Leading With Love: A Parent's Guide To Pre-Teens With Marcus Higgs
Preteens are a whirlwind of emotions and rapid change; leading them requires a steady hand, a compassionate heart, and a strategic mind. In this episode, Sean Olson is joined by communication coach Marcus Higgs, who offers insightful guidance on parenting pre-teens. With a deep understanding of child development and communication, he empowers parents to build strong foundations for their children’s future. Drawing from his diverse global experiences and expertise, Marcus introduces his “SHOW Up” model, focusing on fostering strong identities, promoting collaboration, and handling external influences. Tune in to discover actionable strategies for supporting your pre-teen’s growth and development.
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Leading With Love: A Parent's Guide To Pre-Teens With Marcus Higgs
Introduction
Welcome to this episode of the show. This is the show where you know the stories of real people like you who have become extraordinary leaders. You'll learn valuable tips from their lives that you can implement to become the best leader that you are created to be. When leaders are intentional, lives are changed. I’m happy to be with you all. We're in for a treat as my guest is Marcus Higgs. Marcus is a communication coach for parents of pre-teens, a huge issue and need, but a niche you don't oftentimes hear about. Marcus is coming to us from the Bahamas. He lives down in Nassau. I'm sure it is sweltering hot down there in the summer in Nassau.
Marcus Higgs, it is awesome to have you on the show. Welcome.
It's wonderful to be here. From our pre-conversations and everything else, I'm looking forward to this. It's hot here in the Bahamas.
I have no doubt. To the audience, I hope you hit that subscribe button so you can get notified of every new episode of the show and catch incredible guests like Marcus. We met not long ago and had a great conversation. I am a parent. My wife and I have one child. She's past that pre-teen stage, but that stage was so crucial. I really appreciate this because I'm a firm believer that the key to a family’s success and the key to children moving forward is parental involvement and really diving in.
It's the most influential part of their life. There's this line from this guy named Kenneth Burke. He said, “There's no persuasion without identification.” The first place a person identifies with the world is in their parent. I shared that with a parent one time. As a parent, you see yourself in your kid. A lot of my work has to deal with identity. It was to answer the mental health issue that's happening, and it comes down to identity. That's why the work that I do is so powerful.
Marcus’ Journey
I look forward to the deep dive into that. We're going to start out with the same question we always ask. We ask our guests to walk us through their professional history, but more importantly, the leadership lessons learned along the way. Tell us about you and your journey in the Bahamas.
My journey started in Riverside, Southern California. That's where I was born. My journey started a little bit earlier in that my mother is from the Philippines and my father is from the Bahamas. They met in Nebraska of all places.
What were they doing in Nebraska?
They were going to University in Union College. I believe it was Thanksgiving break and they both were both left there.
That's a great story.
I grew up in California until seven. Let’s fast forward. When I was twelve, I moved to the Bahamas. I eventually went back to Alabama to study communication. After getting my degree in journalism, I moved to South Korea to be a missionary. While being a missionary there, my understanding of the divinity of religion and spirituality grew. No animosity towards the church, but I didn't want to preach what I didn't necessarily believe, coming into a new understanding. I've always had a sincere relationship with the divine since a young age with a sincere prayer life and so on. I then went out to Saudi Arabia and learned about Islam as a world religion. I came back and taught in Thailand and Spain.
You're a world traveler.
All of this feeds into the work I do because the work I do, and we'll get to it, is about being human and human development. I taught in Spain and Thailand. Now, I am back in the Bahamas with my aged parents. With the skills that I have, I do coaching in an area that is highly needed. I was an English high school teacher at that time. That's how I was traveling about.
As it relates to being in leadership, while I was in Korea, I was in administration. I was also the coordinator of institutes there. Being a teacher, you are a leader. You set the tone. You set the expectation. This will be something we're going to touch on. As a parent and an educator, I believe we create the context for learning to take place or we create the context for the person to have a full expression. As a leader, you set the vision, and then your team and operators align with that vision and then you let them express themselves. They may not be in the right roles. You may have to shift roles, but you set the vision. It's like, “Let's get there together.” That's what I've learned along the way.
I've also learned people have different values, being in all those different cultures. What values are is what's important to you. For some people, it's finance. For some people, it's family. For other people, it's their faith. When you know what's important for that team member, then we can align our conversations and still hold the golden mind, and then I know what your values are.
