Time Required
This practice can be done at regular intervals when parents want to help their teens cultivate humility. It can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as 45 minutes.
How to Do It
Humility is about being able to see and accept your strengths and limitations without defensiveness or judgment, as well as being open-minded to other’s perspectives and to new information. This practice can help teens bolster their humility in that second sense—by orienting them toward others and helping them become more flexible and adaptable.
- Ask your teen to consider a time when they acted humbly toward someone by doing something that put that person’s interests first and theirs second, such as inviting a lonely new student to be their science lab partner rather than pairing up with their usual classmate. Inquire what they did and how they felt during and after.
- Encourage your teen to reflect on a time when someone humbled themselves to them so that your teen could decide on the agenda for a shared experience, such as when their older sibling scrapped her weekend plans in order to hang out with them, because they were sad that their best friend moved away. Ask them: How did it feel when someone put aside their opinion or agenda and followed you so that you could take the lead? What were your feelings when you recognized that someone humbled themselves before you? Why do you think this person gave you this gift of humility?
- Help your teen consider an upcoming occasion when they can be the gift-giver of humility to someone. Ask them how they plan to be open and adaptable to another person’s opinions, needs, or wishes in a helpful way. Encourage them to think back to a time they fell short of being humble and consider what they could do differently to show humility.
In one study, this exercise helped college students as young as 17 years old cultivate humility when they did it on their own as part of a workbook. For younger teens, parents can help by providing both examples and encouragement. You can model how to do the exercise in front of your teen—reflecting on your own life—and encourage your teen to try it with you.
You can have this conversation with your teen during dinner, your commute, or a nature hike. You might write your reflections as letters or emails to each other, or your teen can do it privately in their journal.
Why You Should Try It
As children grow, they become better able to notice and appreciate humility, making them gravitate toward others who are humble. But in the age of social media, older children and teens can be bombarded by social pressure to self-promote and be self-absorbed. Humility offers a buffer against this.
Humility is also a common trait in purposeful young people, suggesting that it might support children in achieving their long-term life goals. Over time, children who grow into humble adults will tend to have stronger relationships and better health.
Why It Works
This practice helps teens (and parents) increase their awareness of the thoughts and feelings that humility evokes and encourages them to imagine acting with humility in the future.
When parents model thinking and acting with humility, teens learn what it means to work toward becoming humble. Ultimately, that involves shifting your orientation away from your own desires and perspectives and toward others.
Evidence That It Works
Lavelock, C. R., Worthington, Jr., E. L., Griffin, B. J., Garthe, R. C., Elnasseh, A., Davis, D. E., & Hook, J. N. (2017). Still waters run deep: Humility as a master virtue. Journal of Psychology and Theology, 45(4), 286-303.
Researchers randomly assigned college undergraduates to either a workbook with humility exercises, including the reflections in this practice, or alternative workbooks about forgiveness, patience, or self-control. The study found that participants in the humility group were more humble and had fewer negative emotions after the humility exercises compared to the other groups.
Worthington, Jr., E. L., & Allison, S. T. (2018). Becoming more humble—deliberately. In Heroic humility: What the science of humility can say to people raised on self-focus (pp. 209-227). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
This chapter reviews programs that have aimed to help increase humility and the current limitations of the science around helping people become humble. The authors review the humility workbook activity and the science behind it.
Sources
Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University
Comments
and Reviews
Lizzy Agnes
Are you in need of a very competent and licensed hacker from the deep web ? below is a list of some of the services he renders _ + University grades changing + Facebook hack + Email interception hack + Email accounts hack + Grade Changes hack + Website crashed hack + Wordpress Blogs hack + Retrieval of lost file/documents + Erase criminal records hack + Databases hack + Sales of Dumps cards of all kind + Untraceable Ip + Bank accounts hack + Individual computers hack + Websites hack + Control devices remotely + Burner Numbers hack + Verified Paypal Accounts hack + Any social media account hack + Android & iPhone Hack + server crashed hack + Text message interception hack + Twitters hack + Skype hack + Credit cards hacker + We can drop money into bank accounts. + credit score hack + blank credit card sale + Hack and use Credit Card to shop online + Monitor any phone and email address + Tap into anybody’s call and monitor messages Contact via gmail, Henryclarkethicalhacker@gmail.com Or call, text, whatsapp+12197960574
Lucy Janet
I appreciate Henry for making me realise the truth to a certified hacker who knows a lot about what he is doing. I strongly recommend you hire him because he’s the best out there and always delivers. I have referred over 10 people to him and all had positive results. He can help you hack into any devices, social networks including – Facebook, Hangout, iMessages, Twitter accounts, Snap chat , Instagram, Whatsapp, wechat, text messages ,smartphone cloning,tracking emails and also any other social media messenger or sites. It’s advisable to hire a professional hacker.Thank me later. Contact him here., Henryclarkethicalhacker@gmail.com and you can text, call and Whatsapp him on +1(219)7960574.....
Caine Mannel
Hey everyone , I don’t really know much about this hacking thing but I can direct you to a professional hacking company who helped me to track and hack my boyfriend’s iPhone and his Facebook respectively.. If you need to check on your partner’s sincerity, employee’s honesty, recover your email passwords, Social networks (i.e Facebook, Twitter, IG), change your school grades, clear your criminal records, gain access to bank accounts,spy on your phone. you can just contact them at … Their charges are minimal and negotiable contact them at Henryclarkethicalhacker@gmail,com]..tell him you are from me or text him or whatsapp +12197960574…. You can thank me later.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.