Simple Ways to Boost Teen Confidence

Helping your teen feel more confident can be tough, but it’s not impossible! In this episode, we talk about simple ways to boost teen confidence.

We’ll share three common mistakes parents make that can hurt their teen's confidence—like fixing their problems, comparing them to others, or trying to control their decisions. Then, we’ll give you tips on how to empower your teen, believe in them, and help them build confidence on their own.

Whether your teen struggles with school, friendships, or just believing in themselves, this episode is filled with practical advice to help you connect with your teen and support them where they are.

If you enjoy the episode, please share it with other parents who might need it. Let’s help our teens grow into the confident people they’re meant to be!

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It’s simple and quick. It will help you uplevel your parenting. And, it’s completely FREE!

1. Go to benpughcoaching.com/debrief
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Transcript

Ben: 0:00

I'm Ben Pugh and you're listening to IMPACT! Parenting with Perspective. This podcast is all about helping parents manage the mental and emotional drama that comes with parenting teens so they can focus on what's most important. Building rock solid relationships and having a powerful impact on their teen's life. Join me each week as I dive into real tools to help you and your teen turn struggles into strengths.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 0:33

All right guys. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining us Today. We are going to be talking about something that I. Here all the time. Maybe I don't technically hear them. I am a part of some parenting groups on Facebook, and one of the questions that always comes up is, how can we make our teens be more confident? And one of the things that I thought would be helpful is if you as a parent understood some of the things that you might be doing that. Hurt your teen's confidence. And I'll be honest, I do some of these things sometimes too, so this is a good reminder for me. But today we're mainly going to be talking about things that you might be doing as a parent that. Will hurt your teen's confidence, and we'll talk about some of the things that you can be doing to help improve your teen's confidence. Um, before we dive all the way in, I would like to invite you if you are enjoying these podcasts. In the whatever app you are listening to, your podcasts, you can just click the text me button and you can send me a text and you can be like, Ben, my kid is such a knucklehead. Help me. I'll answer any question that you have on this podcast, and Cortni will help me answer to make sure that it's. A good, decent answer. Not any of the fluff, but, so let's go ahead. Let's dive into things that hurt your teen's confidence. And I narrowed this down to three of the biggest ones that I see all the time. Cortni, feel free to add any that you might think of, but the first one is fixing your teen's problems for them. Cortni, do you ever see parents try and fix all of their teen's problems?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 2:36

all the time.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 2:37

Do you ever do that?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 2:39

Um, sometimes I still do and I really used to before. Um, but yeah, sometimes I still catch myself doing it. Absolutely.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 2:49

Why do you think that would have a negative impact on a teen's confidence?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 2:55

Because subconsciously or consciously anyway, it tells them, it sends the message that you don't have the confidence in them to resolve it on their own.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 3:05

Yeah. Yep. I love that little subconscious, like when you can be aware of subconsciously the message that you are sending your teen's. I. One of the things that I think is important to remember, if you are trying to fix all of your teen's problems, it's probably because subconsciously you don't think your teen is capable of handling that, and you and your teen are herd animals. You play off d0c0ba of each other all the time, and your teen is gonna pick up that little subconscious belief that you have that man, you can't do this. I better do it for you. And then they. Believe that, and that becomes their subconscious belief. Also, if you are in the habit of fixing your teen's problems, your teen is not in the habit of fixing their own problems. And one of the things like. One of the things that I've learned in coaching high school football, sometimes kids get injured and you have to put someone in that doesn't have anywhere near the experience. And I can put in, like say I have my starting player who's very athletic, very physically, like he's strong, he's talented, he's athletic. If he goes down. His backup might be just as athletic, might be just as strong. In fact, I've had this happen where the backup is faster, stronger, but they don't have the confidence because they don't have the same amount of reps. Anytime you as a parent are fixing your teen's problems for them, you are depriving them of necessary reps and necessary experience that help build your teen's confidence. Any thoughts on that?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 5:00

I think that you're spot on. It's very accurate.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 5:04

So here's an experience. The nice thing when I share examples. I, I'm working with a handful of parents, so I can think of three right now dealing with the same problem, so I can share you an example. All three of'em are probably gonna think, oh gosh, Ben's talking about me. Well, guess what I am. But not just you, also the other two, but like parents that are struggling with their teens, refusing to go to school and calling and excusing their kid from school. Making up excuses so that they don't have to deal with court or with the truancy officer at school. This is you fixing your teen's problem for them. You're like, no, no. You can stay home from school. You can pretend to be sick. I'll fix it for you. No, if your teen doesn't want to go to school and like one of the moms is like, I can't pick him up and physically carry him into the school. Awesome. Just let him stay home from school, but also let him deal with the consequences. Don't bail him out. Don't fix his problem for him. The second thing that you might be doing, and this one I, this was an eyeopener for me when I started teaching the difference between the victim mentality versus the hero mentality. One of the things that I teach when it comes to the victim mentality is that there's. Little warnings to help. You know, when you're in the victim mentality and I just rattle these off like nothing. I'm like, yeah, anytime you're criticizing or complaining or comparing, and I'm talking about like different things and I'm like, oh my goodness, I criticized some. I was complaining about it like I was in the victim mentality. One of the things that will really hurt your teen's confidence is if you criticize your teen. If you complain about your teen, like parents do this all the time, like, why would you do that? Like they just complain about their teen to their teen. And then the other thing is comparing your teen to others. Whether you're comparing your teen to an older sibling. This is what happened to me all the time when I was growing up. But my parents would compare me to my younger sibling. They'd be like, Ben, why can't you be as smart as Jake? Like, what's wrong with you? And I was, I don't know. That will make your teens confidence plummet. Like, go ahead. Any ideas on this, Cortni?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 7:49

No, when you were talking about the teens not wanting to go to school, that's a tough one. and it would be hard to let them struggle and deal with that on their own, but I think it, necessary for them to see that there's consequences for their actions. And as long as we're protecting them and making excuses, um, yeah, that would be tough. I hadn't even thought about what I would do in a situation like that,

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 8:13

Yeah.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 8:15

But let Making excuses definitely is not the answer.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 8:18

Yeah. What about criticizing your teen's? Have you ever been guilty of that

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 8:24

Yeah, I'm sure. Yes.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 8:26

or comparing your teen's to other teens?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 8:29

Yeah. still probably happens. I try to be mindful of it, but I mean that just. It can't make them feel good. Right? If someone was to compare us to somebody else, like, oh, well, you know, so-and-so's husband does this, or so-and-so's wife,

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 8:46

Yeah,

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 8:47

every single night. It's like, are you trying to make me feel bad?

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 8:50

yeah,

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 8:51

what we're doing to our teens, you know?

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 8:54

yeah. And here's one of the crazy things I have heard parents. Compare their teens to my teens that they don't even know, like specifically, I teach this concept of having empowering conversations and it comes really natural to me because I just, I have no filter. I love to ask people questions and when my teens are being knuckleheads, I'll ask'em questions and I'll ask like, what do I not understand? Like, and my teens. Do a pretty good job. They converse with me, they talk with me, and as I taught this concept of empowering conversations and the following week the parents like, I tried that and it didn't work with my teen, and I told my teen like, Ben's teens respond to him. And that like, don't even compare your teen to my teen'ss. My teen'ss are freaking knuckleheads sometimes, like just last night. At the dinner table, I'm like, why won't you eat the freaking food that your mom like, my kids aren't perfect. Don't compare your teens to any other teen because it's really hard on their confidence. And one of the things that I taught early on in my coaching journey was the necessity to connect with your teen. Where they're, as they're.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 10:21

Mm-hmm.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 10:22

A lot of parents make the mistake of trying to connect with this mythical version of their teen. That's perfect. And anytime you're trying to connect with your teenager, like the perfect version of themselves, it doesn't really exist. I. It's damaging to their self-confidence because subconsciously they're interpreting that to mean I'm not good enough as I am. There's something wrong with me. I should be more like something else. And the thing is, if we can get teens to believe in themselves, then they're more confident when, when it comes to school or sports or whatever else that might be. Um, Cortni, anything you want to add to. Number two.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 11:12

Uh, when it comes to like when they were comparing teens to yours and not having conversations and answer questions like yours do, that's something that your teenagers have grown up with, that something that they've known and that they've learned. Could do. Um, a lot of teenagers don't know how to communicate like that, but I feel like if we as parents continue to be consistent in how we show up and ask those questions and like, tell me something that I don't understand, maybe your teen can get to that place. But right now they just don't know. And they're not gonna say, I don't, well, they probably will say, I don't know.'cause that's a lot of

