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4 Powerful Secrets to Boost Your Teen’s Confidence and Self-Esteem
In this episode of Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam, Dr. Cam Caswell sits down with life coach and former teacher Kristi Simons to dive into the secrets of building teen confidence. They discuss why self-awareness is the foundation of confidence, how parents can encourage emotional expression, and why resilience matters more than confidence alone. Kristi shares powerful insights on shifting internal beliefs, fostering self-worth, and creating a supportive environment where teens feel seen, heard, and valued. If you're looking for practical ways to help your teen navigate self-doubt and embrace their full potential, this episode is for you.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE
5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR PARENTS OF TEENS
Self-Awareness Fuels Confidence – Teens who understand their emotions and thought patterns develop a stronger sense of self-worth. Encourage reflection and emotional awareness.
Emotional Expression Builds Strength – Suppressing emotions leads to self-doubt. Let your teen know it's okay to express how they feel without fear of judgment.
Kindness is a Confidence Booster – The way you talk to your teen (and yourself!) influences their self-perception. Kindness and encouragement go a long way.
Resilience Over Perfection – Confidence isn’t about never failing—it’s about bouncing back. Teach your teen that setbacks are learning opportunities, not defeats.
Believe in Them First – Your teen mirrors your belief in them. Show them you trust their abilities, and they’ll start believing in themselves too.
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EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 – Unlocking Teen Confidence: A Journey Begins
05:54 – Understanding Teen Challenges: The Struggle for Self-Awareness
11:54 – Embracing Emotions: The Key to Resilience
17:52 – Reverse Engineering Confidence: Practical Steps for Parents
23:55 – Creating a Safe Space: Encouraging Open Communication
29:48 – Final Thoughts: Empowering Teens Through Kindness
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Kristi Simons
CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST: Dr. Cam Caswell
THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Cam
Hey parents, are you ready to unlock the secrets to building your teens confidence? In today's episode, we're diving deep into how to help our teens tackle challenges with a strong sense of self, whether they're facing struggles at home or feeling the pressure at school. And we've got a special guest with us, Christy Simons, a former teacher turned teen life coach, who's on a mission to equip teens with the life skills she was she had growing up.
Me too. Skills that build true confidence and resilience. So if you're looking for ways to help your team not only survive, but thrive, this episode is for you. Welcome, Christy.
Kristi Simons (00:43)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here. These conversations energize me in the best of ways. So I just appreciate your time and the space to have them.
Dr. Cam (00:53)
Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate that too. And I would love to start just by hearing your story. How did you go from a teacher to a teen life coach?
Kristi Simons (01:02)
Yeah, so I'll try to make this as short as possible. But what happened for me was my teen years is where all of, I would say a lot of my trauma was really rooted. And it wasn't something I realized until I became a mom for the first time. So that's when the shift really happened. I started to lean into things that I desired in different a different way of living, honestly, because I knew that a change needed to happen. And that change had to start with me. And I'm not even really honestly sure how I knew that but
My son really changed everything for me, my daughter as well. After two mental health breakdowns, I finally decided that coaching was the right route for me. So I hired my own coach. I stepped into such an inspiring community with all of these incredible women. And I just looked around and I was like, my gosh, it's like there's a different way. And what started to come to me was that they were speaking like a completely different language. And it was this language of self-love, confidence and empowerment that I feel like I wasn't really surrounded by before. And so things slowly started to piece themselves back together. I mean, I really do feel like motherhood for me just shattered me into pieces. And there were pieces of myself that needed to fall away and others that were meant to stay. It's just, had to figure out how to put them back together. And so that's what coaching and community really did for me. And I found myself a little after four years starting my own podcast. And the reason that it ended up being, you know, teens specifically that I work with. Honestly, truthfully, I sit here today and I'm still like, how did this happen? Like to me, it's just, I look back and I can see all of the breadcrumbs. But honestly, I tell people like it just kind of happened organically. And there's something bigger at play here, I truly believe. But that's a different conversation. And so yeah, I started to initially help teens through the pandemic.
A lot of them were just dropping out of high school for multiple reasons, mainly main one being like their mental health and just the way that they were actually feeling. And so I started helping them in that capacity. And then I realized how much coaching had changed my life and the trajectory of it. I became sober. I still am three years later. Like there's just so many shifts that have happened for me in such a positive way that I knew that I wanted to give back in that way as well. So I started doing like tutoring and life coaching, and now it's just moved into full life coaching. yeah.
