Motivating, inspiring, understanding, listening and encouraging students for many years has helped me to gain great insight into the way they think and feel which I would like to share.
I have found that if you implement these findings they will work regardless of setting, relationship, cultures, ages and genders once appropriately used.

Providing Incentives:
Many students love to be rewarded so providing relevant rewards for their achievement is important. However, this can be a double edged sword as the wider world does not give you a top up credit or vouchers for being early as it should be normal, so it is important that prizes are earned and relatable to their achievement or you will be creating a rod for your own back (and theirs too).

Relationship:
Students are very relational all you need to do is check out what young people love doing Facebook, Watsaap, socialising and BBM etc. for this reason to engage with young people / students it is key to develop the right level of relationship that can be leveraged to achieve diverse objectives. If you win their mind they will listen to you, if you win their heart they will follow you.

Mentoring:
Students need to see and feel appreciated, supported, guided, encouraged and believed in. If you can create this environment from providing strategic mentoring programmes with trained mentors who are appropriately skilled your students / young people will achieve more than without this. If they feel cared for and that you are interested in them as well as their success this will create great results and also a relationship that will weather challenging times also.

Respect:
Young people are simply adults that are not fully matured, for that reason, I believe just like adults need: respect, assurance, validation, consideration, understanding and patience so will students and respect is a big one. Due to dynamics young people are rarely in control so they need to trust the judgment and governance of adults. for that reason respect is desired and should not be a one way street, regardless of role, position and age respect should be reciprocal.

Big Picture:
I have observed that a lot of students leave school and feel disconnected, disenfranchised about their future or don’t feel a sense of responsibility for their own lives is usually connected to the fact they lack a understanding of the bigger picture. On a personal level I think schools and education could do much more to connect the world that young people are learning in (schools) to the one that they are about to enter (world of life and work). If you can enable a young person to have an epiphany about the purpose of school, life and the world of work etc. I am truly convinced fewer students would become NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training).

Conclusion:
These are just a few ideas that I wanted to share which I hope would enhance or complement the knowledge and understanding you have about working with students or young people you care about whether children or relatives.

If you have a group of young people you would like me to talk to or professionals who you would like to be trained to more effective at creating those necessary connections, please free to contact me for a free 45 minute consultation.

image: The Guardian.com