A sense of awareness can be divided into two categories: one is the awareness of the relationship, and the other is about self-awareness. In fact, they are not the same, but are intertwined. So, what are the differences?

• Awareness of Relationship
• Awareness of Self

Category 1: Awareness of Relationship

Learning value:

Human cannot live alone. All of us must live with living things or non-living things. Living things like our friends, parents, animals, or plants. Non-living things like water, planets, clothes, money, or stationery.

When the awareness of relationship is concerned, we must consider a broader view and observe what happened, may or will be happening and what impact it has not even in the current state, but also in the future. Most importantly, it is not only for us but also for the others.

That said, when we are talking about a sense of awareness of the relationship, we must have a target and specific topics for teens to discuss and explore. Here are some of them:

• Value of Life
• Love
• Families
• Parents and Teachers
• Friends
• Seasons
• Festivals
• Pets
• Environment

Value of Life

Teens can learn life is the most precious thing in life. There are different life cycles for a human to adventure: birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, and then, finally, death. No one can escape death, not even their parents.

To understand the concept of a life cycle, we can encourage teens to find gratitude and appreciation for existing in each moment of life. Most importantly, teens can learn to seriously cherish life. We all have one chance in life.

Love

Teens can learn to love each other regardless of their age, gender, body limitations, nationality, education, or religious beliefs. It can be done by expressing empathy, compassion, respect for different opinions, kindness, giving presents at special festivals, and hugs.

Embracing with love can solve many geographical deviations and body limitations. For example, in a children picture books series, a tortoise has a hard shell, and a hedgehog has pricky prickles. They also can hug together.

Parents and teachers

Mum, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma, and teachers are important to everyone. They can inspire, supporting, encourage, and nurture teens to become excellent people without asking for anything in return.

So, on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, National Grandparents Day, and World Teachers’ Day, teens can express sincere blessings for their efforts, dedications and devotion to you.

Families

Teens can learn they are part of the family. They can learn how a family is formed, where they live, they roles of each member, and how they celebrate the festivals with each other.

Teens can learn each family has diversity. Some teens may come from single-parent, adoptive, foster, divorced, or remarried parents.

Understanding family diversity does not only help teens to identify family structure but also help teens to understanding that regardless of the family structure and the hardship situation they are living in at the current moment, they are not alone and beloved by everyone.

Friends

Teens can learn that friendship is not only crucial in their life journey but also helps them to maintain better mental health. A friendship can last a long time. You can enjoy happiness through entertainment, share sadness through failure, be mutually helpful and encourage learning.

Teens can learn what the definition of friends is. Why do we need friends? How can we make friends? What does it mean to be a good friend? They can also learn how to maintain friendships and deal with conflicts when they are facing arguments.

Most importantly, teens need to know how to choose friendly cautiously. They need to establish a healthy boundary in friendship, such as avoiding bullies. It is because a poor friendship can ruin teens’ lives.

Seasons

Different seasons have different weather conditions. That influences what clothes we are going to wear, what activities we are going to play, what food we are going to eat, what farmers are going to crop, what flowers are going to bloom, and what kinds of animals are going to hibernate in winter and wake up in spring.

Festivals

Once teens have a basic understanding of the seasons, they may be surprised to discover each festival has its distinct characteristics, and each of them is perfectly aligned with the weather.

For example, in summer, it is a good time for teens to attend outdoor activities, such as swimming or sunbathing, to celebrate happiness with parents or friends. We also have Father’s Day and Mother’s Day to give teens a chance to say “I love you” and give them a hug.

In winter, there are two universal celebrations, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Besides delivering your presents to each other, most importantly, Christmas and Thanksgiving Day are also the days for sharing sincere blessings with each other.

Pets

Understanding a wide variety of family-friendly pets, such as dogs, cats, fish, parrots, lizards, guinea pigs, snakes, rabbits, and tortoises. That can help teens understand their differences in eating, sleeping, or playing behavior.

If teens are interested in having one as their family member, they need to know each pet has its own living and eating characteristics and behavior. Moreover, home restrictions and the health of family members are also under consideration.

Most importantly, it is an opportunity for teens to learn the value of life. They need to declare they can take care of them throughout their life cycle without abandoning them in the meantime.

Environment

Teens can learn that by limiting the consumption, resources can be effectively utilized from generation to generation. This can prevent the depletion of resources and the extinction of species. Therefore, as one of the members of Earth, they have the right to do their part for the environment.

Teens learn environmental protection is everyone’s responsibility, and they can also preserve the environment from small behavioral changes, such as switching off appliances when out, cherishing food, and reducing, reusing, and recycling materials.

Benefits for teens:

Awareness of surroundings is also important for teens to learn about relationship establishment throughout their development. Reading books about relationship building can be beneficial to teens in the following aspects:

Sharing happiness – Teens can share happiness with others, such as by exchanging toys, helping other teens who have difficulties, donating stuff, or volunteering in voluntary organizations.

Helpfulness – Teens can be more awareness of the people that are in need in society. They do their best for helpless people regardless of how old you are, how much money you have, or your education level.

Social cohesion – All teens are part of society. They can pay more attention to topics such as climate change and avoid waste and recycling. Their awareness of everyone is equal regardless of difference in gender, appearance, and ability.

Cherish – Teens can develop cherished mindset about the importance of preserving the precious items that are not only for memorable purposes but also full of historical and touching stories that relate to people, places and values. A cherished mindset helps teens have a truly meaningful moment.

Teens can learn how to enjoy and cherish what they are having at the current moment, such as parents, grandma, grandpa, teachers, classmates, friends, and toys; embrace every happy moment living or playing together; be kind to anyone; and do not pursue materialism.

