SolveYourProblem eLearning Series: Self Confidence
How Do I Improve My Self Confidence?

Raising Self-Confident Teens
   

Teenagers could easily be a species unto themselves. Moody. Reckless. Self-centered, but not self-assured. They can drive you crazy in an attempt to see how far away they can really push you. Boy or girl, the key to helping your teen build and repair self-confidence lies in never being too far out of reach.

Teen Girls

Girls are much more likely than boys to become depressed, delve into self-destructive behaviors and damage their futures because of low self-esteem. The easiest way to help them develop a healthy self-image is by encouraging them to try and master new things. Of course, you'll have to make sure they are listening first - and to you, not the cell phone.

Talk with your daughters. Talk to your teen girls every day, just like when they were back in grade. "What was the hardest class you had today?" "Have you studied WWII yet in American History?" "How did the scrimmage go in basketball?"

Maybe you're looking at that list of questions and asking yourself, "which classes are my kids in at school?" If you've completely withdrawn from your child's life, now is the time to get reacquainted. Meet with your child's principal or school counselor. Find out what classes she's taking and what extracurriculars she's in.

Toss the grades out the window. Parents, it's time to admit that short list of letters exists mainly for us. A, B, C, D ... they don't demonstrate how hard our kids work in class, just how many answers they get right. They might have worked hard studying, but they also might have had a lucky guess.

You can't test effort, but you can see it. Get involved with your daughter's friends and her academics by offering to host club meetings and study groups. Being involved with your teen girl, and particularly being a good listener, will help her feel supported and secure.

Encourage Self-Exploration by paying attention to your teen's hobbies. If your daughter is already an ace at computer games, ask her if she's ever tried programming one of her own. Buy her some tutorial guides, or invest in a summer camp program. Encourage her habits in healthy ways by helping her set realistic goals for herself, and praise, praise, praise when she follows through. It doesn't matter if she succeeds. It matters if she gives it her all.

Teen Boys

If teens are a different species, than boys and girls are breeds of their own. Where girls may meekly follow their peers through bad decisions, boys gain a tremendous amount of bravado during the teen years. They may feel larger than life and make dangerous decisions without a parent to help guide them.

More than ever, teen boys need healthy role models. They need dads and moms to vocalize how they feel about drug and alcohol use, tobacco, safe sex. They need a parent to set stronger boundaries and enforce them consistently. Parents need to be flexible with some rules, and be willing to take their child's opinion seriously.

Boys have a hard time fitting into this newly stereotyped world. While girls really are expected to do everything and be everyone, boys are boxed in. society expects them to be outgoing and athletic, intelligent, sensitive - but not too sensitive - and unrealistically sexual.

It's very important that parents give their boys permission to say no to unwanted attention from girls. Just as much as we bolster the belief they don't have a right to push a female for sex, we need to stand behind our boys too. Teen girls can be surprisingly aggressive and vicious when her attentions are thwarted. Boys need emotional support to wait until they're ready for sex.

Boys also need our encouragement and praise when it comes to following their own interests. This includes interests we typically label "feminine" like the arts, acting, and music, even cheerleading is an option. For boys to feel self-confident, they need to feel positive about their interests and abilities. That's much easier to do when parents respond positively to them too.

Though they push, shrug, moan, and roll their eyes, teenagers will still be children for a few more years. They need our acceptance and our loving guidance to feel good about themselves, but unlike younger children, then may not willingly accept it. Keep interested, stay involved, and try not to kill anyone. Yourself included. There are only a few years to go until they grow up and become outstanding men and women.

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by SolveYourProblem.com : 2006

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