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How to Help Your Young Teen to Be More Confident

Young adolescents (13 – 15 years of age) often feel inadequate. They have new bodies and developing minds, and their relationships with peers and parents are in flux. They understand for the first time that they aren't good at everything. The changes in their lives may take place more rapidly than their ability to adjust to them.

Poor self-esteem often peaks in the early teenage years, and then improves during middle and late adolescence. At any age, however, a lack of confidence can be a serious problem, for example:
  • Young adolescents with poor self-esteem can be lonely, awkward with others, and sensitive to criticism and with what they see as their shortcomings.
  • Young adolescents with low confidence are less likely to join in activities and form friendships. This isolates them further and slows their ability to develop a better self-image.
  • When they do make friends, they are more vulnerable to negative peer pressure.
  • Some younger teenagers who lack confidence hold back in class.
  • Others act out to gain attention.
  • A lack of confidence is often linked with self-destructive behavior and habits (e.g., smoking or drug or alcohol use).

Females often experience deeper self-doubts than do males (although there are many exceptions). This can be for many reasons:
  • Females mature physically about two years earlier than do males, and this requires them to deal with issues of how they look, popularity and sexuality before they are emotionally mature enough to do so.
  • Females may receive confusing messages about the importance of achievement. Although females are told that achievement is important, some also fear that they won't be liked, especially by males, if they come across as too smart or too capable, especially in the areas of math, science and technology.
  • Society sends females the message that it is important for them to get along with others and to be very, very thin and pretty. Life can be just as hard, however, for a male who thinks he has to meet society's expectations that males have to be good at sports and other physical activities.

Most psychologists now believe that self-esteem and self-confidence represent a range of feelings that a youngster has about himself in many different situations. Teenagers may think about a number of situations: competing on the track team, studying math, dating, taking care of younger brothers or sisters and so on. A teenager is likely to feel more confident doing some of these things than others. She may feel very good about her athletic ability and skill at math, but feel bad about her dating life. She may also have mixed feelings about how good a sister she is to her baby brother. How good this adolescent feels about herself ties to how important these areas are to her. If having a very active dating life is the most important area of her life, this young lade will feel bad about herself. If being a scholar-athlete is most important area, then she will feel very good about herself.

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

Tips on how to help your young teen develop confidence:

1. Create a calm environment in your home through your own behavior. If you are anxious, you need to explain to your youngster what you are feeling and why. Kids take emotional cues from those they love.

2. As grown-ups, most of us have confidence. This confidence comes about through years of experiencing success, but also through years of exploring strengths and weakness and choosing to stress different parts of our lives. Most of us would be unhappy if we had to do only those things that we are not good at. As grown-ups, we tend to find our areas of strength and - to the extent we can – pursue these areas more than others. For a young teen, however, it is difficult to downplay the areas in which they are less confident. For instance, it’s very hard for a teenage girl with academic skills to focus on school rather than on dating, when all of her friends are dating and telling her how important dating is. For a mother or father, this can be frustrating and a cause for concern, because you know that – whether or not that cute boy asked out your daughter – it will have little consequence on her life for the long run, but you also know that she can’t yet see this!

3. Help young adolescents feel safe and trust in themselves. The ability of teenagers to trust in themselves comes from receiving unconditional love that helps them to feel safe and to develop the ability to solve their own problems. Your youngster, like all others, will encounter situations that require her to lean on you. But always relying on you to bail her out of tough situations can stunt her emotional growth. Thus, parents must teach their youngsters how to cope with the things they encounter, instead of easing the path.

4. Help your youngster to separate fact from fiction. Discuss facts with your youngster and avoid guessing, exaggerating or overreacting.

5. Listen to what your youngster has to say. Assure him that grown-ups are working to make homes and schools safe.

6. Monitor your youngster's television, radio and Internet activity. Help her to avoid overexposure to violent images, which can heighten her anxiety.

