Toronto doctor engages local youth
Posted By TINA PEPLINSKIE
Updated 3 months ago
A Toronto doctor who has worked with teens for 13 years is sharing communication styles and strategies for connecting and engaging youth.
Dr. Karyn Gordon, youth and Generation Y expert, author and motivation speaker, shared her enthusiasm for working with Generation Y in her keynote address during the Renfrew County District School Board's annual professional development conference, held Monday at Fellowes High School. The title of this year's conference is Learning for the 21st century.
After years of counselling youth and teens in her private practice, Dr. Gordon answered a call from her young patients to talk to parents and teachers and help them understand where they are coming from.
"My best education comes from teens," she told principals, teachers, educational assistants, school counsellors.
During her presentation, Dr. Gordon discusses six communication styles and their impact on students. After hearing the definitions of the communication styles, she asked everyone in the audience to think about which category their students would put them in.
The styles are the clinician, someone who uses big words and acts superior; the teacher, someone who tells people what to do and often talks down to people; the sergeant, someone who is very strict, thinks they are perfect and would never admit to be being wrong even if they knew they were; the over-functioner, someone who does too much and gets overly involved; the doormat, someone who has lost control, lets the students dominate the show and is often intimidated by Generation Y; and the ultimate, someone whose number one objective is to understand the students and where they are coming from.
Dr. Gordon has learned through her interaction with young people is that they do not respect authority unless they receive respect first. The key to overcoming this, she explained, is shifting focus and taking advantage of the opportunity to be the power of influence in a young person's life.
She went onto say the approach of the clinician, sergeant and teacher are too hard, because the students don't feel safe, often end up resenting the teacher or event resort to lying, while the over-functioner and doormat are too soft because they give the young people too much power and can develop a chip on their shoulder or attitude of entitlement. By taking the ultimate approach, however, and trying to understand where the teens are coming from children will feel more valued and respected.
When talking to youth, Dr. Gordon often hears about the teachers the children love, but also the teachers they hate.
"The power of teachers is incredible because you spend more time with children than their parents do," she said. "When children feel respected they want to please their teachers and their motivation is higher."
She also offered five practical strategies to connect, engage and communicate effectively with youth. They include knowing the end goal and focusing on it; thinking of a past successful time; knowing the right words to use (although only seven per cent of communication is words); knowing your body language (since the remaining is 93 per cent of communication is body language); and finally asking for feedback.
"If you really want to do an outstanding job, allow your students to evaluate you,"Dr. Gordon said.
She started the morning with an interactive exercise to let the audi- ence in on a few secrets about the language of teens. Shown on a large screen were common abbreviations used in online discussions by young people. The two teams of three had to buzz in when they knew the answer, but all were stumped more than once. Examples included LOL for laugh out loud, MIRL for meet in real life and POS for parents over shoulder.
"It is important to know the language, but not use it because it is uncool if parents use the same language," Dr . Gordon said.
Tina Peplinskie is a Daily Observer reporter
