Month: November 2024

Being a teenager is hard! And being the parent of a teen or nearly teenage child is not exactly a walk in the park. You want your teen to blossom and grow into an adult who feels confident in themselves and their abilities, but during their adolescence, your teen’s self-esteem fluctuates. It’s usually influenced by external pressures and internal doubts, neither of which you have any control over.

Why Confidence Matters for Teens

When teens feel confident, they can contribute to class discussions, make and maintain friendships, learn new skills or start new hobbies. By helping them build their self-confidence, you’re also giving them the ability to overcome the difficulties and challenges that are a part of life.

If they are going to find the tools they need to build their confidence and thrive, they need patience, encouragement and understanding to help them flourish.

7 Practical Tips for Building Teen Confidence

Encourage Independence

A large part of adolescence is the transition towards independence. Your teen needs the chance to make their own decisions and the responsibility that comes with it. The way for them to learn this is through experience, both negative and positive. Give your teen the chance to figure out their goals and the steps they need to take to achieve them. Most importantly, let them know that you know they can do this.

Support Rather than Fix

When you solve every little issue or complication for your teen rather than support them in finding solutions, they miss the chance to develop responsibility. They need to be given the autonomy to work things out themselves. This doesn’t mean you step away entirely but that you let them know you are supporting them from a distance and are ready to offer help when and if they ask.

Focus on the Journey, not the Destination

Help your teen focus on perseverance and hard work rather than just the end result. This will not only help them gain confidence in their abilities but also help them build resilience, allowing them to bounce back from setbacks.

Help Them Set Realistic Goals

When your teen sets achievable and measurable goals, they’re more likely to be aligned with their interests and strengths, and it’s easier for them to stay focused on them. It’s important to help them recognise and celebrate the small wins they achieve along the way to reinforce the progress they’re making.

Let Them Take Risks

Encouraging them to step out of their comfort zone by trying new sports or hobbies or expanding their social settings boosts their self-confidence. By taking calculated risks, they get to flex the all-important risk-taking inclination adolescents have, which helps them better handle setbacks and trust themselves and their abilities.

Boost Realistic, Positive Self-Talk

The way we talk to ourselves is powerful. When you notice your teens being critical or overly harsh on themselves, encourage them to shift to a more realistic, positive mindset. With a shift in perspective, it’s easier to see challenges as opportunities for growth rather than personal failings.

Model Confident Behaviour

The most effective way to boost your teen’s self-confidence is to show them what self-confidence looks like. Your teens are watching you to learn how to be an adult. You can show them how to handle challenges by confidently managing the tricky situations you face, emphasising the importance of self-belief, even when things don’t go as planned.

Creating a Supportive Environment for Growth

Of course, when teens feel secure and accepted, they are more likely to feel confident about exploring their identities and interests. As their parent, you play a crucial role in shaping your teen’s confidence. By offering guidance, modelling self-assurance and creating a supportive environment, they will be able to face life’s challenges with resilience and a belief in their own abilities.

Parenting during your child’s adolescence is not always easy and can feel complicated and overwhelming. Seeking professional help, like counselling for parents, can boost your confidence. And when you feel confident in your abilities, you can help your teen feel confident too.

Looking for more strategies to support your teen? Join one of my parenting workshops or book a session today to learn practical, personalised techniques.

Being a parent is both incredibly rewarding and incredibly draining. The feeling of being overwhelmed does not let up once our kids hit their teenage years. In fact, managing the ups and downs of living with an adolescent can often intensify these feelings, leaving you exhausted, stressed and anxious. Tweens and teenagers are unpredictable, emotionally intense and socially complex even on their best days, which can intensify your feelings of stress, leaving you wondering if you’ll ever manage.

We are becoming more aware of the impact of burnout on our working lives (or at least, we are beginning to), but what about the burnout experienced as part of being a parent? It’s important to remember that you’re not alone in this. Parenting burnout is a common experience and can affect even the most loving and dedicated parents. By understanding parenting burnout, you can recognise the signs, take proactive steps, regain energy, and create a calmer and more balanced family life.

Signs of Parenting Burnout

When you feel drained, overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted, you may have reduced patience and find yourself losing your temper more easily with those around you. You may also feel detached emotionally. You might notice physical symptoms such as fatigue, headaches and trouble sleeping. 

Burnout leaves you overly tense and disconnected, and with a patience and empathy bypass, it impacts you and those around you.

You may feel emotionally detached, as though you’re going through the motions of parenting but without the connection you once had. This makes you feel guilty and frustrated, more drained and exhausted, so it goes around, leaving you wondering if you’ll ever regain your energy or patience.

Why Setting Boundaries with Teens Can Help

First and foremost is recognising the common triggers (what presses your buttons). Adolescence can be a time when communication with your child becomes more difficult, and you notice more conflicts around boundaries, them stretching their independence and the classic teen attitude.

By now, you are probably all too aware of the mood swings, defiance and rebellion that wear you down. The juggle of parenting, balancing your work, household tasks and their social and academic needs. Also, the constant comparison that it’s so easy to fall into, worrying about how other parents or society perceives the way you parent.

How to Prevent and Manage Parenting Burnout

Burnout can affect your mental and physical health and your communication with your child (and others around you), leaving you feeling overwhelmed, guilty or hopeless. You don’t have to manage this on your own. Burnout in parents is a more common experience than you might realise, and it is nothing to feel guilty about. Even small changes can make a big difference in managing and preventing burnout. 

Self-Care Tips for Parents

Be kind to yourself. It is crucial to find ways to recharge yourself through rest, hobbies or being with friends (other grown-ups!). Show yourself some compassion by scheduling breaks and time to do the activities that suit your unique needs.

Learn not to sweat the small stuff. What can you let go of? You don’t expect your kids to be perfect, so why impose perfectionism on yourself? Accept that sometimes stuff happens. 

Recharging Through Mindfulness and Relaxation

Doing this daily can help to reduce stress. Mindfulness helps you stay grounded and present, which can stop stressful thoughts from spiralling. These small acts build up over time and can make a big difference in how you handle parenting challenges.

Don’t feel you have to go it alone.

It’s OK to seek help from your partner, friends, family members or professional help. Seeking support shows strength, not weakness, and counselling can give you the space to talk about your feelings and provide practical strategies to help you manage and prevent burnout. 

The steps you take to manage and prevent burnout will also help those around you. Being open about your feelings encourages your teen to share their frustrations.

Having healthy boundaries between being ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ and personal time shows your teen the importance of balance and boundaries. By delegating tasks and involving them in household responsibilities, you lessen your load whilst helping them build independence and responsibility. This can increase their self-confidence and help them feel more in control of their environment.

Remember to recognise small wins. Focusing on progress, no matter how small, enables you to stay motivated and positive.

Parenting burnout can be isolating, but you are not alone. There are steps you can take to regain your energy and peace of mind. If you are ready to explore practical strategies for managing stress and creating a balanced family life, contact me today. Whether you need support, guidance, or simply someone to listen to, counselling can help.