7. Praise is meaningful to teenagers when it comes from those they love and count on most (i.e., parents). Praising your youngster will help her to gain confidence. However, the compliments that you give her must be genuine. She will recognize when they are not. 

8. The best way to instill confidence in teens is to give them successful experiences. Set them up to succeed—give them experiences where they can see how powerful they are. Children can engineer those experiences. Part of being confident is having the ability to “figure out” what to do when you don't “know” what to do. Help your youngster to build confidence in his abilities by encouraging him to take an art class, act in a play, join a soccer or baseball team, participate in science fairs or computer clubs or play a musical instrument—whatever he likes to do that brings out the best in him. However, don't “push” a particular activity on your youngster. Most teenagers resist efforts to get them to do things that they don't enjoy. Pushing them to participate in activities they haven't chosen for themselves can lead to frustration. Try to balance your youngster's experiences between activities that he is already good at doing with new activities or with activities that he is not so good at doing. 

9. Talk about anxieties that are related to school violence and to global terrorism. Many kids have seen terrifying images of death and destruction on television and on the Internet. You can help your youngster to understand that although the country has suffered awful acts of terror, we are strong people who can come together and support each other through difficult times. Use historical examples (e.g., Pearl Harbor, the Challenger space shuttle explosion, etc.) to explain to your youngster that bad things happen to innocent people, but that people go on with their lives and resolve even terrible situations.

10. You can also help your youngster to build confidence by assigning him family responsibilities at which he can succeed (e.g., unloading the dishwasher, mowing the lawn, etc.).


 

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

How Much Independence Should Parents Give To Young Teens?

As kids enter the teenage years, they often beg for more freedom. Moms and dads walk a tightrope between (a) wanting their kids to be confident and able to do things for themselves and (b) knowing that the world can be a scary place with threats to their kid’s health and safety.

Some moms and dads allow too much of the wrong kind of freedom, or they offer freedom before the teen is ready to accept it. Other moms and dads cling too tightly, denying young adolescents both the responsibilities they require to develop maturity and the opportunities they need to make choices and accept their consequences.

Research tells us that teenagers do best when they remain closely connected to their moms and dads, but at the same time, are allowed to have their own points of view – and even to disagree with their mother or father.

Here are 10 crucial parenting tips to help you balance closeness and independence:

1. Teenagers look to their moms and dads first and foremost in shaping their lives. When it comes to morals and ethics, political beliefs and religion, adolescents almost always have more in common with their parents than their parents believe. As a mother or father, you should look beyond the surface, beyond the specific behaviors to who your youngster is becoming. Your adolescent may want to dye her hair orange or pierce her lip, but these expressions may be independent of her sense of who she is and who she will become.

At the same time that many of your youngster's behaviors are ultimately harmless, some of them may not only be harmful but also deadly. Moms and dads need to talk to their kids and make it clear that many of the major threats to their future health and happiness are not a matter of chance, but are a matter of choice (e.g., drinking and driving, smoking, drugs, sexual activity, dropping out of school, etc.). Teenagers who engage in one risky behavior are more likely to participate in others, so moms and dads need to be front and center, talking to their kids about the negative consequences of getting started down the wrong path.

2. Most young adolescents respond best to specific instructions, which are repeated regularly. For example, don't just say, “I want your room clean,” because they don't know what that means. Say instead (in a non-argumentative way), “This is how I see a clean room: the clothes are off the floor, the bed is made, and the lamp is on the desk rather than the floor.” Your child may say something like, “I don't really want the lamp over here …I want it over there.” In this case, give your child the freedom to express himself or herself.

3. Choices make young adolescents more open to guidance. For example, you can tell your daughter that her English homework must be done before bedtime, but that she has a choice of completing it either before or after dinner. And you can tell your 13-year-old son that he can't hang around the video arcade with his friends on Friday night, but he can have a group of friends over to your house to watch a movie.