Dr. Cam (03:30)
That's fantastic. And so what are some of the common, I guess, common challenges you're seeing that teens have today that is wearing on their confidence?
Kristi Simons (03:43)
You know what it is that I can see so clearly? Well, one, the first thing that's coming to me is just helping them to be more aware of what I am noticing, like helping them to recognize in themselves what's actually going on. But what I really see is they don't know how to reverse engineer how they actually want to feel. And they keep coming up against these blocks and these challenges in their lives that are really keeping them stuck where they are, because I hear that often from them. They do feel stuck.
They feel like they need to constantly be comparing themselves to others. They're worried about others' opinions. So there's evidence just from the clients that I work with that there's people pleasing involved. So it's how do we now start to help them to understand that they are, in fact, their own person and that they can trust themselves. And so I would say a lot of it is that.
It may seem like these external factors to them, but really what's happening is it's like the internal, it's the beliefs that they have about themselves. And so it's trying to get them to shift their perspective to that language of self-love, confidence, and empowerment that I feel like I learned later in life. But now that I know it, I feel like it's like my duty to teach it. So this is why I stepped out of the classroom to do this. And again, it's just to me, I'm still just like, wow, it's kind of like this like holy shit moment where I'm like, can't believe this is actually the work that I'm doing. Because you recognize like those qualities within yourself, like you can't do this work unless you actually have confidence and you feel empowered in your life, or at least you're moving in that direction. I mean, it's a constant evolution. And there's always going to be struggles and challenges. But you come to this place where you really do realize that you are like this machine that is capable of so, so much.
Dr. Cam (05:06)
And teaching teens how to embrace that when they're still in the process of like developing their self-confidence and developing those connections in their brains. Imagine if we can develop at the beginning their self-confidence built into their self-esteem or built into their self-concept because I do know a lot of adults that still mean like still struggle with confidence because our whole And as you said, as teens, we grew up with this belief that we weren't enough, and that was hardwired into who we think we are. And it's very difficult to change that once it's so set. It can be done. It's just a lot of hard work. So how do we as parents start building that foundation of confidence and positive self-esteem in our kids without the over because I know a lot of parents worry, my gosh, I don't want them to become egotistical. I don't want them to become narcissistic. I don't want them to become entitled. And so I think there's this fear of going there and we almost overcompensate for that fear. And I see a lot with parents where they're just putting their kids down a lot, but not because of that fear. Like they don't want their kids to have a false sense of ego. How do we balance that?
Kristi Simons (06:41)
Okay, so what's coming to me right now, and I'm all about simplicity, so I'm going to keep this super simple, but it really comes back to just seeing things through a lens of love. Like if we can just remember that sentence. And again, it's the beliefs that we have within ourselves as well. So we really need to pay attention and be aware of that. But this is going to be a really silly example.
And I know my husband thinks I'm super strange for doing this, but it honestly works. And this is just like to make a point. So he bought me flowers for our anniversary and this was October 30th was our anniversary. And so these flowers are still alive. And I know that they are alive because I continuously every morning I do one thing. It's like one small habit for these flowers so that I can keep them as long as possible.
I will fill them up with new water and I will literally talk to, like I will speak to them and I will speak into the water and I will just give like positive energy to them, like stay alive essentially, but you're beautiful. You're so powerful, like you're so strong. And I swear to you, I will go get them if you want me to prove they are still alive. And when I think about the fact that we as human beings are like, I don't know if it's like 70 % energy or something, don't quote me on that, but it's close.
It's all in the way that we speak. It's all in the way that we show up. It's in the way that we communicate. Like to me, like your words have such power. And so if just by, and this is just me doing an experiment to prove to my husband that these things are going to be alive till freaking Christmas, and then he'll finally believe me. But it's true if we can understand that from that perspective, like 90 % of, 90 % of life I believe is all about energy. The other 10 % is strategy.
Dr. Cam (08:19)
I want to see that. That'd be amazing.
Kristi Simons (08:46)
And once you can, you know, as I said, really see things through a lens of love and just start communicating in small ways to help build the confidence for them. Like for me, I didn't have that belief until my coach started to instill it in me. I had zero belief. All I knew is I wanted to change, but I had no idea how. Like there wasn't any belief. So it took her holding that belief for me and seeing it for me before I could see it and believe it for myself.
I feel like we all need those people in our lives. So it's really about just shifting the conversation and also like giving ourselves a ton of compassion as well, because I know there's conversations that I used to have about other people, about myself, that yeah, I just, don't want to be hard on myself for that anymore. It's just about, okay, today, like what can I do to start making some changes and focusing in a direction that actually benefits everybody.