One more thing that I learned as a leader is there will be ruptures. There will be bumps and bruises along the way. What we say in communication is there will always be conflict. Conflict doesn't define the relationship. How we manage the conflict does. If you care about the relationship, we will rupture the repairs and we will set our identity to go forward again.
Intentional Observation And Learning
I like that. People take conflict typically with a very negative connotation. Conflict means we're not on the same page. We think of things differently or look at life differently, which makes life robust and beautiful if we don't make it a negative aspect. It's sharing those thoughts and those ideas. I want to hit something on your story though because you've bounced around the globe in many ways.
I can tell that you're a very cerebral person. You've been learning, observing, and taking things in. What can our audience intentionally do to take advantage of those opportunities? We travel to different places, be it on vacation or even talking to somebody virtually through Zoom, through work, and such as that. You were intentional in trying to observe, take in, and learn. How can our audience be more intentional like that?
Two things come to mind with that question. One is I was in a classroom capacity. The context was for me to sit down and listen to the learner. It's a bit different from vacation. However, while I was vacationing, one thing that I do take as a communicator is sitting down, listening, and being intentional with listening. We call it active listening.
In relationships, it's letting the person hold their dignity because you will meet people that you do not agree with. I call it ABC. It's called Accepting their beliefs. You’re not agreeing with it but accepting it. You’re Building upon it. You're showing them, “I see. I understand how you can see it like this.” You then Challenge with curiosity. So it's not directly attacking the person. We don't need to attack anybody else.
Being intentional with listening is letting the person hold their dignity.
Exactly.
When you ask with curiosity, you're leaving them with a question. In all of those instances, you're seeking understanding rather than to be understood. If you're a confident, secure person, it's like, “I know what I believe, and if you want to explore it, we can, but I am interested in you at the moment.” That's where you're intentionally being interested in the person, which interestingly makes you more interesting.
Those are great leadership tips. I love ABCs. I like things that are very simple. I love the ABC there. To the audience, what I want you to catch on this is this is the essence of leadership. I've said this numerous times. Leadership is a privilege. It is not a right. It is a privilege to be able to tap into someone and truly understand them.
Niche And Expertise
What I like about how you're sharing that, especially the Curiosity side, is people love to talk about themselves and share but they're never given the opportunity. A lot of us have these headphones on that we're listening to what we don't like instead of listening to understand. That was the phrase you used, and it's the key phrase for all of us as leaders. We have to listen to understand. Let's pick up the journey to when you became a communication coach for parents of pre-teens. What helped you zero in on that niche of life?
Sustained inquiry. That’s an approach to learning. It's called project-based learning, in which all life is project-based. What are you working on? The original question was, “How can I teach my ninth graders to tell the greatest story ever told?” The greatest story ever told is where you understand you're the protagonist, you are the audience, and you're the author of it. How do you live a good life? That's the question of the philosophers.
In that, I noticed the rising issue of mental health challenges in the English-speaking world, interestingly. I was trying to answer that, like, “How can I serve parents to answer this issue that's happening with mental health?” I've been through many iterations of this, so to your question, I've refined this a few times.
I have a communication background. I do love coaching philosophy, living a good life, and so on. I’m coaching because I want to help parents. I'm still a teacher in a sense but in a different capacity with a different audience. Working with children, I've done that for the majority of my life. Instead of working with kids one-on-one, I wanted to leverage it. That's with parents. Why pre-teens? That’s because this is the transition phase from dependent to independent. It's in our transitions that we get to learn our life lessons. I believe you are more wise than me. You have a lot more wisdom than me.
Parenting Pre-Teens: It's in our transitions that we get to learn our life lessons.
I love all that. I like that you're focusing on the parent side of it because you've been there for the kids. I have no doubt you're still impacting children in pre-teens, but parents are the ones that make the difference.
Mr. Rogers said, “If you want to help the kids, support the parents.” Parents are the ones who make the difference. No shaming, no blaming, no complaining, and no judgment towards a parent, but when you communicate with a person, it makes sense of, “I see why your kid is showing up like this.” There are these things that if I could sit with you and your communication, that could change fundamentally how your kid approaches life. When I made those connections inside the parent-teacher meetings, I was like, “This is a unique space that I can fill.”
Show Up
I love that. I know that you have created a model that is called SHOW UP to help parents through this. Give us a quick walkthrough of SHOW UP and what those different elements mean.