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

Using humor and creativity as you give choices may also make your youngster more willing to accept them. One mother couldn't get her son to hang up clean clothes or put dirty clothes in the laundry basket. So she gave him two options: either all the clothes had to be picked up, or everything would go on the floor. The mother later commented, "I was washing the clothes and then putting them in piles on the floor. It made me crazy, but it worked." After two weeks, her son got tired of the stacks on the floor and began picking up his clothes.

4. The more mature and responsible a young adolescent's behavior is, the more privileges moms and dads can grant. You might first give your child the right to choose which tennis shoes to buy within a certain price range. Later you can let her make other clothing purchases (with the understanding that price tags won't be removed until you approve the items). Eventually, you can give her a clothing allowance to spend as she likes.

5. It’s important for moms and dads to strike a good balance between “laying down the law” and allowing too much freedom. With most young adolescents, it's easiest to maintain this balance by guiding but not controlling. Adolescents need opportunities to explore different roles, try on new personalities and experiment. They need to learn that choices have consequences. That means making some mistakes and accepting the results. But moms and dads need to provide guidance so that their children avoid making too many poor choices. You can guide by being a good listener and by asking questions that help your youngster to think about the results of his actions, for example, "What might happen if you let someone who is drunk drive you home?"

Your guidance may be better appreciated if you ask your youngster's advice on a range of matters – and follow the advice if it seems reasonable, for example, "What should we cook for your father’s birthday?" Also, the fine line between guiding and controlling may be different for different kids. Some kids, whether they are 8 or 18, need firmer guidance and fewer privileges than do other kids at the same age.

6. The most important responsibility you have as a mother or father is to protect your youngster's health and safety. Your youngster needs to know that your love for him requires you to veto activities and choices that threaten either of these. Let him know what things threaten his health and safety – and put your foot down! Doing this may be difficult, however, because teenagers have a sense that nothing can hurt them. At the same time that your child feels that everything he experiences is new and unique, he also believes that what happens to others will not happen to him. His beliefs are based on the fact that the teenage years are the healthiest period of time during our lives. In this period, physical illnesses are not common, and fatal disease is rare. The important thing to emphasize to your youngster is that, while he may be very healthy, death and injury during the teenage years are most often caused by violence and accidents.

7. We, as parents, want our kids to eventually become healthy grown-ups who can solve problems and make good choices. These abilities are a critical part of being independent. To develop these abilities, however, young adolescents on occasion may need to fail, provided the stakes aren't too high and no one's health or safety is at risk. Making mistakes also allows adolescents to learn one critical skill: how to bounce back. It's hard for a youngster to learn how to pick herself up and start over if her mother always rescues her from difficulties.

8. Don’t lose credibility in your child’s eyes. For example, if you tell your son that he must be home by 9:30 p.m., do not ignore his 11:30 p.m. arrival. You lose credibility with your youngster if he suffers no consequences for returning home 2 hours late. However, the consequence should fit the “crime.” Grounding a youngster for an entire month restricts the entire family. Instead, you might talk with him about how coming in 2 hours late has affected you. You've been up worrying and have missed your sleep. But you'll still have to get up the next morning at your regular time, make breakfast, do your chores and get to work on time. Because his lack of consideration has made your life harder, he will have to complete some of your chores so that you can get to bed earlier the next night.

9. Some battles aren't worth fighting. It may offend you if your daughter wears a shirt to school that clashes wildly with her pants, but this isn't a choice that can cut off future possibilities for her. Young adolescents may have a growing sense of the future, but they still lack the experiences required to fully understand how a decision they make today can affect them tomorrow. They may have heard that smoking is unhealthy, but they do not fully understand what it means to die of lung cancer at the age of 42. Talk to your kids about the lifelong consequences of choices they make. Help them understand there are good and bad decisions, and that knowing one from the other can make all the difference in their lives. Let your youngster know that you are "the keeper of options" until she is old enough and responsible enough to assume this responsibility.

