You are a youth communicator. Whether you are a parent with an audience of one or two, or a teacher with a classroom of twenty to thirty, you do what I do—you are trying to get your teens to assimilate important information that you know will benefit them greatly in the future. Anyone can put out information; getting someone to assimilate the information takes understanding and skill. Relational connection is the first step in assimilation. Your audience must trust that you really care about them enough to understand them before they will be open to hear what you have to say. 

One of the biggest mistakes youth communicators make is answering questions that young people are not asking.

How many assembly programs did you sit through as a kid while thinking to yourself, “I really don’t care about what this person is talking about at all right now, but at least I got out of class”? We assume we know what they care about, but a lot of the time, we really don’t. These assumptions come from what we as adults think they should care about.  In my opinion, adolescents are constantly asking themselves four questions, four important questions that are running through their mind and must be answered the right way for them to feel emotionally healthy. In this podcast Mike will take you inside the head of most American teenagers so you can get a better understanding of the real questions that are dominating their minds.