Self-esteem Activities for Teenagers

Self-esteem refers to liking for the self. This love for the self refers to both outward as well as inward. This includes your perception and your belief. Believing in self is a way of building high self-esteem that is also called positive self-esteem. The feeling of positive self-pride comes when you do something good, like scoring highest in the class, winning a competition, etc. But how do you feel when you do something wrong? For example, saying something wrong in front of everyone. At that moment you feel like running away or hiding or wishing that you were someone else. This is negative or low self-esteem signs.

If this trait becomes dominant, then the individual starts losing confidence then everything seems to be drifting away and this mostly happens with the teenagers. So, to avoid this or to regain the lost self-esteem, here are some self-esteem activities for teenagers. But before moving to these activities, let us first have a look at three important tips.

Tips to Keep in Mind

Teenage is the time when lots of confusions and doubts prevail in the mind. The development of the personality at this age mostly decides the way of life in the future. So, it becomes very important to start giving importance to the self as well. Here are three tips that will help teens learn how to improve self-esteem.

Self-image (Appearance)
As we know that, there are many pressures during the teenage and one of the pressures is on appearance. The self-image has an important role in building confidence as it directly affects the studies, social status, and many other things. By paying attention on the looks, one can conquer the feeling of insecurity and hence, get over those feelings.

Peers
Your peers can be a source of happiness and anxiety as well. If the peers are cooperative and helpful then one might develop in a positive way, but if the friend circle is manipulative, then it might affect in the other way. So, one should not allow the negative forces overpower the self.

Parents
Parents never have bad intentions for their kids, but sometimes even good intention can affect adversely on confidence of the child. This is mostly seen in the cases when parents expect too much from their child. This expectation leads to over burdening the child and does not give ample space for self-esteem and confidence to grow. So, parents should not thrust their dreams rather should be cooperative with the child.

What You Can Do

Here are some activities designed for teenagers who are undergoing lots of pressures that might be because of studies, parents, peers, etc. There can be many other activities other than the given below exercises.

Pleasure List
It is a kind of worksheet where you have to list the things, like places, activities and people whose thought makes you feel good. So whenever you feel low or sad, just take out the list and read it. This will divert your mind and make you feel happy. Answer the following questions while preparing your pleasure list.

• People who make me feel happy.
• Places visited that I love most or places that I would like to visit.
• Things that I love doing.
• Things that make me feel good.

Toot Your Horn
This is also a worksheet to identify the things about yourself that makes you feel good and hence, helps in building up confidence. This activity creates a way for the brain to think about the self and strengthens the confidence. Whenever you feel low, read this sheet to get personal power. Answer the following thing in the worksheet.

• I like ... in myself
• I am excellent at...
• Things that makes me feel happy are ...
• My friends like in me ...

Apart from these activities, team building activities also are a good way to repair the low self-esteem. There are several ways to make your child get over those negative feelings because everyone needs positive self-affirmation to develop confidence and faith in self.