Dr. Cam (09:34)
Yeah, I love that and setting that expectation of it is it's just changing what you hear because that changes the voice in your head. Like you take the voice that you hear in your head is really the voice you heard often from your parents growing up, right? It becomes your internal. And so a lot of times parents get very focused on fixing and changing and improving their kids for good reason, like I understand why they're doing it, but it comes across as constantly, you know, nagging and berating and changing and criticizing and judging and all of a sudden, and I get all these kids coming into my office that have zero self-esteem and everything is a should for them. Like I should do this, I should be this, I should feel that. And that's because the messages have come to them constantly that what they're doing and who they are is not enough, they should be more. And they're never gonna be that because no matter what they are, there's still more that they should be. And that feels completely defeating. So how do we as parents balance this motivation and teaching with our kids where we wanna give them guidance and we wanna help them grow and develop and learn? How do we balance that with this positive reinforcement in positive words so that we're giving them an internal voice that is compassionate to them.
Kristi Simons (11:12)
Yeah, I love this question. it really to me, it's all about, well, first the belief. So if we're starting to instill some beliefs in them, some new beliefs, that's already going to be a step one, right? And then what comes next, it's really about, okay, if you have those beliefs, like what are the thoughts that you're having? So what I see with my clients is just the importance of having more of a connection with themselves and actually you know, speaking about their feelings, journaling about their feelings. And I know that for a lot of parents, like that's a big like, like, wouldn't it be nice, like something that they put on their wishlist? Like, wouldn't it be nice if my teen like knew how to feel their feelings rather than holding them in because they know what that can do like internally for their system. And so it's just really about helping them to express that. And again, it in the beginning,
It may seem awkward or feel awkward for everybody because if it's not something you're used to doing, of course it's going to be different. When you're creating change, there's going to be that discomfort. And so what I see is just for them, it's really being aware of their thoughts and learning to think about what they actually think about. And then once you're in that space, you can then take action from a different perspective.
Because to me, it all comes down to choice. We all have a choice in that moment, whether we want to lean into all of the limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves or whether we want to lean into the feelings that we're actually desiring to feel. Because again, to me, at the end of the day, all of this, it all comes back to feeling. We want to feel connected to our children. They want to feel confident. They want to feel proud of themselves. These are words that I hear from my clients.
It has more to do with what they're experiencing internally rather than the external. So we really have to come back to a place of how do we encourage them slowly to start either, you know, connecting with a mentor, connecting with a teacher, a best friend, a cousin, like a role model, somebody that really inspires them in their life. Like find them that person. If you still feel that, you know, there's stuff that you want to work on for yourself and just start having those conversations with them, start exposing them to a different language. This is what this is. And I feel like for a lot of people, like even leaning into that feels uncomfortable. And that's where the confidence is created. And I feel like that's the part that we often miss is to be emotionally uncomfortable is where you will start to build the resilience and the knowing and the evidence that you are in fact capable of overcoming anything in your life because what doesn't challenge you won't change you. So that's essentially what we're after.
Dr. Cam (14:02)
Let's dig into the emotion thing because I think this is something that I see a lot of parents struggle with for good reason again. Hard emotions are uncomfortable as you just said and I think being able to be okay in that discomfort is what is so important because as you were saying, a lot of kids learn to push down their emotions or they don't learn to regulate their emotions. And what I commonly see is we're uncomfortable with that emotion, anger, sadness, frustration, mean, jealousy, any of those things. Our knee-jerk reaction is to shut the emotion down, change the emotion, or just completely brush the emotion off and say, it's not that big a deal. When we do that with these big emotions that are just as equally fair and needed as happiness and pride and excitement, right?
We are okay with those being really big. We're not okay with the other emotions. So when those emotions come up, allowing our kids to feel those emotions without trying to change them, without trying to fix them is part of what builds confidence because we are, especially teenagers, they are their emotions. that leads every day, they are living in their emotions. So when we tell them their emotions are wrong,
or we try to push back their emotions, we're telling them they're wrong, that something's wrong with them, that how they're feeling is not okay, which means they're not okay. And I think that's what I'm, then they don't trust themselves. They start going, well, if I'm feeling this way about this and I shouldn't, then I don't trust how I feel. So I don't trust myself. So there goes my confidence in my ability to understand what's going on.