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 11:46

But they won't even know what they dunno.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 11:48

right? Yeah. So I think as long as us as parents continue to show up and. the things we would eventually like to see it. It will eventually happen, but your voice didn't just start answering questions like the first time you asked. I mean, they probably know that's the path of least resistance to answer your questions at this point.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 12:09

No, they do it out of complete love and respect for their favorite father.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 12:14

Yeah.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 12:15

Uh, my poor kids. By the way, I specifically remember a time where I was like asking one of my foster teenagers questions, and I remember my oldest, he is probably seven or eight at this time, like very eager to please and. I'm asking my foster son questions who's like 15, 16, 17, I don't know, somewhere in that age range. And he gives the standard teenage response, I don't know. And then my then seven-ish year old oldest son. I. Chimes in is like, oh, blah, blah, blah, and just answers the question. And I think they were brainwashed at a young age. Well, they just saw the conversations because we had to do it as foster parents and now as teenagers, they do it really well. But the funny thing is, last year, so. I remember during football season, one of the coaches called out my son and completely threw him under the bus, and my son called out the coach and completely threw him under the bus, and the coach was very upset and I'm like, bro. Take responsibility, like you're demanding that he take responsibility. Why is it not fair that he demand that you take responsibility? I basically, the coach had put him in, didn't tell him the play, didn't tell him anything, and then when he didn't do it right, yelled at him and he is like, coach, you didn't tell me the play I was trying to ask and you pushed me out onto the field. So I was just there. And the cool thing is I love that my kids are willing to. Stand up for themselves,

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 14:01

Mm-hmm.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 14:02

the coach afterward was like, dude, I would've never talked to one of my coaches that way. And I'm like, bro, I'm kinda happy that my coach is willing to talk to you or that my teen's is willing to talk to a coach that way. Like, stick up for yourself. Anyways, so let's move on to the last one and then I'll give you a few tips to help you. When it comes to boosting your teen's confidence, but one of the things that will hurt your teen's confidence is trying to control your teen's model. Now, if you're new to the podcast, you might be like, yeah, but Ben, my teen doesn't have a supermodel like. Can't even get a girlfriend. How's he gonna have a model? No, the model that we're talking about, I love having like my corny dad type jokes'cause I can just see Cortni cringing on the other side. But anyways, if you don't know what the self-coaching model is, basically it's this framework that talks about how your circumstances are outside of your control. You have thoughts about how you think about the circumstance, your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings fuel your actions, and then your actions create your results. One of the biggest mistakes that I see parents making, and I'm guilty of this too, but parents will often try to control their teen's model. And any amount, like when you control things that should be in your teen's control, that will have a negative effect on your teen's confidence. And for me, if I'm arguing with my teen, that is. An indicator that's 100% accurate, that lets me know that I'm trying to control something in my teen's model. If I'm arguing with my teen about politics, I'm trying to change how he thinks. If I am arguing about whether or not he should unload and load the dishwasher without being asked, I'm trying to change his behavior. If I'm telling my teen's like, stop whining, stop. Being grumpy. I'm trying to control their feelings. And anytime you're trying to control something that should be within your teen's control, that will have negative impact on your teen's confidence. Cortni, anything you want to add to that?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 16:22

There's just something that struck a nerve with me with unloading a dishwasher without being asked,

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 16:27

Uh, it's a problem.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 16:28

it's a fight at my house. It doesn't so much come from me, but like I forget stuff all the time. And as a teenager, they're so distracted by all this other stuff. Like I'm not surprised that, you know, they forget to do their things, their chores unload the dishwasher. Um. And I've tried to relay the message to my other half. Like maybe just ask him, be like, Hey, can you unload the dishwasher instead of making it a big deal? Or being like, oh, we shouldn't have to tell you. Like just simply ask and then let him stomp his feet downstairs to unload the dishwasher. And I I don't know.'cause I forget, my husband forgets like, why do we expect perfection from them? And that they're not ever gonna forget? And they have a

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 17:07

Yeah.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 17:07

on too. You know? I

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 17:10

Yeah. Just the other day I was talking to someone. We expect our teens to be way more mature and way more adult-like than we were as teenagers. Like I feel like we've completely forgotten. I. What it's like to be a teenager. So I'm glad you brought that up.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 17:29

Yeah. Yeah.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 17:32

Let's talk about a couple of things that you can do to boost your teen's confidence. I'll try and be anchored in things that you can control as a parent. Cortni, be my watchdog. If I stray into the realm of things out of a parent's control, call me out.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 17:51

