Confidence Building In Your Teen
Confidence building phrases can increase your teen’s self-esteem. Your teen needs to hear that you are confident about their ability to make good choices. Your teen doesn’t think you believe in them when you question or criticize their decision to do this or that. It’s very hard to believe it when you bring up mistakes from several days, months or even years ago that you ever think they will be capable of making a good decision. Unfortunately this is what many parents do in an effort to remind their teen of why they are not getting the current permission, but what if the tables were turned? Think about this for a moment, do you really want permission for something today based on a decision you made two, five or even fifteen years ago?
You may actually have to give your teen the benefit of the doubt despite your feelings about the decision they might make. You need to do this with the understanding that making a decision that you wouldn’t make is not the same as making a bad decision. It’s simply a decision different from the one you would make.
Including phrases like, “I know you probably know this, but I didn’t …” helps your teen feel like they have some respect in your eyes. This builds confidence. Starting with a complement helps too, “You know last time, I really liked how you were able to …I like seeing that side of you.”
Phrases like these communicate your confidence in your teen to your teen and in turn build your teen’s confidence and self-esteem, which allows them to make even better decisions. Now this is the kind of cycle we like.
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3 Responses Leave a comment
My daughters 12 and lacks confidence down to the fact she always
wants to know were we are in the house and calls both my husband and I
many times checking what we are doing
she won’t stay at friends even have trouble getting her to stay in her
bed for whole night
frightened of dark and always reminds us loads of times when to pick
her up from school or friends etc
we have never left her or been late what can we do as driving us crazy
why she would be like this
This is an anxiety disorder. I would speak to someone in the mental health field about your daughter learning skills that can improve her sense of calm whenyou are not around. This can sometimes cause OCD type behavior in that they will count or recite a phrase or wash, etc a number of times to keep you safe. She should talk to someone. This is important for her sense of self-mastery and independence.
Thank you for your question!
This is definitely a good practice, however, when I see my older children making the same mistake more than two times I feel the need to point it out and remind them of the previous outcome and pray that they make a change to receive a different outcome. I may even attempt to give them some recommendations, but let them make the final choice and deal with the outcome.