Do you agree with that? .
Kristi Simons (16:01)
yeah, 100%. And I just, you know what I know to be true for me as well is just that my teen self would have understood this if somebody explained it to her, that the E in emotion stands for energy in motion. So when I actually started to understand that I was more of an energetic being, and that these emotions were essentially energy, I’m so visual. So I really started to like connect with that and I could see when my energy would shift. So now I'm actually making like, like I'm not always up in my head. It's like you're actually making like a mind and body connection. And I feel like that's super important because then you're able to actually feel what it feels to be grounded, feel what it feels to be present. And I think that that's super important as well. So for me, that was huge. then again, being able to like some of the biggest aha moments I feel like my clients have is when they realize that rather than as you said, being like, like the victim of the emotion, because all emotions are so important and need to be celebrated, right? It's like you, you learn to become friends with them and actually hear what they are trying to tell you because you have all the answers within. So what I help them to do is rather than be a victim to the emotion, help them to be the coach, once they get to that point in their lives, which is so beautiful to see. And also just like the creator of how they want to feel. So leaning more into that and then actually challenging themselves to reframe. And I feel like those three roles that they can play in their lives, the coach, the challenger and the creator are just, they're so empowering. It's literally called the empowerment dynamic. It is not mine. It is just a tool, another strategy that I teach.
But yeah, so many of these different ways of being that once you're aware of them, you're like, my gosh, why didn't I know this before? it's a muscle though. This is the thing. It's a muscle. Like anything else in life that say we desire, I desire to run a full marathon this year. And I'm not going to lie to you. When I signed up, I was like, yeah, fully confident. Then throughout the year, holy gosh, it was a roller coaster. I was like, I don't think I can do this. Now I'm ready for sure. No, I can't do this. I was all over the map. But it really just came back to the person that I had to become along that journey and the overcoming of each and every emotion and each and every belief that was telling me that I couldn't or I shouldn't or whatever the case may be. Like once it finally came race day, it wasn't even so much crossing the finish line. Like I am looking back now thinking to myself like, yes, I did run and complete a full marathon. And I'm proud of myself for that, but I'm so much more proud of every small step that led me to that finish line along the way, because I was overcoming so much and I was proving to myself that I'm capable.
Dr. Cam (18:43)
You kept doing it. So having those wins and those examples of overcoming difficult things and going, you can overcome difficult things. You have overcome difficult things, I think is so important too because we often focus on what they could do or they can do in the future. And that causes a lot of anxiety and pressure because they question if they can. So now they just feel pressure to do it. But when we focus more on what they already accomplished, they've already done. This then builds that belief in themselves. Yeah, I do do that, which now, since I have all these examples of me succeeding in the past, I can do it in the future. And I think what's really important and what you were saying, like we're going up and down in our belief system. I think for parents, what we need to learn to do is have a belief system in our kids that is on the up all the time. giving them the benefit of the doubt, believing that they are a good person doing the best they can, believing that there is a reason underlying whatever they're doing and it's not just to annoy us and be difficult. And when we change our mindset about our kids, changes our approach to our kids, which changes the words and the tone and the dynamic with our kids, which changes how our kids feel about themselves.
Kristi Simons (20:25)
my gosh, I love this conversation so much. I really love you. You're so fantastic. You just gave me a visual this time. Like now I'm seeing a literal like ladder, like a ladder almost of like believability. Like it's constantly as you were describing this. And this is why I connected with you, especially through your Instagram, because when you were explaining things and using your hands, I just feel like the way you explain things, I like, you have a gift of being able to explain things that I can like visually see, which is so, so cool. But yeah, this time I was literally seeing like this ladder of believability. So every step you take, like you are building that belief and it's just constantly going to grow and get better and better and stronger and stronger. Yeah, you just have to keep taking the actionable steps and moving up. Like there's no way, the only way out is through and it's gonna be up. It's gonna be up.
Dr. Cam (21:11)
It is, and just keep stepping there. And I think I wanna address Christy, I want you to help me address and help kids. And thank you, thank you for that compliment, that made my day. That boosted my confidence. So when we, when we've got a teen right now, let's say, and they're struggling with confidence, right? And we see them and we get this, and this happens a lot when they go into middle school and high school because they start comparing, as you said, comparing themselves.
Kristi Simons (21:24)
You're welcome.