Thank you. SHOW UP starts with a Strong identity. Every action comes from an identity. James Clear’s Atomic Habits and so on. That does mean something specific. It means your virtues and your values. Your virtues are your 24 characteristic traits that aren't found in all cultures, all faith beliefs, and all communities. This comes from positive psychology. It's an accessible language that you can talk with with kids. When I was a mentor, I would always see these virtues in kids. You speak to that to bring their awareness to it.
Every action comes from an identity.
In a very simple way, it means what's inside you that is acting towards the well-being of the community or acting towards the well-being of yourself. Leadership is one of them. Everybody has all 24, but there are 5 that you express most. There are virtues, and then values are what's important to you. As I speak to you in virtues and values, I'm speaking to your identity, so it's highly relevant to you. It all starts with a strong identity.
The second thing is Hold space for collaboration and critical thinking. When kids are going through this transition phase, they often think, “What's wrong with me?” Instead of saying, “What's wrong with me?” It's like, “Life is life-ing. This is a problem or a challenge. Let's solve it together.” It's autonomy-supportive parenting if you want to look it up. It's an approach to parenting where you're giving them autonomy because they're moving into independence, but you're supporting them along the way.
How do you give that support while still letting them do what they do? It’s always Opening up communication, different frameworks, and strategies because they will start to close off. How do you open up that communication between you and the parent and within themselves? Be mindful of the voice with which you speak to children for in time, that becomes a voice with which they speak to themselves.
Let's sit on this piece for a second. I have a follow-up question on letting them open up. As they get to the teens, you said they begin to have that autonomy and they in some sense, maybe shut mom and dad out. They're at that stage where they don't want to hear it. They think they know the better way. A lot of parents are like, “I do want to do this. I want to be active with my child. I want to have that conversation of, “How was your day at school? What were the feelings around that?” It seems like a lot of times, they get these brick walls. What have you seen as some key tips for parents to allow that child to open up when they haven't been doing that?
The reason I do my work in the pre-teen phase is so that you can establish that trust throughout this period of adolescence. We're laying some groundwork in what I do. If you're already in the throes of it, I get it. Let me speak it to you in a metaphor. Let's say you have a house and you invite somebody over. Every time they come over, they flip over your sofa, leave marks on the wall, and dirty the place. They come in judgmental. Then, let's say there's another person that every time they come, they help you rearrange stuff or they maybe even leave a plate of food. They have a sweet center smile.
The house is like your teenager's mind. When they invite you in there to have a conversation with them, how are you leaving it? If you're always leaving it in disarray, I'm not going to invite you over anymore. That's the truth of it. Here's the thing. Kids are going through their own dysregulation. That's what it is in this growth stage. If we have the right tools and skills to support them to go in there to help them make sense of it, as J.J. Abrahams used to say, “If you're a trusted advisor, then I'm going to invite you over more often or when you do come over, I'm not going to shut you out necessarily.”
I love that part about the trusted advisor because, in the coaching that we do, that's the role we want to play with our clients. We want to be that trusted advisor where they have full faith, confidence, and confidentiality. They can share. What I'm not hearing you say is telling them what to do and telling them what to think. It's not the tell. It's that curiosity and keeping that curiosity. That's where we fail a lot. It’s when we want them to do or be what we want them to be instead of allowing them to figure it out.
That's where the tension arises, which I understand. What that tension is is as parents, we feel we're going to be judged by how our child shows up in the world, so then we want to force on them our values. That might not be important to your kid, which is why you're getting pushback. It's how you manage that pushback. Life happens in difficult conversations. I want to communicate this. I know it's not easy having been a kid and having worked with teenagers. I know it's not easy per se, or rather, I know it's effortful. If it's easy or difficult, it depends on my attitude, but I know it's effortful.
I love that. It’s that aspect that our kids are one of the greatest gifts we ever get in life. The opportunity to rear someone, develop them, and help them become strong and independent and think for themselves shouldn't be easy. I say in leadership, everything sounds simple but it's not easy. In parenting, it sounds simple but it's not easy.
As you’re describing this, people can go and look at your website and SHOW UP and be like, “I've got a model now. It's going to be easy to go.” It's an easy model to follow. The work isn't easy. I love that. I like that aspect of not forcing stuff on them. We have to teach them our values and let them see our values being lived out and what we think is important, but they've got to navigate that for themselves.
I hear you saying not forcing it on them, and I agree. They have to figure it out for themselves. There will be forcing functions, let's call it. That's what independence is and pushing them to be more independent. Gabor Maté wrote a book. He said, “Keep your child close when you're nurturing them to make sure they're seen safe, secure, and so on.”
