Archive for November, 2011
How To Instill Confidence in Your Teen
When teens have confidence they believe that they have the ability to succeed and perform well academically, socially, and in those areas of life important to them. What can you do as a parent to instill confidence in your teen?
Start by having a conversation with your teen about being a leader of his or her life and not a follower. Teens are bombarded by influences from friends, the media and social networks and having a conversation can go a long way toward helping keep their self-esteem intact. One parent was concerned about her daughter’s development and confidence and asked a child psychologist the following questions.
Here is what ensued:
Q. I have a 14-year-old daughter, and I want her to BE 14. Why is the whole world trying to make girls this age act older?
A. Girls are confronted with so many influences – it’s really our culture. If you could take culture out of the mix here, girls might be a truer representation of a typical 14-year-old. Our culture is moving very fast and marketing and sales certainly fuels a lot of direction towards young girls. Young girls are big consumers. So what parents have to do is empower their daughters with the smarts and with the leadership skills to navigate, understand, and look critically at the media and different companies that are trying to sell to them. When I say leadership skills, I’m talking about helping them choose, clarify and cherish their value system.
Q. Why is it important to build those leaderships skills?
A. We cannot take them out of the culture that they are developing in so parents need to give them the tools, the practical everyday tools, and the skills to look critically at the media and say, “is this right for me here?” “What are they really trying to sell me?” Our daughters need to say the media or anybody else does not need to tell me how “I need to be.”
Q. How do we help parents get a handle on some of the issues their teenagers are facing?
A. Help your teenager develop leadership, decision-making, and problem-solving skills around real life situations so that they can make the decisions that are right for them within the context of their families and their communities. Remember confidence is about what you believe you can do. As your child becomes more competent in leadership, decision-making, and problem-solving, he or she will gain greater confidence.
Live Your Dreams Not Your Fears
Confidence is the perception that you can achieve desired goals through your actions. Too many teens are not living their dreams because they are living their fears. Are you one of them? No matter who you are, where you are, or what you are doing, sooner or later you have to deal with fear. Many teens think that successful people have simply learned how to shut off their fears. Not true. Fear is natural, and everyone must deal with it. Unfortunately, most a lot of teens let their various fears stop them from taking the necessary action to achieve their dreams. Successful teens, however, feel the fear but they do not let the fear hold them back. They understand that fear is something to be acknowledged, experienced, and taken along for the ride. In other words, they feel the fear and do what is required anyway. Almost all of your fears are self-created.
You essentially scare yourself by imaging negative outcomes to any activity, project, or opportunity you face. This is good news since you are the one doing in the imagining, you are also the one who can stop the imagining and conquer your fear. You can do this by facing the actual facts and choosing to be sensible and logical. You can choose to look at fear this way: Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real.
Do you bring unrealistic or improbable fears into your life? Here is one way to find out. Make a list of things you are currently afraid to do – not things you are afraid of but things you are afraid to do. For example, I am afraid to give a speech in front of my class. Once your list is complete, go back over and restate each fear using this format: I want to ______, but I scare myself by imagining _________________________________. The phrase I scare myself by imagining helps you to understand that all fear is self-created by imagining a negative future outcome. In the new format, the statement might read like this: I want to give a speech in front of my class, but I scare myself by imagining myself stuttering or picturing other students laughing and making fun of me. By rephrasing your own fears, you will find that they are all self-created by simply misusing your own imagination. What you will discover is that your brain is just focusing on what you do not want to happen. When you realize this, you can change your focus and find the courage to face your fears.
In the Bible the statement “fear not” occurs more than 365 times. Why? Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.