Dr. Cam (21:41)
Our word as parents becomes completely irrelevant, right? Kids no longer believe R, but you're smart, but you're beautiful, but you're, they're like, you have to say that you're my mom. You have to say that you're my dad. So it has zero value to them anymore. So now we're in a place, kids are insecure. We don't have a lot of power in our words so much anymore. How do we help boost their confidence now. How do we start and I loved I want to get to that reverse engineering you said I wrote that down I love that talk to us a little bit about how do we as parents help reverse engineer their belief system now.
Kristi Simons (22:24)
Yeah. So what comes up for me is just be brave, trust yourself, take action. Because this is an affirmation that I have been speaking to myself for, gosh, probably four plus years now. And it just helps me to remember that we need to be brave enough to actually lean into like what's going on, what the root cause is. Because to me, if you're telling your teen something that is making them uncomfortable in that way, like something like, I'm so proud of you or you're so beautiful and they're not receiving that. It's because they don't have that belief, like they don't believe that about themselves. So at some point in the game, like they started to believe that they're not enough and that they're not worthy of a compliment like that. And so this isn't something that can just be changed overnight, but I do believe by leaning into, you know, what is it that hurt you? Like, what is it that is causing that blocks, like just asking them plain and simply like, how come? And if they're not ready to talk about it, they're not ready, but at least they know that with you, they have like a safe place to land if they ever need to. But once you actually do connect with that, and again, sometimes it's just about talking through that with other people, if they're not as open to communicating. Again, I don't have a teenager. So again, it's so interesting that I fell into this work based on what I have needed as a teen. I'm really hoping that this work helps me as I move along as a parent of teens.
Dr. Cam (23:53)
It does because I started this with Mike without a teen and now she's 18. It works people. do everything I teach and it's like what's fun Christy is she is
Kristi Simons (23:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I see with my clients, but I don't have like, my own. So I'm like, I can't speak to that yet.
Dr. Cam (24:07)
Yeah. And I have a kid and the whole focus for her, a big piece of how I interacted with her was to ensure as best as I could that she felt confident in herself. And that kid feels confident in herself. She's, it's amazing. Does she have a big ego? No, not even remotely, but she pushes herself and tries and it's okay failing. And she steps up and does it again and again. And like, she's so incredibly resilient. So I think, and that's, I think that's bigger than the confidence. She's resilient. She goes up and down in confidence as we all do, but she keeps getting up and keeps getting up and she's able to do it and not giving up. And I am proud of myself as a parent for being able to help her instill that because I did it without necessarily feeling it myself.
Kristi Simons (25:06)
So I think exactly what you just said, I'm gonna veer off what I was saying because it just came to me so clearly. That's exactly what we need to be doing as parents as well. Like that is my reminder. I'm gonna hope that that stays and it sticks, but they keep getting up and trying again and again. I feel like that's the same way that we should be showing up for them if we wanna see like lasting sustainable change. You need to say it over and over again. And yeah, it's going to probably drive you a little crazy, you're probably gonna feel frustrated. You might hit your red zone in some ways because yeah, it's gonna be emotionally uncomfortable. know again, as I said, like even just as a parent, like seeing my toddlers in discomfort, it already, it just, pulls at your heartstrings. It's not fun. But at the same time, I feel like, yeah, we're doing them such a disservice by not showing up for them in this way. Like it is just so important to continuously speak to them in that way because when I truly think on a daily basis, even with the awareness that I have, I still have thoughts that loop in my mind and I will catch myself. I'm like, my gosh, that is terrible. I can't believe you just thought that about yourself. And then it just makes you wonder, you know, that's what the upbringing and the expectations, you know, that I had in my family, like things are totally different now.
And it's just, makes you wonder like, you know, what thoughts they're thinking in their minds on a day to day basis. And so it's just, I feel like it's so important to be just kind with people because you don't know the battles that they are facing. And so, yeah, you just gotta keep, as much as it feels annoying, I promise you it's not, it'll be worth it. Just keep reinforcing the positive belief because it's like, it's there, it exists. You just have to make the choice to choose it.
Dr. Cam (26:51)
Christy, I think when you just said kind, that to me is bottom line. as parents, and this has been my approach as parenting the whole time, whenever I approach something, and there's times that I'm not in a great mood, but in general, overall, my approach is kind. It's all about kindness. And it's no matter what is going on, no matter what the situation is, you have a choice to respond in either being harsh and unkind or being kind. No matter what the situation is, you always, always, always have that choice. And as a parent, we should always, always, always be choosing kindness with our kids. There's no reason not to. And when we approach them with kindness, that gives them that belief in themselves that they are worthy of being treated kindly. And when they're feeling worthy of being treated kindly, that gives them that sense of like, I'm not okay when somebody treats me unkindly. I can recognize that and I'm not okay with that. When we treat them unkindly, they believe that that's how they should be treated. And they keep finding those situations in their life and saying, I deserve being treated that way because I've always been treated that way. So I think it's really important that how we treat our kids is teaching them how to treat others, but how others should treat them. And that to me is bottom line essential as a parent.
