3 Ways to Help Your Teen Become More Confident

Helping your teen become more confident is an important role in this stage of parenting. As your “baby” gets ready to head off to college or the workplace, are they prepared to stand up to the stress and changes that are ahead? Are they confident enough to admit fault, learn from mistakes, and take steps to grow?

If you have a teen, they likely fall into one of two camps:

1. They are self-assured, act like they “know it all,” and easily stand up for themselves…

OR

2. They feel misunderstood, don’t verbalize their needs well, and may have low self-esteem.

While both have their strengths (and weaknesses), helping your teen grow in confidence and inherent self-worth is important for several reasons:

Confident teens admit fault and learn from mistakes.

If you are confident in your own self-worth, it’s a lot easier to come clean when you do make a mistake. These mistakes will also be less likely to become a huge deal and instead quickly turn into avenues of growth for confident teens. Teens with higher self-esteem typically become better decision-makers through their teenage years and beyond!

Confident teens know their value and won’t be swayed by changes in friendships, peer groups, or workplace drama.

The teenage years are hard. People are changing, drama abounds, and often our teens are swept up in the mix. If your teen is confident in their own place in life and has higher self-esteem, they will be less likely to be deeply impacted by the inevitable changes of this season of life, including with peer pressure or childhood friendships changing.

Confident teens have inner motivation to succeed.

If your teen has a strong inner sense of self-worth, it automatically translates to greater motivation to succeed in school or work. If they believe they are capable, they are more willing to try!

Here are 3 ways to help grow inner confidence and self-esteem in your teen:

#1: Celebrate Effort Instead of End Results

According to Amy Morin, LCSW, “Your teen can control their effort but they can’t always control the outcome. It’s important to acknowledge their energy and effort so they don’t think they are only worthy of praise when they succeed.”

Acknowledging the work your teen is doing will show them that, first off, your praise is not empty. Being overly encouraging in all circumstances negates the value of your praise, making them wary when you truly mean it. Instead, simply reframing your encouragement to focus on their effort can go a long way to building their inner confidence and willingness to try (and fail) again.

Here are some examples of what this looks like:

• Instead of saying “Great job on the A!”, try saying “I’m proud of how hard you worked to get ready for that test!”
• Instead of saying “5 goals?! That’s amazing!” try saying “You really worked hard through the whole game today and that really showed!”
• Instead of saying “I think that was your best recital ever,” try saying “Your practice is really paying off; you did a really good job.”

With this mindset, your teen will also learn to value process and effort and build their own measures for confidence in the future.

#2: Help Your Teen Learn to Stand Up for Themselves

We all want a child who knows their worth, but as teens navigate self-advocacy there can be some sticking points. Maybe your teen becomes aggressive or obnoxious in their pleas for what they need. Or maybe your teen doesn’t get a good response from trying to self-advocate, so they give up.

Wherever your teen falls on this spectrum, learning to communicate needs in a respectful yet firm way is an incredibly valuable life skill.

A teen who is a strong self-advocate will:

• Ask for help when they need it in school or work
• Be less impacted by peer pressure, social stressors, and bullying
• Become respected by adults and peers for standing up for their needs and not tolerating poor treatment

Helping your teen become assertive—not aggressive—will enable them to become better communicators in all areas of life. Teaching assertiveness can look like giving your teen ownership of choices, coaching them through situations, and modeling it in your own life.

A shy, quiet teen is going to have a hard time with this. But assertiveness doesn’t mean volume: it means conviction. Help your child know his or her own worth and they will be more likely to stand up for what they deserve in all situations.

#3: Develop (and Model) Positive Self-Talk

The way you think and talk about your body, your abilities, and your efforts has a massive impact on mental health and confidence. Many teens fall into patterns of saying things like, “I’m just not good at this,” or “No one likes me any more,” or “I’m fat/ugly/too skinny/etc.” These kinds of phrases are toxic and can turn into more self-deprecating habits down the road.

Model positive affirmations for your child that help them know their value, regardless of outward appearance or performance. These kinds of beliefs start early in childhood, but it’s never too late to change the way you talk about yourself in front of your teen to help them see the difference!

Real-Life Changes from Brain Training

At LearningRx, one of the extra components of our brain training program is a re-training of the ways our clients think about themselves. We turn “Can’t” into “I’ll try”!

For many teens especially, breaking these patterns of self-limiting beliefs can be hard. But with a strong foundation at home, they can go a long way. However, cognitive skill weaknesses may also be contributing to your child’s low self-esteem.

What if they could think faster, remember more, and learn more easily? What would that change for their perception of themselves (or their effort in the classroom)?

Finding these weaknesses is often a root-cause approach to building confidence in your teen in a profound way. Virtually every client who leaves our center walks away with years gained in cognitive skills; but the real proof is in the real-life examples of improved confidence, self-advocacy, and attitude towards learning in general. 

Contact us today to learn more about how brain training can set your teen up for a lifetime of confidence and success in school and beyond!