10. All kids resist limits from time to time, but they want them – and they need them. In a world that can seem too hectic for grown-ups and teenagers alike, limits provide security. Oftentimes, teenagers whose moms and dads do not set limits feel unloved. Setting limits is most effective when it begins early. It is harder but not impossible, however, to establish limits during the early teenage years.


 

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

When Teens Refuse to Talk to Parents

"My teenage daughter has stopped talking to us. She just shuts us out. What can I do to get her to open up?"

Teenagers often aren't great communicators, particularly with their moms and dads and other grown-ups who love them. Adolescents often feel they can talk with anyone better than their mother or father. They tend to be private, and don't necessarily want to tell parents what they did at school today.

Many psychologists have found, however, that when moms and dads know where their kids are and what they are doing (and when the teen knows the parent knows), teens are at a lower risk for a range of problems (e.g., drug, alcohol and tobacco use; sexual behavior and pregnancy; delinquency and violence, etc.). The key is to be inquisitive – but not interfering. Work to respect your youngster's privacy as you establish trust and closeness. It's easiest to communicate with an adolescent if you established this habit when your youngster was little. You don't suddenly dive in during the 9th grade and say, “So what did you do with your friends last night?”

But it's not impossible to improve communication when your youngster reaches the teenage years. Here are some tips:

1. Avoid over–reacting. Responding too strongly can lead to yelling, and it can shut down conversation. Try to keep anxiety and emotions out of the conversation—then most children will open up. Instead of getting angry, it's better to ask, “What do you think about what you did? Let's talk about this.” Children are more likely to be open if they look at you as somebody who is not going to spread their secrets or get extremely upset if they confess something to you. For example, if your kid says, “I've got to tell you something. Friday night I tried smoking pot,” and you go off the deep end, he won't tell you again. At a time when they are already judging themselves critically, teens make themselves vulnerable when they open up to moms and dads. You already know that the best way to encourage a behavior is to reward it. If you are critical when your son talks to you, what he sees is that his openness gets punished rather than rewarded.

2. Communicate with kindness and respect. Adolescents can say or do things that are outrageous and mean-spirited. However hard your youngster pushes your buttons, it's best to respond calmly. The respect and self-control that you display in talks with your youngster may someday be reflected in her conversations with others. How you say something is as important as what you say. Communicating with respect also requires not talking down to teens. They are becoming more socially conscious and aware of events in the world, and they appreciate thoughtful conversations.

3. Create opportunities to talk. To communicate with your youngster, you need to make yourself available. Teens resist "scheduled" talks. They don't open up when you tell them to, but when they “want” to. Some adolescents like to talk when they first get home from school. Others may like to talk at the dinner table or at bedtime. Some moms and dads talk with their kids in the car. Moms and dads need to grab odd moments and have deep communication with their teenagers.

4. Just listen. You need to spend a lot of time not talking. Listening means to avoid interrupting and to pay close attention. This is best done in a quiet place with no distractions. It's hard to listen carefully if you're also trying to cook dinner or watch television. Often just talking with your youngster about a problem or an issue helps to clarify things. Sometimes the less you offer advice, the more your adolescent will ask you for it. Listening can also be the best way to uncover a more serious problem that requires your attention.

5. Realize that no magic tip exists for successful communication. What works for getting one youngster to talk about what's important doesn't always work with another one.

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

6. Talk over differences. Communication breaks down for some moms and dads because they find it hard to manage differences with their youngster. It's often easiest to limit these differences when you have put in place clear expectations. For example, if your 14-year-old son knows he's to be home by 9:00 p.m.—and if he knows the consequences for not meeting this curfew—the likelihood that he will be home on time increases. Differences of opinion are easier to manage when we recognize that these differences can provide important opportunities for us to rethink the limits and to negotiate new ones, a skill that is valuable for your youngster to develop. When differences arise, telling your youngster your concerns firmly but calmly can prevent differences from becoming battles. Explaining why your youngster made - or wants to make - a poor choice is more constructive (e.g., “Dropping out of your algebra class will cut off lots of choices for you in the future. Some colleges won't admit you without two years of algebra. Let's get you some help with algebra.").