Kristi Simons (28:23)
Yeah. And so important also to your point that, you know, just in teaching and being kind to them, I feel like it's just so it's equally as important for them to be kind to themselves for us to be kind to ourselves. Like I know even like with my toddlers, for example, like there are times where again, yes, still human. So I will react. And then I have in that moment, the choice to, you know, continue reacting or to become aware of it and then just repair it.
But I feel like the in-between, like what we sometimes miss, which is why it makes it so hard to repair, is because we lack kindness for ourselves. We lack empathy for ourselves. So then our hurt just keeps projecting onto them. So it's really about healing ourselves. And I feel like this is one of the biggest things that needs to start happening for our teens. It's again, it's a lot of everybody's discomfort that gets in the way from them actually achieving.
Dr. Cam (28:53)
That is the biggest thing. It is our discomfort. And I think we need to be able to be aware when we're uncomfortable and that is not our teens' to make us feel comfortable. That's not on them. That's us to be able to sit in that discomfort and not have to fix it for them, but just be there for them while they figure it out. And when they're able to figure it out and know it's okay to not be okay, I think that's the biggest thing. A lot of parents say, I just want my teen to be happy. I just want them to be happy. And that is such an unfair expectation to put on our kid. Nobody on the planet is happy all the time. And that, you know, to be able to not be happy is something that I want for my teen too, to be able to be okay when they're not happy, when she's not happy, knowing that she's going to get through it. That's important to me.
Kristi Simons (30:20)
I love that. So beautiful.
Dr. Cam (30:21)
Yeah. So confidence is this internal thing that we want to help build, but what we do as parents is we're reflecting back how they think about themselves.
Anything that you want to make sure parents walk away with from this episode.
Kristi Simons (30:47)
I think the last thing that was coming for me was just that there can be so much information out there. And like, I want parents to have the same confidence that I want their teens to have, right? Like I want them to just believe in trust in themselves and the decisions that they're making and that they're right there for their families. Like I am just somebody who's here. I feel more so like as a vessel just to share with all of you this language because I believe that it is a very positive direction for everybody. So I would just say like to keep it simple. And by simple, mean just literally lean into what feels good for you. Like that's all that you have to do. Just ask yourself in that moment, stop and be aware and just ask yourself like what is going to help like just essentially shine more light rather than, you know, keep them stuck in the dark.
And I feel like if you can just continuously remind yourself of that, you're already on the right track. And over time, once the language shifts, like everything just becomes easier.
Dr. Cam (31:42)
Once it becomes natural. you know, I want to kind of add to that a little bit too, Christy, because I think that is such an essential message. And it's one that I don't feel like I repeat enough. If parents, I hear from parents a lot, I'm failing. I feel like I'm failing. I feel like I've done everything wrong. And when we get stuck in that mindset, we don't end up growing or moving or changing or doing the things that can replicate and repair that. So I think if you're first of all, if you're listening to this, you're a damn good parent because you're taking time out to listen to how to be a better parent. So you're already a good parent. So you can't say you're failing. Sorry. Take that off the table. Not allowed. Even when we have made mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake, we're still not failing as a parent if we keep saying,
What can I learn from each time? What can I do differently today? What can I learn today to be a little bit better than I was yesterday? Then you're not failing. So I think I love that where we were does not define where we are now and where we're going to be able and where we can go.
Kristi Simons (33:11)
Yeah, I honestly would just like to highlight and just encourage you to just look back at your journey with them. Like take time, like if you're ever really feeling frustrated, if you all of a sudden realize that your emotions are shifting and you know, you're angry or you're upset or you feel disrespected, like whatever the case may be.
In that moment, here's a little tool for you, can use just literally start from like when they were like first born and take yourself like through like the years of you know, just their life so far and all of like your happiest memories, I promise you it will shift your energy in that moment and it will help you to make a more conscious and aware decision.
Dr. Cam (33:39)
That is a phenomenal tip. We will leave with that tip. That was really good. Christy, how do people find you?
