Your parents can either be your biggest supporter or your greatest hindrance. 95% of students underestimate how powerful a strong relationship with their parents is. Your parents love you and they want you to be happy. Sometimes we forget that we're all on the same team. In this playbook, I'm going to help you learn how to create a strong dynamic with your parents.

✅ How parents can help you:

• Give you resources to help you grow (e.g. money to buy technology, access to programs like Nexteen, pay for courses, get you things you might need for experiments, pay for a flight so you can attend a legit conference or meet smart people, etc.)
• Help you with teachers at school that is giving you a difficult time. Your parents should be on your team, not on your teacher's team. They can help influence the school and your teachers when you need help.
• Support you when you feel down. You will go through ups and downs, and when you're at a low point your parents will be there to help you. They could be the reason why you don't give up and keep going, even when you feel like the rest of the world is against you.
• Introduce you to help people in their network. Remember that your parents know people. A lot of Nexteen students forget that their parents can be a great networking resource for them.

🚫 How parents can hinder you:

• Engage in fights and conflict that creates negativity. It's hard to grow and get stuff done when you're always fighting about things.
• Give you unnecessary pressure, which can make you feel anxiety and stress. These feelings are not helpful when trying to grow. Often times it will make you focus on things that don't matter and you'll end up performing poorly because of all the pressure.
• Not providing you with the resources you need to accelerate your growth.

<aside> 🚨 If your parents hinder you, it will be very difficult to accomplish your goals. I've seen many students get blocked by their parents because of misalignment and poor communication. Avoid this at all costs.

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4 things you can do to build trust with your parents:

#1 Align on what success means🏆

Your parents want what's best for you, but often times I see a misalignment between what they think success means for you, and what you are trying to achieve. If you can align on what success means, then all other conversations will become much easier. This is step 1.

→ Action: Have a conversation with them about how they would define success for you. Push their thinking to define success in the short-term (this year), medium-term (within 3 years), and long-term (10-20 years). If you don't agree with their definition, explain what your thoughts are and why you think that way.

→ Note: The world is changing exponentially. The mindset your parents grew up with is likely different than the mindset needed to thrive in the future. Be patient, understand their perspectives, and help them to understand yours. Remember, you both want what's best for you.

#2 Create KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)🗝️

KPIs are quantifiable metrics used to measure performance in a company or an employee. You can use this method to create KPIs for yourself that your parents can use to measure if you're on the right track. Often times the only KPIs parents have to measure you are school grades. I hope we can all agree that only using school grades as an indicator of success is s***. It should be one variable, but there are more KPIs you should use, especially KPIs that link to your definition of success.

→ Action: Create KPIs with your parents that align with your definitions of success. You can use these KPIs to track your progress over the year.

→ Examples of KPIs: