Building Resilient Teenagers: Navigating Life’s Challenges with Confidence

So you’re a parent of a teen or tween.

What’s to worry about?

Worry, it seems, is something that goes hand-in-hand with being a parent. Caring for a young child brings a heap of responsibilities, some that are comfortable and familiar and some a whole new learning path for us. Parenting a teenager though, is whole other kettle of fish and one we often feel untrained and ill-equipped for.

“Worry” might be a strong word, but things like their academic performance, peer pressure, substance abuse, the events and circumstances that upset their equilibrium and well-being take up a lot of our mental and emotional bandwidth as a parent. Some of requires knowledge and expertise to know how to handle. Add to that their unique wants, needs, fears, dreams, thoughts and feelings, their growing need for independence and new experience as well as their natural curiosity for life and stretching its boundaries, it’s not surprising we feel a little overwhelmed and under-qualified.

In this article, I’m going to share three attitudes or strategies that I’ve either experimented with in my own parenting journey, or have seen reflected in the behaviours and mindset of other parents where the impact was clearly positive.

Before we do, let’s touch on a few foundational layers to the topic of building resilience in your teen or tween:

What do we mean by resilience

Resilience relates to our innate ability to handle the hurdles life brings and to bounce back from them. We grow and learn through our experiences, even though some might seem difficult. We see opportunities in our challenges and setbacks.

The skill of being able to handle the ups and downs of adolescence with confidence and competence is something we all wish for in our teenagers.

So, how do we do that?

What can we do to support them in building the emotional muscle to cope with life’s challenges and learn to manage their own mental and emotional well-being?

Luckily, inner resilience is our natural state so, rather than something we have to learn, it's more about unblocking what's in the way, learning from life's lessons and strengthening our elasticity to bounce back and continue on our path.

Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again. Nelson Mandela

Trust and psychological safety

Until we are given a reason to doubt, trust is our natural state. We come into this world totally open to life’s experiences with no judgement and, other than our basic needs like food and comfort, no expectations.

Innocently, we feel safe and protected … until we don’t.

As we grow older and get learn about the things that can harm or hurt us, we become more cautious and less trusting.

While we want our child to be careful enough to be safe, we also want to encourage their trust in the world as well as in our relationship with them so that they feel they can come to us when they need help, are having challenges at school, or just feel the need to share something with us.

Trust is built when action meets words.

A few things that can too easily break trust without us even knowing we’re doing it are: laughing while they’re sharing something close to their heart, judging a friend of theirs, repeating something they shared in confidence to a third party, or showing a lack of empathy for someone they care about.

Psychological safety is a popular term these days and points to an environment where it’s (psychologically) safe to share openly, expose our inner thoughts and show empathy and caring towards others. We won’t get shot down for expressing our opinions or ridiculed for our “different” or unusual ideas.

If we want our offspring to hone their natural resilience, to be able to handle the stuff that life throws at them and to continue to grow, learn and be happy - as all human beings are designed to do – we need to nurture that environment.

I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. Friedrich Nietzsche

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Now that we have the basics out of the way, there are three other things we can do – and become better at if we give them due focus:

1. Noticing what’s right

I’m not sure who or what we can blame - our educational system, own parents or caregivers, or no-one in particular - but noticing when things are not going well seems to be a lot easier than observing when they are going well.  

Noticing the good more often takes practice but it’s well worth it. The important thing though is to make clear your observations about their behaviour. It’s opinion, not fact, and it’s certainly not about their inner being or personality. It’s only ever about their actions or behaviours.

Of course, you still can point out behaviour that is not aligned with your values, beliefs, agreements and rules, etc, but they’ll be far more open to receive to your feedback if they know you’re not always only pointing out the bad.

Make sure you’re always noticing the behaviour, the actions, and not purely your judgment or opinion. “You’re so messy!” (personal judgment) is not nearly as effective as “Your bedroom is untidy again today” (objective observation). Likewise, “You’re the most intelligent girl in your class!” can be less helpful to them in the long run that pointing out how well they did / how proud you are about their results in the school exams (actions).

Also, NEVER assume their intention as being negative. It might be difficult to do this, but if you realise that everyone has a good intention no matter what they’re doing (how often have you been accused of doing something “bad” or wrong when your intention was something completely different?).  

A good practice could be that when you do have those feelings of annoyance or frustration with their behaviour, ask yourself what their positive intention might have been. For example if they shouted back at you when you asked them (for the 5th time) to tidy their room, what are they really trying to do? (And no, “make me mad!” is not the right answer).

Notice their strengths (the positive) whenever possible and help them build confidence in themselves. Don’t be reticent to point our where they might be overdoing their strengths, e.g. Jane, I know you really care about your friends and that you want to be there for them, but you also need to focus on your studies so that you can pass your exams.

2. Allowing them to solve their own problems

As a parent, it’s sometimes extremely difficult to NOT jump to solutions and fix things for our children. When they’re hurting or dealing with something at school or with a friend or romantic partner, it’s painful for us to NOT try to offer a remedy. But that would be our solution, not theirs. It disempowers them and robs them of a learning experience. It also sends the message that we don’t trust them to be able to handle their own situations.   

