned with their loves and interests, their passions and principles.

Teenagers I meet often think that winning the lottery, being famous, just being able to travel the world or inheriting a billion pounds - or whatever - would set them free and ‘be the best life ever’.

I beg to differ.

And I can speak with some authority with them about this delusion.

Real joy and real love and connection, real purpose and life satisfaction comes much more readily from a life of work than a life without any responsibility, commitment or discipline. This to me - after my own journey through my 20s and 30s and learning subsequently from some of the world’s greatest teachers - is clear as day and I do my damnedest to shoot holes in their naive bubble - in a way that never disrespects or alienates them - so that they can start to see a real path in life to greater purpose, meaning, satisfaction and flourishing.

If you’re not already a member of our awesome Young Fire Academy Parent Community Group on Facebook, come join us! Get support from me and other like-minded parents who are on this journey too.
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Henry Dingle

Henry Dingle is the founder of Young Fire Academy and an expert teen and parent coach, as well as a specialist tutor. He helps exasperated parents and their demotivated teens reconnect and thrive by fostering authentic relationships, trust, and accountability. With over 20 years of experience working with teens, Henry’s approach ignites motivation, leading to greater self-confidence and real-life satisfaction.

He empowers students to take charge of their learning through mindset coaching, effective essay-writing techniques and Maths helping them build confidence and enjoy their academic journey. As a parent coach, Henry supports families in restoring trust, improving communication, and creating a more harmonious home environment.