Kristi Simons (33:52)
So I'm most active on Instagram, I would say. So you can find me at Confident Teen Teacher. Apart from that, I am opening my books right now for teen audits. So that's the first step. If your teen is looking for support, that's the first step they can take on their journey. Just fill out that application and then we do that initial audit and action plan to see if it's a good fit. And then we would move into a coaching container if it is. So you can find all of that at my website. It's just Christy Simons, S-I-M-O-N-S, my goodness, can't even spell my last name, .com forward slash teen audit. And then, the podcast as well. Yeah, if you love listening to podcasts like this one, and you just love listening to inspiring and meaningful conversations, yeah, Confident Teen Podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Dr. Cam (34:29)
Fantastic, and I will put all the stuff in the notes so people can find it. Christy, thank you so much for joining me today.
Kristi Simons (34:52)
Thank you. It was lovely. I told you, I feel so freaking energized. So energized.
Dr. Cam (34:57)
I know I love talking about this stuff. This is great. I really enjoyed talking to you too.
About the Show
The Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam Podcast is your go-to resource for navigating the challenges of raising teenagers. Hosted by Dr. Cam Caswell, an adolescent psychologist and certified parenting coach, this podcast offers expert advice, practical parenting strategies, and real-world insights to help you build a stronger relationship with your teen and support their emotional growth. Whether you’re struggling with teenage behavior or looking to improve communication, each episode provides actionable tips to make parenting teens easier and more rewarding.
#ParentingTeens #TeenConfidence #RaisingResilientTeens #TheTeenTranslator
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By Dr. Cam
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In this episode of Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam, Dr. Cam Caswell sits down with life coach and former teacher Kristi Simons to dive into the secrets of building teen confidence. They discuss why self-awareness is the foundation of confidence, how parents can encourage emotional expression, and why resilience matters more than confidence alone. Kristi shares powerful insights on shifting internal beliefs, fostering self-worth, and creating a supportive environment where teens feel seen, heard, and valued. If you're looking for practical ways to help your teen navigate self-doubt and embrace their full potential, this episode is for you.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE
5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR PARENTS OF TEENS
Self-Awareness Fuels Confidence – Teens who understand their emotions and thought patterns develop a stronger sense of self-worth. Encourage reflection and emotional awareness.
Emotional Expression Builds Strength – Suppressing emotions leads to self-doubt. Let your teen know it's okay to express how they feel without fear of judgment.
Kindness is a Confidence Booster – The way you talk to your teen (and yourself!) influences their self-perception. Kindness and encouragement go a long way.
Resilience Over Perfection – Confidence isn’t about never failing—it’s about bouncing back. Teach your teen that setbacks are learning opportunities, not defeats.
Believe in Them First – Your teen mirrors your belief in them. Show them you trust their abilities, and they’ll start believing in themselves too.
🎧❤️ ENJOYING THE SHOW?
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EPISODE CHAPTERS
00:00 – Unlocking Teen Confidence: A Journey Begins
05:54 – Understanding Teen Challenges: The Struggle for Self-Awareness
11:54 – Embracing Emotions: The Key to Resilience
17:52 – Reverse Engineering Confidence: Practical Steps for Parents
23:55 – Creating a Safe Space: Encouraging Open Communication
29:48 – Final Thoughts: Empowering Teens Through Kindness
CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Kristi Simons
CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST: Dr. Cam Caswell
THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Cam
Hey parents, are you ready to unlock the secrets to building your teens confidence? In today's episode, we're diving deep into how to help our teens tackle challenges with a strong sense of self, whether they're facing struggles at home or feeling the pressure at school. And we've got a special guest with us, Christy Simons, a former teacher turned teen life coach, who's on a mission to equip teens with the life skills she was she had growing up.
Me too. Skills that build true confidence and resilience. So if you're looking for ways to help your team not only survive, but thrive, this episode is for you. Welcome, Christy.
Kristi Simons (00:43)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful to be here. These conversations energize me in the best of ways. So I just appreciate your time and the space to have them.
Dr. Cam (00:53)
Well, thank you for saying that. I appreciate that too. And I would love to start just by hearing your story. How did you go from a teacher to a teen life coach?
