CHOICES

Encouraging Youth to Achieve Greatness

Robin Cox

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781666724585, 9781666720297
• eBook ISBN: 9781666720303
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Positive face-to-face relationships are key to the health and well-being of our youth in a post-pandemic world. CHOICES: Encouraging Youth to Achieve Greatness inspires and guides parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, and youth workers--significant adults--to use the proven CHOICES framework to motivate youth to achieve greatness or reach their potential no matter what their circumstances might be. Hundreds of tips and strategies to connect with and inspire youth are shared in this user-friendly book, together with true stories of Robin Cox's interactions with some of the teenagers he has mentored in different countries to give credibility to the CHOICES framework. Proven education and youth mentoring strategies are linked with recent adolescent brain research. CHOICES invites readers to reflect on their own adolescent journey to appreciate some of the challenges today's youth face, and reminds them of the importance of positive relationships in the lives of increasingly anxious, confused, or underachieving young people. CHOICES offers messages of hope to all who wish to be an optimistic voice in the life of our youth. Tips and strategies linked to goal-setting, effective communication, and resiliency can enhance the quality of teaching, mentoring, and coaching in a global community in which most youth are desperate to be heard and supported. Anyone who genuinely believes that youth are the future will value this encouraging book.

Chapter 1

Catching the Vision—My Awakening

Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.

John Wooden

What life lessons can you share with youth?

How would you explain the term “achieve greatness”, and the word “success” to an adolescent?

Who have been the most important positive influences in your life to date?

Who were the most positive influencers during your journey through adolescence to become a young adult? Why this person or these people?

How did your adolescent experiences shape your future?

So many questions to remind us of our uniqueness and how we each have a personal story to share which continues to shape our life experiences.

Welcome to an introductory journey as I share my passion to encourage youth to reach their potential. One of the most important life lessons I have learnt is that, when I choose learning for life, I lead a life of significance. Let me explain this by way of a true story.

Diagnosis

At the age of nine I was diagnosed with cancer of the jaw. My parents initially thought I had mumps. When the swelling did not go down, I was sent to a specialist. A biopsy followed. My parents were informed that I had bone cancer—with a five per cent chance of survival—and would require radiation therapy. The worst-case scenario was that I probably only had two years to live.

I missed more than a term of school while I underwent the radiation therapy, followed by my first major operation. My mother took me to Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa—later to become famous as the venue for the first heart transplant—every day for two months. I found out some years later that I received two-and-a-half-times the adult dose of radiation as the doctors were so concerned that the cancer would spread through my body.

Success or failure?

Radiation therapy made me tired, and I had to take things carefully. However, I still remained passionate about cricket. I lived and breathed the game. I had made my debut in the school’s under 9A team, which I also captained in some matches. Waking up on a Saturday morning, opening my bedroom shutters and checking the weather, remains a vivid memory. All I wanted to do was play because I had a dream to play for my country. My top score was twenty-seven runs, which, to a nine-year-old, was like scoring a century.

While I was undergoing the radiation therapy, I placed a ball in an old sock tied to a beam on the back deck and practiced my batting for hours and hours. I imagined batting for my country and scoring all those runs. My dream was real.

After the radiation therapy was completed, the swelling had reduced. The doctors decided to operate and remove what was left of the tumor. During the next couple of years, I had two fairly major operations, the first to remove the cancerous jawbone and some lymph nodes, the second to graft a rib which would grow as my new jawbone. The hope was that, once I had stopped growing and my face had adapted to this new jawbone, I would be as near normal in looks as was possible, and the final plastic surgery would cover the hollow in my cheek as a result of the first operation.

During the next few years, through to the end of high school, I made regular trips to the outpatient clinic at the hospital, my significant memory being the healing hands of the amazing specialists who treated me as they checked my progress.

I recall the day I returned to school after my first major operation. I sat in the car until after Assembly. The headmaster told the school that I was returning, was disfigured, yet needed to be treated normally.

Many of my teachers reached out, encouraged and moved alongside me in different ways, and at different times. Their acts of kindness impacted my life in a significant way, so much so that I decided, at about eleven years of age, that I would one day become a teacher.

Tragedy brings changes

One occasion during my junior school years, which I remember as though it was only yesterday, was the day my headmaster called me out of class before lunch to tell me that my father was coming to fetch my brother and me. My mother had undergone an operation and was in hospital. My father had been called to the hospital early that morning. As we clambered into the car, my father informed us that my mother had died from a pulmonary embolism.

The family understandably took time to adapt to my mother’s death. I was allowed to play sport again after many tantrums and bucketloads of tears had been shed. Through my involvement in sport, I discovered that I had some talent. This awareness probably helped me develop a way to cope with my disfigurement.

About eighteen months after my mother died, my father married again. My stepmother was a divorcee who had suffered the tragedy of losing her son, the same age as me, though in another class at my school. He was hit by a car as he ran across a busy road to watch a helicopter landing on a large common close to a children’s hospital. He was blind in one eye, so failed to see an approaching car. My step-sister was a couple of years younger than me.

This marriage changed the dynamics within our family. My teenage brother and sister battled to accept two new people into the family. No matter how hard she tried, my stepmother could never replace my mother. It took her a long time to understand this.

Looking for meaning and purpose

I journeyed through the confusing adolescent years lacking in self-confidence. I had to tolerate the never-ending stares of young and old to remind me of my disfigurement, and was subjected to occasional hurtful comments from my peers. I was shy and a bit of an introvert within a family experiencing what can only be described as “interesting dynamics”.

My love of sport, as already mentioned, kept me going. I also joined a youth group for a while, following my brother there. The other members of the group were at other schools and knew each othe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Catching the Vision—My Awakening
• Chapter 2: The CHOICES Framework?
• Chapter 3: Peter’s Story: Our Choices Define Us
• Chapter 4: Clear Goals
• Chapter 5: Hobbies and Interests
• Chapter 6: Organization
• Chapter 7: Interdependence
• Chapter 8: Consistency
• Chapter 9: Exercise
• Chapter 10: Service
• Chapter 11: Concluding Thoughts: Make Sense of Confusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography