Enlightened Leadership Blog | Teaching Your Teen How to Communicate through Writing | August 2024
The most recent year I can find comprehensive writing statistics related to teenagers is 2019. That’s half a decade ago. Today, a simple online search reveals pages of statistics on teenagers and their use of social media, including screen time and its effect on mental health. Spoiler: it’s not good.
I have experiential evidence to back up the fact that teenagers who write (for fun or even with any skill) are becoming a rarity. For the most part, publishing videos and internet “fame” have bullied out the ability to construct a coherent essay. TikTok, Insta reels, and Snat Chap have replaced journals, pens, and even computer keyboards. I know this because I co-founded a girl’s online magazine in 2020. My goal was to encourage 10- to 15-year-olds to write articles for other girls, to give voice to their stories that matter. The magazine flourished for about a year and a half. Then it became increasingly difficult to find writers—and readers. And I’m talking about across the entire US and beyond. Some of our writers came from Europe, one from a boat in the ocean! The novelty wore off after I’d tapped out the dwindling cadre of motivated writers.
Through this, I learned something important: Gen Z wants videos, to both create and view. For communicating. For this reason, writing has become somewhat of a lost art. Sure, teens are forced to write in school. But forced writing, with prescribed topics and a subjective, often biased, grading system, doesn’t promote creativity or desire.
However, good writing, in various forms, is required in adulthood. It’s how many adults communicate their ideas and stories, particularly in the workforce. Whether it’s through email communication, articles, white papers, proposals, or book manuscripts, concise and compelling writing unlocks the ability to reach people through storytelling. Through writing, leaders and individual contributors alike instruct, encourage, persuade, motivate, inspire, and entertain.
So how can we, as entrepreneurs, help our teens become better communicators, better leaders, better contributors—and better inspirers—through the written word? Let’s dive in:
Teach Storytelling.
1. Encourage your teen to read—a lot. It’s the best way to inspire good writing. And encourage them to read good stories. Storytelling is the gateway to stimulating invention, memory capability, and problem-solving skills.
2. Encourage your teen to share stories verbally, then in written form. Model storytelling for them—at the dinner table or on long car rides. Talk about your day and the people you work with as if you’re telling a story, complete with action and interesting characters. When my kids were younger, we used to play the “story game,” where we took turns sharing a few sentences of a made-up plot to develop a story together. When they were a little older, we did it with writing, passing a piece of paper back and forth.
3. Suggest to your teen they pick a topic important to them. Then have them craft 1) an email, 2) a short fictional story, 3) a text, and 4) a written speech about that topic. Writing in different genres and formats helps versatility.
Encourage Vulnerability and Creativity.
4. Encourage your teen to write about their feelings (e.g., journaling or constructing fictional characters with many emotions, much like the movie Inside Out).
5. Encourage your teen to write without editing or worrying about grammar. My favorite formal education disrupter is Sir Ken Robinson, who said, “We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national educational systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make—and the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.”
6. However, while encouraging creativity in the written form, ensure your teen to speak using correct grammar. How we talk translates to how we write—at least until we hone our unique writing voice.
7. Encourage your teen to rewrite the ending of their favorite story. As Sir Ken Robinson said, “You can’t be a creative thinker if you’re not stimulating your mind, just as you can’t be an Olympic athlete if you don’t train regularly.”
There are many more ways to encourage good writing, storytelling, and creativity. Doing so with your teenagers will translate to confidence and effective communication through writing in the future.
Good luck!
By Cortney Donelson
*Image credit: Canva.
Cortney Donelson is the owner and principal writer at vocem, LLC, a writing services business offering editing and ghostwriting services with the mission to give voices to stories that matter. She also offers coaching for writers ages 12–17. You can learn more at www.yourvocem.com. Mention this blog post and receive 10% off coaching for teenagers wanting to enhance their writing skills.