How to Raise Confident Teens

This is Going to Be FUN: the Podcast

Episode 31: 5 Tips for Raising Confident Teens

Episode Summary:

How to Raise Confident Teens

Confident teens are more successful, make better choices, have healthier relationships and are better at resisting peer pressure and dangerous situations.  

These 5 tips will help your teen develop confidence in who they are, what they stand for and the life they want to create for themselves. You will learn what might be keeping them stuck in self-doubt and fear and how to make sure they don't end up living in your basement forever because they aren't sure they can h life on their own.  

Find out why YOUR OWN confidence could be impacting your teen's experience in the world and what you can do to make sure you aren't setting them up for a life of self-doubt.  

There are 3 more essential tips for raising a confident teen that wouldn't fit in the episode, but you can get immediate access to the 3 tips and some practical ideas to help you apply them with your teen when you join the Enjoy Coaching Community. You will also get access to the full Confidence workshop and all the other amazing support, coaching and resources inside. 

How to Raise Confident Teens

One day when my oldest was first learning to drive, he was driving us home and needed to turn left onto a pretty busy road. I could see the look of panic on his face as I watched every muscle of his body tense up.

He wasn’t sure whether to wait or go and he wanted me to tell him exactly what to do and when. When he finally got up the confidence to make the turn, he approached it so timidly that he almost didn’t make it in time. He was unsure and overwhelmed. 

My husband, on the other hand, takes left turns onto busy roads like a boss. He knows when he can go and when he needs to wait and he takes the turn assertively so he can make it in time. He pays attention to everything happening around him so he can avoid any potential dangers. He is confident and decisive.

Just like confident drivers make safer, more informed decisions, confident teens also make better decisions. When a teen feels confident in who they are and what they want, they are secure in making decisions that are in their best interest…even if other people are trying to convince them otherwise.

Confident teens avoid situations and people who might be dangerous for them. They are more persistent, enthusiastic and assertive.

Confidence is Essential for Teenagers 

We want our teens to be confident. We want them to know who they are and what they want and make decisions accordingly. We want them to be safe and smart. We want them to resist influences and peer-pressure that would put them in danger. We want them to feel comfortable taking risks that will get them where they need to go and assertive enough to make things happen. 

We often talk about confidence as a skill our teen needs to develop, but confidence is actually an emotion. The skill your teen really needs to develop is thinking about things in a way that creates a feeling of confidence.

As their parent, you play a huge role in helping your teen develop this skill. And the way you approach things during the teen years can set them up for a life of confidence – or one of crippling self-doubt. Here are 5 things you can do to raise a confident teen.

5 Tips for Raising Confident Teens

1. Teach your teen how to handle any emotion

This is one of the most important skills you can teach your teen because their life is going to be full of challenges. But when they know that they can handle any emotion, they have nothing to be afraid of. It is much easier to be confident about taking a final if you know that you can handle being disappointed if you don’t do as well as you want.

It is much easier to ask someone on a date if you know that you can handle feeling rejected if they say no. It is much easier to try out for the team if you know that you can handle feeling inadequate if you don’t make it. 

And what’s crazy is that when you are confident going into the final or asking someone on a date or trying out for the team makes you a whole bunch more likely to get the result you want.

Just like my son who finally took the turn, but took it so timidly that he almost didn’t complete it in time, when your teen isn’t confident going into their final, they are more likely to second guess their instincts, forget what they studied and go slowly so they don’t finish in time. And the same is true in other situations too. 

If you want to dive deeper into this concept and how to help your teen learn this skill, check out the links below for a few podcast episodes about emotions or download my free Processing Emotions Mini-Class.

2. Let your teen make decisions

One of the biggest differences between my son’s lack of confidence as a driver and my husband’s confidence as driver was their level of experience. If you want your teen to be able to make decisions with confidence, they need to practice doing it over and over and over again.

It is really tempting to make decisions for your teen as long as they will let you, but the earlier you start giving them responsibility to make decisions on their own the better. It is a process…you want to start letting them make the little decisions so you can allow them to make mistakes along the way.

They will become confident in the little decisions as they have opportunity to make mistakes and figure out how to fix them. Guide them along the way, but give them the chance to decide for themselves. 

One key element of this is letting your teen say no when it is appropriate. Let them decide not to do things you want them to do. Let them decide not to hang out with the friends from church that aren’t the nicest to them. Let them decide not to join the school club all your friends’ kids have raved about. Let them decide to hang out with friends instead of visiting Grandma.

Having enough confidence to say NO to things and people you don’t want in your life is important. If you want them to say no to drugs and people who are trying to take advantage of them, you have to let them practice saying no to other things. 

There is so much more to cover with this to make sure you are guiding your child and not just handing over the reigns before they are ready. I do have a podcast episode that goes into it more, but this is one of my favorite things to coach parents on in my ENJOY community. There is so much baggage we bring along when we allow our teens to make decisions and if we don’t deal with our own drama about it, we won’t be successful in teaching this skill to our teens.

