3 HUGE Mistakes Teens Make When Communicating with Adults
3 HUGE Mistakes Teens Make When Communicating With Adults
Social media and smartphones have made us all lazy communicators. Teens are the absolute WORST.
Here are the 3 biggest mistakes we see:
1. Overly casual style
We’re not asking for “Dear Sir”, but we’d love to see some common sense in email and text correspondence. Here’s an actual text exchange:
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Alumni interviewer: Hi XXXXX. I’m YYY. I have been assigned as your alumni interviewer from (Elite College). I sent you a few emails over the last six weeks but never heard back. Do you want to do an interview, or would you prefer to skip? Please let me know. Thank you.
Prospective student: wait like (Elite College)?
Alumni interviewer: Yes, (Elite College). Did you apply to (Elite College)?
Prospective student: yes i did
Alumni interviewer: Did you receive my emails?
Prospective student: thank you very much and also for contacting me about it cause i actually had no clue haha
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This is an actual exchange. Make sure your teen never EVER communicates with an adult like this, whatever the context.
2. Neglecting (and failing to reply) to emails
Email is the bane of all of us, but it is still a VERY IMPORTANT mode of communication. Teens who regularly fail to check and/or respond to email messages miss a lot. Social interactions may have shifted more to text, but communications from schools, interviewers and prospective employers are likely to be by email.
Get in the habit of regularly checking AND responding to emails. Ideally, also get into the habit of filing important emails and deleting everything else. This is an essential organizational skill that can also be transferred into managing communications in other media.
Like most things in life, it’s easier to build these good habits when you are young.
3. Not saying THANK YOU
It’s shocking how few teenagers are conditioned to write thank you notes, including to adults who have helped them secure college admissions, jobs and other significant benefits. This is seriously shortsighted.
A thank you note results in an instant positive, or at least a neutral impression. Failure to express thanks IN WRITING is an automatic, and often permanent, strike against someone. It communicates: I do not appreciate what you have done for me. I am too busy with my important teenage life to take five minutes to sit down and write a simple note.
Before you say: my teen would NEVER do that, don’t be so sure! In this ultra-casual world, it often just doesn’t occur to teens to go through the formal motions of writing a thank you note. We experience it over and over again, including in teens in whom it is surprising.
Communication is essential to success in college, the workforce and beyond. Start your teen off understanding the rules. Manners matter!