Give Your Teen a Self-Esteem Boost!
Here is a simple exercise, without telling your teen what you are going to do, for one week give your teen compliments, cheers or kudos on legitimate actions and behavior. This is without any negative comments. Hmmm…seems hard, huh?
You can forget the things your teen is doing well because they also do things not so well. By spending a week taking the time to notice good things, if only so you have something nice to say, you actually start to notice the good things.
This is a great way to remind yourself of the good in your teen. Be generous at first, “Thanks for putting your plate in the sink,” say this with a smile even if you wanted and expected them to wash the plate too. When you start to look for it, you can see the ways your teen is trying to be good, but either because of immaturity or mishaps ends up not quite getting to shine as much as even they would like.
You have to remember, your teen has expectations for them too, and they don’t like being considered the person who messes up or can’t do anything right. It can really wear down a person’s spirit. Once this happens, your teen will give up on ever trying to please you and then you will really only see consistent bad behavior, “the problem child.” People and especially teens really want to please people that make them feel good about themselves. This person can be you, or their friends who do drugs. When you consider how low the self-esteem of many celebrities is even though they are given overt displays of praise, you get a sense of how hard it might be to lift yourself up from the barrage of complaints about you when there is no academy award to tell you how great a job you’re doing.
But that is what parents do, you are your teen’s academy. Your disappointment with your teen should not stop you from seeing the good you saw so easily when your teen was a baby or child. Same kid, different body. Try it for a week and see how it changes not just your teen, but the relationship you have with your teen.
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