Just as we can tap into our inner wisdom to find solutions to our challenges, so can they; but if we’re in the habit of rescuing them, we’re not giving them the benefit of the doubt. We need to step back and enable them to find their own answers. This can happen much younger than the teenage years, but it’s never too late.

Here’s how to begin “coaching” your teenager to find a solution.  If your child comes to you with a challenge of any sort, your first port of call is to:

	Do	Don’t
1.	Listen deeply enough to try to understand the situation.	Interrupt. Think you know the answer and jump in as soon as they pause.
2.	Ask a question to find out more and/or prompt them to find an answer.	Give them your opinion or solution.
3.	Listen some more.	Get impatient, say you’re busy and/or walk away or fill in the blanks so you can move on.
4.	Rinse and repeat until you feel they have found an answer, or something to try.	Stop listening before they have found a solution.

The results you’ll get (for you both) could surprise you in that:

a)      They find a solution quicker than you expected;

b)      They own their own solution and are more willing to see it through;

c)       They trust you more than they already did.

I once overheard a conversation between mum and son, probably around eight years old, while walking behind them outside of a shopping mall. It was late on a Saturday morning. I only heard a short snippet of their conversation, and this is how it went:

Son: “Oh yeah, ma, I have to do a project for Monday.”

Mum: “Okay …  What’s it on?”

Son: “Aerodynamics and the way air moves around and stuff.”

Mum (who knows very little about the topic) asks casually: “Who do you know who could help you with that?”

Son: “Um …. “, thinking deeply.

Mum: Saying nothing.

Son: “I know! Grandad!”

Mum: “Great! When can you ask him?”

Son, after a short hesitation: “Can I use your phone?”

And that was all I heard.

I smiled.

I teach this stuff to my clients often, but to see it play out in a real-life situation (a “coaching opportunity”) with a mother and her eight-year-old son was a scenario I had previously not had the fortune to witness.

It was especially intriguing to me because I have personally experienced the “surprise project” moment many a time when my own three daughters were younger and I can tell you that I was much less adept at handling it than this mother was.

From a coach's perspective, the outcome wasn’t that surprising, but what really blew me away was:

1.       How natural the conversation was;

2.       How easily the young boy found his own answers;

3.       How calm and unflustered the mother was in that interaction.

In conclusion:

Coaching your teen or tween can be a very powerful way of helping them solve their own problems and far more powerful for their own development than giving them (your) answers, or, even worse, doing it for them!

3. Deep Listening

Have you ever been truly listened to, without interruption, without judgment? If you have, you’ll know how rewarding it can be.

Recently, I attended a Deep Listening Retreat. Three days of … you guessed it: listening - or at least learning to listen properly. I had no idea we needed so much practice to embed the skill so that we wouldn’t lose it the moment we got back to “normal” life.

Everyone loves attention. We thrive on it. Deep listening doesn’t only happen in half-hour stints. It can happen in five or ten minutes. It just takes undivided attention from the listener and coming from a place of curiosity and genuine interest.

In a one-to-one session with my listening partner, we were instructed to listen to the other for thirty minutes each way.

We both had a very “enlightening” experience with some very deep exploration of our current challenges. My partner discovered a belief they had had for many years that was holding them back in their life and I had thirty minutes to reflect on my coaching business and came up with some brand new ideas for a marketing strategy.

And all we did was listen.

No questions, no prompting, no filling the silence. Just pure presence and 100% attention.

When your teen does open up and offer to talk, you are doing them a huge service by listening, without interruption. It will not only boost the trust levels between you, it will also give them the space to reflect and perhaps even find answers to their questions. 

They might just enjoy the experience enough so that that the next time they’ll be even more keen to chat to you, not knowing why, but appreciating that it’s a safe space, and that they're more likely to find answers and new ideas just through talking to you.

Isn't that an amazing opportunity to empower them?

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There is a lot of pressure on adolescents these days with 24/7 access to all sorts of comparisons and challenges. Pushed outside of their comfort zones, feeling confused about where they want to go in their careers, learning to handle relationships, push back, influence others and set boundaries are all good topics to explore but they have to feel safe before they will open up and share with you what's on their mind.

Incorporating the above three elements in your interactions with your teenagers, you can create a space where they feel safe, confident to explore options, and empowered to share openly, listen to others, and tap into their own inner wisdom.

It's a gift of a lifetime that you’re giving them which can ultimately increase their confidence, self-belief and self-esteem.

There are many more tips and tricks to engage more deeply and empoweringly with your teens, but these are the ones I have seen to be the most impactful. It might take a while for you to do these things naturally, but, as with anything worth its salt, practice makes perfect.

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If you would like to explore how you can deepen your understanding and embed your coaching abilities as a parent, take a look at my FREE 3-module video course or click below to book a call with me to discover how we can work together.

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