How to Build Self-Esteem in Teen Kids

Today’s post is not the usual lunch box foodie post, but it’s an important one I’m keen to share and is something that has been praying on my mind. Self-esteem in teen kids is today’s topic. Just like us adults, we all have our off days, our wobble days as I call them, but it’s important to notice when a pattern is forming. To notice when our kids are lower on self-esteem or making negative comments more so than usual, that is raising alarm bells for us. As parents, we all want the best for our kids. With teen kids in our family, we are keen to encourage them to lead a healthy, confident and happy life and to reach their full potential. In order to achieve this, it’s important to know how to build self esteem in teen kids.

Unilever has launched a “BrightFuture” campaign. You may have seen it? The aim is to make small changes that will make a big difference to help our kids, basically help our future become bright, by looking after the environment, caring in our communities, helping the young people become more confident.

The key brands involved in this initiative are Domestos, cleaner homes, Persil, cleaner clothes and Dove.

When I was first invited to take part in this challenge, I was going to talk about some of the many small changes we have made to our lives over the years – how we, as a family, are doing our bit to save the environment: we avoid using plastic bags in our lunches, we re-use lunch boxes, we recycle all our plastic, glass, garden waste and paper. I minimise any food waste. My freezer is my friend! We wash at lower temperatures to help save the environment and always use a full machine, again to help economise. We, as parents, encourage outdoor play, encourage participation in sports, how we have encouraged the kids to embrace the Scouting and Girl Guiding Associations, all with the aim of helping develop the kids into well-rounded, happy, confident, fulfilled and healthy kids. But these are just one aspect of this campaign.

The brand I am focusing on is Dove, which is known for promoting confident women. Dove has created “The Dove Self-Esteem Project” where they have worked closely with leading psychologists, academics and experts to create materials, and already helped make a positive impact on more than 19 million young lives around the world.

Now my oldest, Tuna, a daughter is 18 and just headed off to Uni. I am only 2 weeks into it and am facing a male dominant family, 2 teen boys, Spike and King Julien, with raging hormones and a hubbie. Tuna seems confident and self-assured, but nevertheless when she’s back for the holidays, I am keen to talk to her more about these issues, to help her continue to develop and reach her full potential, in whatever form that takes.

As you may be aware, the Dove campaign is aimed at developing, encouraging confidence in women, whatever their skin type, and girls too. Within the Brightfuture website, there are lots of useful links to worksheets that you can download, print off and work through to help build your daughter’s confidence, encourage them to think about and focus on the positives, what makes you (them) fabulous, unique and well, just YOU. When Tuna is back at half term, we will work through these, as I think they are incredibly useful. I also believe that women who have spent any time out of the job market, raising a family, would find these worksheets useful, to help build that confidence and get a different perspective on them as an individual.

“Uniquely Me” is an area I am keen to focus on and explore more, where the activities encourage you to look at the positives in your daughter. For example,

• get them to think of 3 things they enjoy doing
• 3 things they love about themselves
• the things they are proud of that involves the family, maybe their cultural background, or something their family tends to do that others don’t

It even suggests, if you take 30 minutes to engage with the resources on the site, research shows that you are likely to have a positive impact on your daughter’s self-esteem and mood, and improve your own body image, too!

We all lead stressful lives, and are all looking for ways to relax, chill, centre… I love the mini-meditation section which I think is great for girls and actually, for all women to do, to help re-focus, get the balance back, and to become mindful. I believe it could work as a helpful coping mechanism.

As I also have teen boys at home, these worksheets have got me thinking about their levels of self-esteem and whether I could maybe help them to develop their confidence further.  The worksheets may need tweaking for them, but I believe the issues are not only similar for both sexes but growing in this technologically driven world we live in. With social media forming one of their many leisure time pursuits, the issues are not just applicable to females. Boys suffer too.

Being mindful and being intentional have become such buzz words and there are activities to help you, as an individual become more mindful, be aware of the here and now, of your body, your breathing, right now. Maybe to minimise stress, or what appears to be a bad day…

So if you do have young girls in your family, or are keen to build self-esteem in your teen kids, I would urge you to click on the links and to at least read up on the subject and have a look at some of these worksheets. Even if you carefully touch on the subject, having watched some TV show or film, where a character is lacking in confidence, that’s the opener… You could always take the lead and do the worksheets first based on you and build your own self-esteem! We could all do with a bit of a boost!

Here’s to encouraging all young people around the world to reach their full potential and be confident in everything they do! Mine look pretty confident and happy, but here’s to helping them reach their full potential…

If you’re wanting to find out more about self-esteem, then check out the mind website on how to build self-esteem. Let me know how you get on!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Lunchbox Lady aka Caroline x

Disclaimer: I’ve joined the #brightFuture Challenge all about the Unilever brightFuture initiative and the hopes we have for our children. This post is an entry for BritMums #brightFuture Challenge, sponsored by Unilever.