Appreciation – Reading appreciation content help teens to recognize not only brilliant moment but it also necessary for them to accept any difficult moment. Teens can mutually appreciate from friends or classmates by expressing thanks and admiration and accepting weakness from the others who are not their strength.

Gratitude – Reading gratitude contents, teens can cultivate and maintain a strong relationship with other people such as parents and teachers. Teens become more respectful of the guidance given by parents and teachers; it helps teens to feel they are full of love and well-being.

Sharing

Book Recommendation

Recommended reading for developing relationship awareness

Content Consideration

Value of life

Love

Parents & Teachers

Family

Friends

Seasons

Festivals

Pets

Environment

Category 2: Awareness of Self

As far as the self-awareness of teens is concerned, there are several strategies that are required for them to remember. Those are important in their lives’ personal development: desires, beliefs, vision, mission, breakthrough and innovation.

Learning value:

Simply speaking, “mission” implies what teens are going to do from now on and in their future. “Vision” implies what teens are going to see from now on and in their future. “Beliefs” implies what teens are going to believe from now on and in their future. Finally, “desires” implies what teens are going to acquire from now on and in their future.

Breakthrough and innovation imply that teens are required to have the ability handle difficulties. It is because the world changes frequently and aligns with technology and human desires. Embrace curiosity and new ideas by seeking all possibilities to avoid losing chance on the path of success.

Desires

Desires are mental states. It represents how and what teens want and wish to acquire from now on and in the future. It can be anything, such as celebrating a birthday with other teens or gift-giving, such as donating books and toys; helping other teens with their homework. helping Mum do housework; chatting with Mum, Dad, Grandma, or Grandpa about their school adventure; or participating in volunteering.

Throughout the desires seeking process, teens can learn decision-making, enjoyment, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

Most importantly, teens can learn to tap their desires for unlimited creativity and curiosity.

Beliefs

Believe in yourself.

Wherever you go, whatever you do is important not only for adults but also for teens. In addition to developing mission, innovation, vision, it is also required for teens to develop self-belief.

Self-belief can help teens to embrace self-acceptance and the self-worth of an individual preference. They recognize that everyone must have their own talent. Teens can learn to build up self-confidence even when there is nobody who places value and acceptance on them.

Therefore, self-belief helps teens to follow their inner strength in all their ways and they ultimately accomplish the tasks without changing their ambitions.

Vision

Vision is a long-term picture that teens are going to see from now on and in the future. It integrates with the mission teens are going to carry out, the beliefs teens are going to hold, and the desires teens are going to achieve. Simply speaking, vision is the ultimate result of what they do.

Mission

No matter how old you are, everyone must have a mission in life. Mission means goals to achieve and things that teens are going to do now on and in the future.

No matter how small the mission statements of teens have, through developing mission statements, they can learn how to set goals and the purpose of achieving them. Having a mission in life helps teens focus on and empower the ability to complete and achieve their tasks.

We can now prioritize mission, vision, beliefs and desires for teens development strategies:

• Desires help teens sustain energy and enthusiasm.
• Beliefs help teens stay persistent.
• Vision cultivates teens’ long-term sense of direction and ambition.
• Mission motivates teens for what they plan to do.

Breakthrough

Teens need to prepare and accept failure and difficulties. Therefore, teens need to overcome obstacles and can seek different possibilities. During the breakthrough, teens can learn to take notice of what’s going wrong during the process, try alternatives, and make appropriate changes.

Breakthrough are an important skill. No one is free of trouble in life. Without breakthrough, all the mission that the teens have established will stand still and be unable to make any progress.

Innovation

What does innovation means?

Innovation means creating and applying new ideas that are different from the former ones. The ideas can be beneficial for anything, ultimately making them more functional, effective, and efficient in the future.

Through pursing innovation and seeking process, teens can learn the following:

• Embrace all possibilities
• Asking questions
• Facing challenges
• Be brave and smart and keep a bit of playfulness in everything

Benefits for teens:

Self-awareness refers to what teens want and how they can act when they are facing choices or difficulties. Therefore, for teens to react appropriately, they need a clear understanding of their emotional characteristics and the ability to judge right from wrong, as well as clear cognitive and logical thinking abilities.

The development of self-awareness does not involve right or wrong answers. Everyone has their own talent, needs, love, and dislikes. As parents, they need to encourage teens to express their opinions and guide them to make confident and independent decisions.

During the self-awareness learning process, teens notice that to achieve success, they must experience failure first. Moreover, they also need to spend time, spirit, and hard work. Most importantly, the trail-and-error process enhances teens’ courage to try different possibilities with innovative ideas. They are not afraid of facing difficulties, as each failure is a reminder of alternative paths to success. As a result, they can develop challenging skills and cope with any difficulties in their life development.

Reading self-awareness books beneficial teens in the following aspects:

Chasing dreams – Teens can learn that all of us must chase dreams. Dreams are the starting point before all the possibilities come true.

Be courage and persistence – Teens can learn courage and perseverance and keep noticing and trying out various possibilities and ideas that arise in their minds without fearing failure, as they never know which possibilities and ideas are the right path to success. Most importantly, don’t let any chance go away.

Be curiosity – Maintain a curiosity for “may be” and why not” to discover tiny things in life.

The more teens are self-aware, the better they can understand themselves deeply, unleash their potential talents, embrace self-strength and accept weakness, and clearly recognize what their personal boundaries are.

Book Recommendation

Content Consideration

Desires

Beliefs

Vision

Mission

Breakthrough

Innovation

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