This blog post is written to assist parents of teen daughters; however, most of this information is applicable for parents of teens across all genders.
Adolescence is an exhilarating, inspiring, and, at times, stormy transition between childhood and adulthood. Throughout the adolescent years (10-19), your teen daughter is becoming more independent, exploring her identity, and developing her moral compass. All the while, she is experiencing physical, intellectual, and psychological growth at a rate that may or may not line up with each of her peers.
Talk about scary and awkward; for you and your daughter! It’s normal for teens to push their parents’ boundaries, so you may feel pushed beyond your limits right about now. As if merely surviving these years wasn’t hard enough, you’re not alone if you feel overwhelmed in your endeavor to help your teen daughter build, improve, and somehow sustain healthy self-esteem. Continue reading for concrete self-esteem building tools for your teen daughter and remember to be gentle with yourself along the way.
Healthy self-esteem is built when unconditional love is simply given to your teen daughter regardless of what she accomplishes, how she looks, whether or not she’s popular, what level of classes she takes, or what college(s) accept her. Your teen daughter needs your guidance and support recognizing that she does not need to sign up for every sport, club, make A’s in every class, or get into the college(s) with the lowest admission rates in order to be worthy of your parental love and acceptance. In fact, you will see your teen daughter thrive when she knows that your love is unconditional and learns that it is the essence of who she is that is most important.
Even when your daughter makes poor choices, give her the opportunity to be heard (see active listening) and let her know that even though she made a mistake, your unconditional love and acceptance for her is unwavering. As difficult as it can be to watch, allow your teen daughter to fail and learn from her mistakes. Making mistakes and learning from them on her own will help your teen daughter build mastery and give her a chance to feel proud of herself for her personal efforts.
No matter how overbooked your family is, make quality time together a regular priority. Even if your teen daughter rolls her eyes at you when it’s time for family game night, an evening family walk, family dinner, or the family cabin trip, the truth is, no matter how much she denies it, she needs you and her family. Quality family time is attentive and uninterrupted without the use of technology for distraction purposes. This time is focused on building connections and appreciating one another.
Remember that family is the first social structure that your teen daughter experiences. This is where she learns to communicate, interact, love, and be loved. Maybe it’s only possible to fit in a family dinner (homemade or take out is equally okay) twice a week, but don’t let a day go by without spending 15-20 minutes being completely present with your teen daughter. It doesn’t have to be structured or planned, but just make it happen. This will make a monumental difference in her developmental need to be seen. Being seen is an important opportunity for you to acknowledge her natural abilities, laugh, cry, and share. Additionally, consistent study findings display that parents who participate in activities with their adolescents and spend quality time with them correlates to a lower likelihood of these teens engaging in delinquent behaviors, such as skipping school or shoplifting. The findings also suggest that adolescents who participate in activities with both parents have fewer behavioral problems, higher math scores, and less substance abuse (April 2015 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family). I think we would all agree that teens who don’t feel the need to skip school, shoplift, abuse substances, etc. generally have healthier levels of self-esteem. Your teen daughter longs for quality time with you.
Make sure your daughter knows that nothing is off limits to share with you because if she is not opening up or asking you about certain taboo topics that all teens are naturally curious about, then she is getting her information from somewhere or someone else. Not if, but when your teen daughter makes a mistake, inform her that she can come to you and share her fears with you directly. Rather than panic or judge your teen daughter, show curiosity and ask open ended questions so she has the opportunity to explore why she made certain decisions and how to improve her behaviors and actions in the future. This way, you are guiding her to come to these conclusions on her own rather than lecturing and punishing her. Punishment is not
effective for teenagers. It isolates them, builds resentment, and discourages future openness. Keep in mind that some experimentation and rebellion is also normal for teenagers. Try your best to listen, be present, and not interrupt her. She likely already knows the weight of her mistakes and has done all of the self judgment and panicking already. This is her punishment and natural deterrent to disengage from these actions in the future.
Your role is to be an active listener and resist the urge to turn everything into a lesson. Rather than assuming that your teen daughter is seeking advice, simply state,“ do you need me to just listen right now, or would you like for me to offer some suggestions.” The key is modeling to your teen daughter that it is okay for her to be honest with you even when she is not proud of her choices, or even when she is struggling with her personal belief systems in the process. These types of responses from you will increase the likelihood of your teen daughter reaching out to you in times of crises, rather than hiding them from you, or even worse, building up fear of judgment from you. Make it known that you are available to work through any issue at all with her. Remind your daughter that you always want her to be honest with you and not just tell you what she thinks you want to hear. As the parent of a teen
daughter, your role is to model integrity and acceptance. Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and imagine how you would hold it together and create an environment of openness and active listening if your teen daughter came to you with your worst fear.
Take some time to develop a personal plan. Speak to a trusted friend, a religious mentor, or speak to a therapist about how you might handle the worst-case scenario before it happens so you are prepared to preserve what is most important: the self-esteem of your teen daughter.
Physical beauty standards are placed on a high pedestal in society, and with body image being so closely linked to a female’s self-esteem, it becomes a greater challenge for teen girls to accept their changing bodies while going through puberty. Your teen daughter will likely begin to notice her imperfections and it’s natural for her to compare herself to her peers and the unrealistic images of models and celebrities that are pervasive on social media. Much of this exposure is unavoidable, but as her parent, there is so much you can do to help! When your teen daughter approaches you with these concerns, first validate her and don’t dismiss her feelings. Then, acknowledge how difficult it can be to maintain positive body image in our society, but remind her that she can talk to you about this anytime. Encourage her to consider the types of celebrities and models that she follows on social media that may perpetuate negative body image.
Recognize that your teen daughter is watching you closely and is aware of how you talk about food, calories, your own body, or how you may comment on others’ bodies or appearances. Resist the temptation to be drawn into these conversations. Be careful how you talk about your teen daughters’ body or how clothing looks on her body, and never talk about her friends’ bodies. Many women make comments bashing their own bodies and these kinds of comments become subliminal messages to your daughter that seem natural, and at times, even encouraged, for girls to feel unhappy with their own bodies. Modeling is one of the most powerful behaviors that parents possess. What parents do and say for better or worse has a lasting impact on
their teen daughter. I know, this is a lot of pressure! This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, but starting to build awareness about your personal self-talk can make a huge difference in your daughters’ presence and future. Work on being kind to yourself in front of your daughter and not making negative comments about yourself. Besides, this will help your self-esteem too!
Hopefully reading this blog has provided you with specific tools to both improve your self-esteem as a parent and improve your teen daughters’ self-esteem. Remember to be gentle with yourself on this journey and don’t expect perfection from yourself or your teen. If you’re taking the time to search for and read blogs like this one, it’s apparent that you are devoted to building up your teen daughter. Unconditional love and acceptance are not only for your teen daughters’ self-esteem, it’s arguably more important that you provide (and model in the process) these qualities towards yourself.
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5 Responses
This is a very beautiful article! Very helpful since I have a teenager. Lots of great information!
I really enjoyed reading this. Adolescence is such a hard time to navigate. The information was on target and presented very well.
God bless you Emily