Adolescents face lots of challenges and stressful time. It is a period when boundaries are tested, doors are slammed, and voices often raised. When they express their frustrations in anger, that anger can be unsettling. Disappointment and general helplessness stems from a teen’s desire to be more independent from his/her parents and the frustration that he/she can’t yet enjoy the freedoms of an adult.
That frustration is sometimes expressed as anger and striking out verbally at parents. They will teeter between being engaged with the family and wanting to retreat by themselves or with friends for several hours at a time. Frustration is unrealized potential. Frustration drives ineffective leaders backward, inward and downward. To turn such negative traits into positive, let us understand that we must respond and not react. Remember the cockroach theory reiterated by Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google.
At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of cockroach. Her reaction was contagious as everyone in her group started panicking. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but… it landed on another lady in the group. Now it was turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.
In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter. The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behaviour of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant. Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behaviour? If so then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection without any chaos.
It is not the cockroach but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach. Similarly situation will make us angry, but if we could stop, think and then respond, anger can be controlled.