I call it paternal energy because fathers often do this. They push them away, which is needed. When I say push them away, it’s to say, “You're safe. You're seen. You're supported from afar. You can still come back when you're ready, but I need you to try this on your own.” That forcing function of pushing them away creates tension, and that tension creates a holistic person. “We're not striving for a tensionless state,” is what Viktor Frankl said. We need that tension to help us grow. We're not forcing our values on them, but we are, in a sense, forcing something to emerge or to come out.
I like that. I'm not going to go any further with that. That's the SHO. Pick up with the W.
The W is Wonder and explore this world together. It's project-based learning. It's having a project that you're working towards bringing your virtues and values for a long period. If you read Angela Duckworth's Grit, her family, each individual, commits to something that's self-directed, self-determination theory, that they want to master and that they can't say, “I quit,” easily. For you, it might be this show for your child who may be learning a language, a sport, a hobby, or something, and it gives you a place to talk about development and what development looks like.
Go a little deeper on that. Let’s say we have a child who wants to learn a foreign language. They want to learn French. What is our part in helping them navigate that project base? What does that look like in reality over the course of six months?
We know what a win looks like. When I say we know what a win looks like, you're going to explore this with curiosity with your kid of, “What do you want this to be at the end? Do you want it to be you presenting a video on YouTube in French or something? We can talk about it to get creative.” In project-based learning, you say, “What do you have to learn in order to have this outcome?” What we're trying to do is we're letting them be curious about how to navigate this while we're the guide on the side.
After they're figuring out stuff, they're going to try and they're going to fail. In that failure, it's like, “What did we learn?” You're teaching them how to make an effort in failure going forward. What you're trying to do is you're teaching them how to stick with a project. If you make milestones along the way, then check it off. We look at it at the end, and then we give feedback along the way.
That is truly project-based. To the audience, I know a lot of you are in your jobs and you have these projects on a regular basis. These principles apply in those realms too in the sense of what that destination is we're going after, the desired outcome. We then backtrack on what steps we need to get there. Maybe even those benchmarks or milestones.
I appreciate you throwing in there the aspect of the failures or mistakes and expecting those to happen. It's going to happen. The phrase we always use is, “Making a mistake is fine. If you learn from it, it stays a mistake. If you don't learn from it, it becomes a failure.” We have to learn from those mistakes. We have to expect them. As leaders and as parents, one of the areas we make errors the most is we don't want any mistakes. That's not reality, and that's not where we grow.
You have to be in that stretch zone. Being in that stretch zone of, let's say, 80% to 90% effort, you will fall short of your expectations. It's okay to make mistakes, but don't make them habits. You'll notice a pattern of, “I made a mistake.” What do you learn from it? If you do it 2 times, 3 times, or 4 times, be careful.
Parenting Pre-Teens: It's okay to make mistakes. Just don't make them habits.
That’s SHOW. What's the UP?
The UP is Unveil your Potential. Celebrate. This is from BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits. We don't celebrate enough. That's why in our heads, we have notes of our failures and we get on ourselves. The opposite of that is when you're going through life, if you celebrate, you're gathering together to honor, which is what the word celebrate means, you being yourself. That’s the identity of your virtues and values. You are doing a great job leading this show. I want to applaud that. I'm affirming your leadership, your humor, and your hosting skills. Me celebrating this felt good for me and it felt good for you, and then sprinkling that intentional celebration along the way.
Most of us forget to celebrate. Life is so overwhelming. That’s especially celebrating our children and developing that. The phrase we use as leaders all the time is, “What gets rewarded gets repeated.” When you see those small glimpses from your child where they made this mistake last time and this time, they didn't and they were able to take a step forward, we look at that and feel great inside. We’re like, “They learned.” We need to tell them, “That's awesome. You did this. Look at what you did this time.” We forget.
Even to extend it a little bit more. The full expression of it, I love that. Let me acknowledge that. I love it when a parent expresses this in earshot of the kid to somebody else a public declaration of, “My kid did this.” It's not gloating or prideful to say it. Maybe it is, but it's like, “I feel good that my kid did something awesome,” and they're in earshot of it. Your kid is like, “That is like me.”
Managing External Influences On Pre-Teens
I love the model. I want to dive into something really quick. I wasn't thinking about this before. I love the SHOW UP model. I love where it can take parents on that journey with their children to help them become the best version of themselves. That's what we do in our coaching. We're working with adults, not kids. With the pre-teens at such an influential time, the identity piece that you hit on at the very beginning, what do we do or how do we handle all of the influence outside of our house? Whether that’s from school, teachers, coaches, band, athletics, or mathletics, the academic side.