Okay.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 17:53

the most impactful thing. Teens and parents are herd animals, whether you like it or not. Whether your teen completely hates you and wants nothing to do with you, or if they think you're the most awesome human being on the planet, they're still a herd animal. They're playing off of you. They're taking your lead. If you want your teen's to have more confidence. Ask yourself, how can I be the change that I want to see in my teen's? If you want your teen's to be more confident, likely you could have more confidence in your teen. There's a possibility that you could have more confidence in your self,

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 18:37

Yes.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 18:37

then that alone will help boost your teen's confidence. Cortni, what are your thoughts on that?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 18:43

Yeah. I remember way back when when we first started talking. We were talking about building confidence in the teens, and, but it starts with us and our confidence and the confidence that we emulate, you know, they, they learn from somebody. So if we're more confident, in who we are and the things we do, like our teens will, we'll see that. And it might not show right away, but they're watching and they're learning. but I totally agree that if we have more confidence in our teens, if we show them that we believe that they can do it handle it. Then they'll feel better and more confident.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 19:20

Yeah. Yeah. Really good. Um, the other thing, so we talked about how one of the things that hurts your teen's confidence is fixing their problems for them. Get really good at empowering your teen's to fix their own problems and. For some parents, this means getting outta the way and allowing your teen to mess something up and create a problem, and then staying outta the way and letting them fix the problem. I.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 19:50

Mm-hmm.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 19:51

That's a game changer. Um, it it, by the way, it can be scary. My oldest, he's 18 now, which he loves to remind me anytime. I'm like, dude, you need to unload and unload the dishwasher. It's like, I'm 18. Like I shouldn't. He is gonna be in for a rude awakening when he has to wash dishes at a dorm. But anyways, the thing is when he started fixing his own problems. Like he started realizing, oh, I can do this on my own, I can do this. Like half the packages that come to our house from Amazon are because my teen does his own thing. He's gotta fix his car. He buys new shoes. Like whatever. It can be a little scary to let go of all of that control, but man, when you do it, it will empower your teen's. They will feel more confident. And the other thing, how you talk about your teen's. Is really important. And we live in a very negative culture right now. Like people think as like, well, Donald Trump's the president now. Everyone's critical. No. I remember growing up being like, bill Clinton's the worst human being ever. And then George Bush, he's ruined, like we just have a habit. Of just fixating on the negative and we're all herd animals. It's natural. Don't let that habit. Sink into your conversations with your teen or about your teen, and I have to be really careful of this. There's one thing that gets me super riled up and super negative, and most people are thinking, oh, it's probably politics now. I don't even care about politics. It's freaking high school basketball. I get so negative and I start criticizing the ref. I complained about the coaches, and then we go home and I'm complaining to my kid and I am complaining about my kid. Like, oh, if you wouldn't have turned the ball over 14 times, like be careful. Be careful about how you talk to them and about them. If you can find a way, anytime you catch yourself, criticizing, complaining, comparing, make a shift and find something that you can compliment your teen on. It's a powerful shift, and that's something that will help improve your teen's confidence. Cortni, what are your thoughts on that?

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 22:26

Yeah, no, I agree with everything you said. Sorry, it's the wind,

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 22:31

Awesome. Yeah, CCortni's house is about to blow away and probably land on some poor witch somewhere in Oz. Yeah. Okay. Well guys. This podcast. I hope it's helpful. If you are guilty of any of these things that hurt your teen's confidence, do not feel bad. Like Cortni and I are not here to be like, shame on you. Come on, parent. Better.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 23:01

Right

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 23:02

we've made the same mistakes. We're just

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 23:04

and still do.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 23:04

here. Yeah, we still do. We're just here to help you gain some awareness. So that you can be more conscious and more intentional. And if you're one of the parents, like all the parents that I see in these chat groups that are like, how do I help my teen with this confidence? Well now you know, we've helped you. So,

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 23:26

in him or her.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 23:28

yeah, exactly. And yourself.

cort_2_03-14-2025_121928: 23:30

Mm-hmm.

ben_2_03-14-2025_111924: 23:31

Well. Let's go ahead. We'll go ahead and end this podcast. Thank you for being here. If you've enjoyed this podcast, if you've found it helpful, please share it with any friends that you have. This helps me help them. A lot of people don't know about my podcast because they don't know, and you could be the one that really helps them better connect with their teen's. So if you've enjoyed it, pass it along. Okay with that, we'll see you guys next week.