7. Talk about things that are important to your adolescent. Different youngsters like to talk about different things. Some of the things they talk about may not seem important to you, but with teenagers, sometimes it's like a different culture. You need to try to understand this, to put yourself in their place and time. Don’t pretend to be excited about something that bores you. By asking questions and listening, however, you can show your youngster that you respect her feelings and opinions. Here are topics that generally interest teens:
  • Culture and current events: Ours is a media-rich world. Even young kids are exposed to television, music, movies, video and computer games and other forms of media. Remember, though, that the media can provide a window into your teen's world. For example, if you and your youngster have seen the same movie (together or separately), you can ask her whether she liked it and what parts she liked best.
  • Emotions: Teens worry about a lot of different things. They worry about their friends, being popular, sexuality, being overweight or scrawny, tomorrow's math test, grades, getting into college, being abandoned and the future of the world, and so on. Sometimes it's hard to know if a problem seems big to your youngster. If your child is unsure, you can ask questions like, "Is this a small problem, a medium problem or a big problem? How important is it to you? How often do you worry about it?" Figuring out the size and importance of the problem helps your child decide how to address it.
  • Family: Teens like to talk about - and be involved in - plans for the whole family, (e.g., vacations) as well as things that affect them individually (e.g., curfews or allowances). If, for example, you need change jobs, your youngster will want to know ahead of time. She may also want to learn more about your new job. Being a part of conversations about such topics can contribute to your youngster's feelings of belonging and security.
  • Hobbies and personal interests: If your youngster loves sports, talk about his favorite team or event or watch the World Series or the Olympics with him. Most teens are interested in music. Music has been the signature of every generation. It defines each age group. Moms and dads ought to at least know the names of popular singers. It's important, however, to tell your youngster when you believe that the music he is listening to is inappropriate—and to explain why. Your silence can be misconstrued as approval.
  • Parents’ lives, hopes and dreams: Many teens want a window to their mother’s and father’s world, both past and present (e.g., How old were you when you got your ears pierced? Did you ever have a teacher who drove you crazy? Did you get an allowance when you were 11? If so, how much? Were you sad when your grandpa died? What is your boss like at work?). This doesn't mean you are obligated to dump all of your problems and emotions into your youngster's lap. You are the parent – not a “buddy,” and an inappropriate question may best be left answered. However, recounting some things about your childhood and your life today can help your youngster sort out his own life.
  • School: If you ask your youngster, "What did you do in school today?" …she most likely will answer, "Nothing." Of course, you know that isn't true. By looking at your youngster's assignment book or reading notices sent home by the school, you will know that on Friday, your child began studying the Civil War or that the homecoming football game is next week. With this information, you then can ask your youngster about specific classes or activities, which is more likely to start a conversation.
  • Sensitive subjects: Families should handle sensitive subjects in a way that is consistent with their values. Remember, though, that avoiding such subjects won't make them go away. If you avoid talking with your youngster about sensitive subjects, she may turn to the media or her friends for information. This increases the chances that what she hears will be out of line with your values or that the information will be wrong.
  • The future: As the cognitive abilities of teens develop, they begin to think more about the future and its possibilities. Your youngster may want to talk more about what to expect in the years to come (e.g., life after high school, jobs and marriage). She may ask questions like, "What is it like to live in a college dormitory?" "How old do you have to be to get married?" "Is there any chance that the world will blow up some day?" "Will there be enough gasoline so that I can drive a car when I get older?" These questions deserve the best answers that you can provide (and those that you can't answer deserve an honest, "I don't know.").


 

==> My Out-of-Control Teen: Help for Parents

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