Teenagers have a lot to deal with. They have to withstand peer pressure, deal with adult expectations and rejections. It’s natural that sometimes they are confused and discontented. This causes low self-esteem and a lack of self-confidence, which in turn causes depression, unhappiness, and insecurity among teenagers.

Help him feel confident, even while emphasising the importance of good manners and healthy values.

Symptoms of a troubled teen:

* Performing badly in school, lack of concentration, and forgetfulness * Remaining aloof, keeping away from friends and activities * Feeling sad and hopeless * Prone to quick bouts of anger and rage, or reacting strongly to criticism * Being indecisive, restless, and agitated * Changes in eating and sleeping patterns * Substance abuse * Having problems with authority

Take charge before the symptoms become too severe.

What to tell your teenager : 1.

Face your fears. Once you face them, you will feel that they aren’t as bad as you thought they were. Facing your fears will increase your confidence. 2.

Forget past failures. Don’t assume that just because you failed before, things will go wrong again. Look on your failures as stepping stones. 3.

Reward yourself when you have achieved something. Self-help is always the best help. Learn to rely on yourself. 4.

Talk to others. Don’t come to hasty conclusions about a situation or a person. If you have any doubts or questions, clarify. Don’t assume things. 5.

Don’t let failure defeat you. Accept it. Try something else. Everyone fails at some point in life.

AS PARENTS : o Help your child to make new friends. o Motivate your child to participate in sports. o Encourage him to acquire new hobbies. o Encourage him to keep a private journal. It will help him deal with his fears. o Encourage him to do volunteer work. Help him get a realistic view of the world.

Provide him with strong family support. 1.

If he comes to you with his problems, help him make the best of what he has. 2.

Remember to mention his positive points and encourage every small accomplishment. 3.

It is all right to exert a little pressure or promise of rewards to induce your child to perform. But, too much pressure can lead to rebelliousness or fear of failure. 4.

It is better to accept your teenager for what he is. Be realistic in your expectations. Never focus on his weaknesses. 5.

Finally, help him to get up on his feet again when or if he fails.

Show unconditional love towards your child. Let him feel cared for and wanted. Keep working at it continuously. All you need is a different approach

“Show me how to maintain my confidence when things are not going well.” Does it surprise you that many of the most successful business executives and athletes today sometimes wrestle with the problem of lost confidence?

Here’s a basic truth that I’ve confirmed many times over the past 30 years working with individuals in the high-performance domain: It’s easy to be confident and have a positive mindset when things are going well! The true champion however, is one who’s able to retain a strong sense of self-confidence even when the wheels are “falling off his wagon” and in so doing, still bring his or her best performance to the game regardless of the challenges that they face! High level competitors understand this and this explains why for many, this is the second Holy Grail of the performance equation.

But why do we sometimes suffer crises of confidence? The answer lies in the yardstick by which most of us measure success, and around which we build our confidence. That yardstick is – you guessed it: RESULTS! So often, we let our confidence be dictated by the results we achieve. When results are good, it’s easy to maintain a high level of confidence but when results are poor, our confidence often takes a beating and our personal performance nosedives. We doubt ourselves and wonder whether we’ll ever be able to climb out of this performance ‘hole’. And when you lose your confidence, is it tough to climb out of that hole…to turn that kind of negative and destructive thinking around? You bet it is!

But the truth of the matter is, more often than not… WE CAN’T DETERMINE THE RESULTS!

No matter how well you perform as an individual, in most instances other factors outside of your direct control have an effect on the outcome. But how do you get around this problem of loss of self-confidence? How do you maintain your confidence in yourself when the results are far from what you’d hoped they would be? The solution is simple enough…but it’s not very easy: You have to change the yardstick.

What’s the only thing that’s 100% within your control, that’s not dependent on any other factor? The answer of course is “you” or more precisely it’s the commitment you make and the effort you invest to give your personal BEST every time you’re called upon to perform. YOU are the only one who can cause YOU to give less than your very best effort in the face of every challenge you take on. If you choose to give your best effort, there’s nothing I or anyone else can do to cause you to give less than that. Consider what would happen to your confidence if your yardstick was changed to measure how well you gave your honest-to-goodness best effort when you were called upon to perform.

If you regularly accomplish this task, you’ll prove to yourself that YOU can count on YOU to give your best no matter how great the challenges you face. If you consistently behave this way, your confidence will only grow to become stronger and stronger. And so will you’re self-esteem since self-esteem is the reputation we develop with ourselves. It shouldn’t be only about the results you achieve, it should mostly be about the personal commitment and the effort you invest to give your best at all times.

You will still be disappointed about some of the outcomes you achieve because results are outside of your direct control, but the realization that you can count on yourself to truly give your best effort will help you to grow your confidence in yourself. This confidence will then allow you to approach the challenges you face with greater calm and with a more directed focus on the process of that performance, rather than on its outcome.

The irony of it is, when you focus on the process of personal excellence and commit to giving your best effort every time you’re called on to perform – win, lose, or draw – the results most often take care of themselves and your performance ends up being the best you’ve got. The less you focus on the results while you’re trying to achieve them and the more you focus on the process of simply performing ‘in the moment’, the better the results typically are.

You capture those confident feelings when you have a small or short-term success. This success may be as big or as small as you want it to be.

There is no known rule that says for anything to be a success it has to be something huge, titanic or long-term.

Success is success! And that is how your mind will see it.

Make it your role to daily feed success after success to your sponge of a mind. And as surely as a seed grows into a plant, you will grow more confident after each seed that you plant, and that confidence will grow even more and gain momentum as the plant gets bigger and stronger, fertilised by each and every success that you achieve.

Take advantage of all your small or short-term victories. Make the most of all your short-term successes; particularly when you are feeling pessimistic, feeling low or insecure about your future.

Remind yourself and profit from your past successes to lift you and help you regain and secure that confident feeling again from deep within.

I am pretty sure you have daily short-term successes that you can be proud of. For example, you had a project to complete and were given a tight deadline. You managed your time effectively and you confidently worked through it until completion.

Or perhaps you had to make a presentation and were given short notice. You had to gather all the relevant information and facts and relay them in a confident and assured manner.

These were two examples of success, where you had that confident feeling. . I am sure when you sit back and go through the past few days or weeks you will remember many more successes.

And when you do, relax and think about them. Recreate and stimulate the confident winning feelings again. Relive the moment of every success and accomplishment.

Use that surge of confident feeling to fuel you to your next success; to the one after that, and to the one after that. Gradually building a portfolio of successes.

Perhaps you could set aside an hour for the next few days to write down as many successes as you can. And next to each one, describe in detail how you felt; how much of a winner you were.

Focus on how you believed you were confident, and how you communicated with supreme confidence. Remember how you psyched yourself up to increase your confidence prior to, during and after the event.

Write as much as you can on how fantastic and strong and confident you felt. As you write, recapture the winning feelings, the pride, the confidence and the satisfaction.

By being a successful, confident winner once, you can be a winner again and again; as many times as you like throughout your life.

Anytime you feel unconfident or nervous, apprehensive or anxious, regain that confident winning feeling by emotionally remembering your past successes.

A winning feeling is a confident feeling, one that reinforces success time after time.