 3. Teach your teen how to fail

I grew up thinking that failing was a bad thing. It brought shame and disappointment and rejection along with it. And when you are afraid of failing, of course you aren’t going to feel confident. In fact, you might not even try if there is a chance you might fail. 

Failure is something we learn to avoid. When your teen was a baby and learning how to walk, they weren’t afraid of failing. They kept trying until they learned how to stand and they kept taking steps until they learned how to walk.

But somewhere along the way, our kids learned that failing was bad. That missing questions on a test would result in a red checkmark, a bad grade and disappointment from a teacher, friend or parent. That missing the goal in soccer would result in frustrated teammates and disappointed coaches and parents. 

Your teen’s brain likely believes failing is bad. One way to help them unlearn this resistance to failing is teaching them how to handle any emotion.

Another way is to make sure they understand that failing is just learning. It might take you some time and maybe even some coaching to relearn this for yourself, I know this is something I have really had to work to rewire my brain to believe.

If you aren’t failing, you aren’t learning. You have to really believe this on a deep level before you can teach it to your teen. 

Another way you can teach your teen to fail, is to make sure your teen knows that you have their back when they fail. Sure, they might face rejection as a result of failure…angry teammates, disappointed coaches, taunting onlookers, even lost friendships, but your teen needs to know that YOU won’t reject them.

Make sure that when they fail, you show up for them. Help them figure out what they can learn from their failure. Encourage them to keep trying. Forgive quickly…truly there is so much power in giving your teen the gift of quick forgiveness. 

4. Model confidence for your teen

If you want your teen to be confident, you have to set the example for them to follow. Your teen learns so much more from what you do than anything else you try to teach them, so make sure you are working on these skills yourself.

So many moms that I work with struggle with this. They second-guess their decisions and beat themselves up for every mistake. They are afraid of failing and they put other people’s needs above their own just to make people happy…or even worse to keep other people from getting upset or disappointed.

They spend hours, days and weeks deliberating over decisions and asking other people for advice because they are so afraid of doing the wrong thing. They don’t know whether to hold on or let go. They compare themselves with other moms who seem to have it all together and wonder if anything they do really matters. 

If this is the example you are setting for your teen, is it any wonder they are lacking in confidence? They are watching and learning how to interact with the world from you. If you struggle with confidence, there is a good chance they will too either now or in the future.

Next month in my Enjoy Coaching Community we are focusing on how to be more confident, so if this is something you struggle with or something you want to teach your teen, make sure you join to get access this month. 

5. Unconditional love

Make sure your teen knows that you love them for who they are right now. That includes the part of them that forgets to do their chores and the part that plays games on their phone and the part that stays out past curfew on a school night. You don’t want them to do those things, but when they do, you keep loving them anyway.

We often think that our role as a parent means we need to be teaching our teens the right things to do and say and be. But in the process of focusing on what we want for them, we miss the opportunity to love them where they are right now.

When we are able to love them in their imperfections, we give them the gift of knowing that who they are is enough. What they do doesn’t affect their worth as a human – that is already set. They are worthy and valuable merely because they exist.

Understanding this is what will give your teen the confidence to be themselves. Understanding this is what will give your teen the confidence to say no to things they don’t want in their lives…even when the pressure is on.

Understanding who they are is the key to having the confidence to become their best self, fulfill their unique purpose in the world and keep going when things get hard. Give your teen the gift of unconditional love! 

I know that sometimes it can be hard to show your teen that you love them. They seem to roll their eyes or brush off your attempts to try and show them. So next week I am sharing some ideas you can try to show your teen you love them.

There are 3 more tips that are vital to raising a confident teen, but I can’t fit them in this episode so I am going to share them as a bonus episode inside of the Enjoy Coaching Community.

If you are already a member of the community, you can find it in the Bonus Content section right now. (If not, you can join now to get immediate access to the extra 3 essential tips for raising confident teens and all the other resources inside to help you teach your teen to be confident and become confident yourself.

We covered a lot of stuff in this episode, so I will make sure all the resources I mentioned are linked in the show notes so you can teach your teen to handle any emotion, let your teen make decisions, teach your teen how to fail, model confidence for your teen and love unconditionally.

Make sure you check back next week for all the ways you can show your teen you love them!

Mentioned on the Show:

• Podcast Episodes for More: the emotional rollercoaster, what to do when your teen feels bad, and helping teens make decisions
• Get instant access to the 3 BONUS Tips and grow your confidence in the ENJOY Coaching Community
• Get the FREE Processing Emotions Guide
• Parenting teens doesn’t have to be so hard! Join the ENJOY Coaching Community now to get everything you need to make parenting teens easier!