Nick Boothman, New York Times bestselling author of "How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less" reveals how to instill perseverance in a teenager. He has raised five highly successful children and he worked hard to teach his kids to be resourceful and to never give up.

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The world can be a tough place, and when you’re a teenager, it can feel especially so. As a parent, you should be getting them ready to excel in the real world. "Grit", "self-sufficiency", and “perseverance” are buzz words that many parenting experts seem to extol. So why is building perseverance in teens important, and how do you do it? How do you properly challenge your teen so that they can be successfully independent young people?

Obviously, you don’t want to put your teen in any dangerous situations, but at the same time, you can’t baby your teen forever. Parents should be building perseverance in their teens and challenging them to be better thinkers and more creative problem solvers. Not every day can be a vacation and not everything in life comes easily or conveniently. Parents looking to build perseverance in teens and prepare them for the uncertainties of life should let them experience a healthy amount of failure or hardship.

Nick Boothman knows about building perseverance in teens from first-hand experience. Author of one of the best-selling communication books of all time, How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less, Nick has raised five highly successful globe-trotting children. He has worked hard to teach his kids to be resourceful, worldly and to never give up. Now a grandfather, he looks to impart these lessons onto others so they too can partake in building perseverance in teens.

The theme of Nick’s interview ended up being how to give teenagers space to fail and how to force them to push through difficult setbacks. The only way they can discover their own strength in the face of hardship is for them to exert it themselves. Building perseverance in teens cannot be possible if you always step in to make things easier for them.

He told me how his daughter called him from Australia in tears asking for help and he had to tell her that she was on her own. “Desperation is the mightiest driver of all,” Nick told me. You might never send your teenager around the world by herself, but you can certainly require more grit from your teen. Effectively building perseverance in teens allows them to find their own way out of difficult predicaments and onto a better path.

When your teen is in a difficult situation, it forces them to consider what they really want. Once they find out what they want, they can begin to take steps in order to achieve that goal. Far easier said than done, but in this week’s interview, Nick tells us how allowing your teen to fail is part of building perseverance in teens.

Statements That Instill Perseverance

1. When your teen is having a hard time on a trip:

When Nick’s daughter took a gap year in Australia, she ran into a bit of trouble with finding the right apartment. She was upset and wanted to rely on her father for quick help. Nick saw an opportunity for building perseverance in teens by pushing his daughter to forge her own path. He said on the phone to her:

"I'll bring you home right now. You'll be fine. I'll put you on a plane and bring you home now but it's over. Because you're not going back. So it's up to you. If you give up you'll be safe--I'll catch you. Or you can go on."

She didn’t end up coming home, and she eventually found the right place for her to stay in Australia. She ended up doing a full gap year on her own. If Nick hadn’t been firm in his position, then she wouldn’t have been able to finish her gap year and she wouldn’t have discovered that she could totally solve her problems on her own. Part of building perseverance in teens is encouraging them to take the road less traveled.

2.How to light a fire under your teen:

Nick’s enthusiasm for life starts young, and there’s something to be said for that. Instead of coddling or babying your teen, start pushing them to find their own interests and passions while they’re still very young.

"Use your wings. You're 14. You're now a consequential thinker. You're now on the edge of the nest. I'll kick you up the ass and start flapping! You've got to make something of your life. And not in a nasty way. In a great fun way."

Building perseverance in teens is about stepping aside and letting them explore life on their own terms. It can only help them build a better sense of wonder and curiosity of the world around them.

3.When your teen is complaining about an activity that is hard:

When a teen finds themselves in a difficult situation, it forces them to consider what they truly want. Sure, quitting is a legitimate option. But when building perseverance in teens, is quitting a helpful option? Try posing this question the next time your teen is struggling with a task:

"Well what are you going to do? Pack it in? Give up? I'd think about it if I were you."

When your teen has the drive and determination to break through to the other side, they open up an entire new world for themselves. Enduring challenges provides invaluable opportunities for building perseverance in teens.

Getting Teens to Speak for Themselves

Nick explains that a critical skill for building perseverance in teens is teaching them how to captivate an audience. He gave me some tips on how to accomplish this from his new book, The Irresistible Power of StorySpeak. It involves training teens to use colorful language and to tell brief, engaging anecdotes with a point. When you have the skills of speaking for yourself and being able to speak with others easily, you are able to navigate the world and persevere through any obstacle that life places in front of you.

Think back over the last few weeks and write down a few things that your teenager gave up on or asked you to help finish. What would have happened if you had told them, “No?” Next to each situation, write a response that you can use next time to politely tell your teen this is their responsibility to fix.

Instead of taking on a task entirely to help them, offer suggestions on what steps to take next and have them finish. If they threaten to quit, don’t immediately shut that idea down. Let them marinate with the thought of them quitting. Will quitting give them what they want? Will quitting make them happier in the long run? Is quitting something like this worth it?

Try affirming your teen with a few words about how you know they can handle it on their own. Or you can appeal to their desire for maturity by pointing out that they are getting bigger and this situation is now their responsibility. There are many growing stages in life, and when your child is a teen, you’ve reached the stage where you shouldn’t be doing everything for them. This is a moment of growth for your teen and for you as a parent.

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