There are so many forces slash influences. Honestly, a lot of people have good intentions but maybe don't have the same values we have. Honestly, there are some people that don't have positive intent, unfortunately. Talk to us. What do you do with those parents who are like, “These pre-teen years are so important. I can do my part. What about the rest of it? What about all those other influences that may be negative?”
I'm going to divide it into two parts. The first part is to teach is to learn twice. What I mean by that is I work with the parent one-to-one. What we're doing is we're exploring who the parent is, their identity, and how they manage things and their emotions. My fundamental belief is that all of this thing of parenting and interacting with others is so that we might understand ourselves. Know thyself and you'll understand the secrets of gods and men.
It is hard as a parent and as a teacher that your learner is going to do a remix of your interaction with them but you can't control them. You could but only influence them. Influence them as strongly as you can to prepare them for what will come, but it's out of your control. This is from Kahlil Gibran, the prophet. He says, “Where the arrow goes after we've pulled it, we've done our part.” Not to get too personal, but you spoke of your daughter and how you went through her age. There is a point as a father where she's like, “I have to let go.”
It has to be very intentional. I've had to intentionally hold back, not say things, and let her figure it out. This is what I say about coaching. Coaching simplistically is turning every statement into a question. Instead of making a statement to her, I'd be like, “What's that question? What's that curious question?” and try to pull it out of her. It's hard.
This is life. A phrase that I say is, “Everything that eventually grows must first break.” That's how muscles grow. That's how an egg hatches. The question is, does it break from the outside or break from the inside? One, there's death, and the other, there's life that emerges. It's trusting the kid that there is wisdom in there. We have to create the context for that wisdom to express itself.
It's about trusting that there is wisdom within the child, and we must create the context for this wisdom to unfold.
In studying mental health issues, the book, The Anxious Generation, continues the conversation. This generation does have a unique challenge of social media. My point is there will be things that will pull them off track, and in that pulling, they're going to figure out who they are more. One last thing. I'll end with a Rumi quote. He says, “If we push away everything that rubs us the wrong way, how ever will we shine?” It's a paraphrase. We are supposed to have those challenges or those buffers. Our job is to prepare them and then to understand ourselves and who we are.
I love that. To our audience that are parents and are saying, “I want more of Marcus,” what are you doing professionally as a communication coach for parents or pre-teens? What’s the actual work you're doing that they may be able to tap into?
I have some workshops I'm publishing on my site, MarcusHiggs.com. I'm going to show up on LinkedIn with some lessons and some of these same tips and ideas and get the conversation rolling there. I do have the SHOW UP Framework, which I'm rolling out in August 2024 for my beta to get some case studies. This is the same work that I did in the classroom, but I need some case studies with parents. If you're interested in that, reach out to me. LinkedIn and my website are where you can get in contact with me if you want to work one-on-one or if you want to go through some workshops first to get a taste. You can find me there.
I love that. I haven't researched heavily to find out who's helping parents of pre-teens, but this sounds like something that's not prevalent out there, so I'm glad this is something you jumped onto. Every next generation's going to take its own shape and form. Parenting is so important. It's a gift to be a parent and to be able to invest in that child.
People say there's no book for parenting. There are. I'll give a pushback. There are books. There are thousands of books. You don't have time to read them. You don't have the attention to read them. I love this stuff. Human development is what I love. That said, the greatest book on parenting you're ever going to read is the one that you write, and I want to help collaborate in writing it with you.
Being A Better Leader
I love that. It's been great talking to you. We finish every episode with the same question. What is something our audience can do intentionally to be a better leader?
Be intentional about establishing your identity with the phrase, “I am.” After you say, “I am,” and you fill in that with the type of leadership and leader you want to be, say, “Because,” and you reaffirm it with a reason. It’s like, “I am this type of leader because blah,” and then you go live it.
Parenting Pre-Teens: Be intentional in establishing your identity.
I love that. The because is huge. We have to know the why.
It's self-directed based on your value system, so you get to own it.
To the audience, I hope you've enjoyed this with Marcus. I hope you take advantage of going out and working with him. If you've got that pre-teen or even if you're a few years away from that pre-teen, he could be a great resource for you. Marcus, I appreciate you. It's great to build this relationship with you. I pray that God blesses your work to impact the future through parents.
Thank you for this time and this conversation. It's been wonderful.
Thank you.
