How to raise a confident teenager: 7 confidence building mechanisms that parents should do at home.

You may not notice them, but your children do, even if they do not show it. It could be something as minor as a kind word, or as major as the way you react when a child enters the room.

Even if you have not spent time on parenting your children in the past, remember that you still have time left!

Make an effort to see the best in your child

Make sure they know that you love them no matter what happens.

Your love will never falter whether they fail that exam or quiz or lose the game. Even when you’re mad, your love is still there.

Making sure your child knows that you think they’re amazing whether they’re doing great things or failing will bolster their self-worth. You can make them feel good, even when they don’t feel good about themselves.

Show interest in your teen’s interests, not yours

Your children will already excel at what your interests are. More often than not, you’ve shared your interests with them as they’ve grown.

Instead of focusing your energy on what you’ve already taught them, encourage them to pursue their own experiences. Encourage your child to try new things and diversify their interests.

You never know what they might be good at that you never thought of.

Gaining new skills inspires confidence and makes kids feel capable. It gives them the feeling that they can tackle anything that life might throw at them.

Understand how your child takes criticism

Even mild comments can be difficult for a child that’s struggling with something.

You may not think what you’re saying is much, but when your child is trying to build new skills, your seemingly insignificant comments can be crushing.

Your comment that their shirt doesn’t match their pants can translate in their minds to “you’re not good at this.”

Learn how your child responds to even the smallest criticisms. With each and every child, delivery is everything. Very often children internalize criticism leading to long-term emotional wounds.

Try correcting rather than criticizing. Helping them rather than simply saying their wrong can go a long way.

Learn from negative experiences

Encourage and praise perseverance.

One of life’s most important skills is to learn not to give up in the face of frustration or set back.

The thing is that confidence and self-esteem have nothing to do with success and everything to do with resilience in the face of potential failure or actual failure. Confidence comes from the knowledge that you’ll keep trying until you succeed and stop trying to be the best at everything.

Promote healthy risk-taking

Risk-taking is an age-old way to get to know the world around you. As with many things, risk-taking has positive and negative sides.

Many variables can affect the nature of the risks your child is taking, and peer pressure is one of the biggest.

While you only will have so much influence on what local children they decide to make their friends, having an open and caring relationship with your child opens many doors for you.

Raising a child that knows you’ll listen and show compassion over their mistakes and help them through that moment means they’ll share their struggles with you.

Talk about decisions and talk about drugs and alcohol. Be open about your experiences as a child and the lessons that you learned.

If you learn that your teen is struggling with drugs or alcohol and need help, there’s help there for you; you’re not alone. Check out Gallus Detox for more info.

Co-create rules for social media use

Believe it or not, young people do respond to our expectations. This applies to all areas of your child’s life.

Talk about social media together if it’s something they’re interested in. Social media can have massive influences on their life, positive or negative.

Set the rules together. Approaching social media with a positive attitude not only makes your child feel that you trust them but also allows you to gauge their potential response to the more negative aspects of social media.

Allowing your teen to set expectations alongside you, will boost their confidence, and that you’ll listen. They’ll know what they can handle and be more open to sharing their insecurities or unevenness that may result from social media use.

Everyone makes mistakes

No one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. An age-old phrase comes to mind: it’s not a mistake if you learn from it; it’s a lesson.

Help your child see that everyone makes mistakes, including you. Guide them into turning their mistakes into something productive and not dwelling on feelings of failure.

Confident people address mistakes and use them to improve their future—they don’t let them hold them back. This confidence doesn’t come from thinking they won’t fail again, but because they know they will and they will get past them and move on to bigger and better things.

Takeaway: It is important to give constructive feedback to teenagers

Be honest with yourself. No matter how well-intentioned you are, if you don’t possess the ability to talk to your teen about a particular topic, then it will be extremely hard for your children to respect or take you seriously.

This is especially true when it comes to difficult subjects like drugs. That’s why parents must build their confidence before talking to their teenage children about such issues.

Remember, the number one goal of raising confident teenagers isn’t merely that they feel good about themselves, but that they can make informed decisions and choices throughout their lives.

To do that, they need access to all the tools necessary—and that means being open and willing to talk with them about many different subjects.

The relationship between parent and child does not end after childhood; you are co-travelers on life’s journey together, so keep the lines of communication open!