Kristi Simons (01:02)
Yeah, so I'll try to make this as short as possible. But what happened for me was my teen years is where all of, I would say a lot of my trauma was really rooted. And it wasn't something I realized until I became a mom for the first time. So that's when the shift really happened. I started to lean into things that I desired in different a different way of living, honestly, because I knew that a change needed to happen. And that change had to start with me. And I'm not even really honestly sure how I knew that but
My son really changed everything for me, my daughter as well. After two mental health breakdowns, I finally decided that coaching was the right route for me. So I hired my own coach. I stepped into such an inspiring community with all of these incredible women. And I just looked around and I was like, my gosh, it's like there's a different way. And what started to come to me was that they were speaking like a completely different language. And it was this language of self-love, confidence and empowerment that I feel like I wasn't really surrounded by before. And so things slowly started to piece themselves back together. I mean, I really do feel like motherhood for me just shattered me into pieces. And there were pieces of myself that needed to fall away and others that were meant to stay. It's just, had to figure out how to put them back together. And so that's what coaching and community really did for me. And I found myself a little after four years starting my own podcast. And the reason that it ended up being, you know, teens specifically that I work with. Honestly, truthfully, I sit here today and I'm still like, how did this happen? Like to me, it's just, I look back and I can see all of the breadcrumbs. But honestly, I tell people like it just kind of happened organically. And there's something bigger at play here, I truly believe. But that's a different conversation. And so yeah, I started to initially help teens through the pandemic.
A lot of them were just dropping out of high school for multiple reasons, mainly main one being like their mental health and just the way that they were actually feeling. And so I started helping them in that capacity. And then I realized how much coaching had changed my life and the trajectory of it. I became sober. I still am three years later. Like there's just so many shifts that have happened for me in such a positive way that I knew that I wanted to give back in that way as well. So I started doing like tutoring and life coaching, and now it's just moved into full life coaching. yeah.
Dr. Cam (03:30)
That's fantastic. And so what are some of the common, I guess, common challenges you're seeing that teens have today that is wearing on their confidence?
Kristi Simons (03:43)
You know what it is that I can see so clearly? Well, one, the first thing that's coming to me is just helping them to be more aware of what I am noticing, like helping them to recognize in themselves what's actually going on. But what I really see is they don't know how to reverse engineer how they actually want to feel. And they keep coming up against these blocks and these challenges in their lives that are really keeping them stuck where they are, because I hear that often from them. They do feel stuck.
They feel like they need to constantly be comparing themselves to others. They're worried about others' opinions. So there's evidence just from the clients that I work with that there's people pleasing involved. So it's how do we now start to help them to understand that they are, in fact, their own person and that they can trust themselves. And so I would say a lot of it is that.
It may seem like these external factors to them, but really what's happening is it's like the internal, it's the beliefs that they have about themselves. And so it's trying to get them to shift their perspective to that language of self-love, confidence, and empowerment that I feel like I learned later in life. But now that I know it, I feel like it's like my duty to teach it. So this is why I stepped out of the classroom to do this. And again, it's just to me, I'm still just like, wow, it's kind of like this like holy shit moment where I'm like, can't believe this is actually the work that I'm doing. Because you recognize like those qualities within yourself, like you can't do this work unless you actually have confidence and you feel empowered in your life, or at least you're moving in that direction. I mean, it's a constant evolution. And there's always going to be struggles and challenges. But you come to this place where you really do realize that you are like this machine that is capable of so, so much.
Dr. Cam (05:06)
And teaching teens how to embrace that when they're still in the process of like developing their self-confidence and developing those connections in their brains. Imagine if we can develop at the beginning their self-confidence built into their self-esteem or built into their self-concept because I do know a lot of adults that still mean like still struggle with confidence because our whole And as you said, as teens, we grew up with this belief that we weren't enough, and that was hardwired into who we think we are. And it's very difficult to change that once it's so set. It can be done. It's just a lot of hard work. So how do we as parents start building that foundation of confidence and positive self-esteem in our kids without the over because I know a lot of parents worry, my gosh, I don't want them to become egotistical. I don't want them to become narcissistic. I don't want them to become entitled. And so I think there's this fear of going there and we almost overcompensate for that fear. And I see a lot with parents where they're just putting their kids down a lot, but not because of that fear. Like they don't want their kids to have a false sense of ego. How do we balance that?
Kristi Simons (06:41)
Okay, so what's coming to me right now, and I'm all about simplicity, so I'm going to keep this super simple, but it really comes back to just seeing things through a lens of love. Like if we can just remember that sentence. And again, it's the beliefs that we have within ourselves as well. So we really need to pay attention and be aware of that. But this is going to be a really silly example.
And I know my husband thinks I'm super strange for doing this, but it honestly works. And this is just like to make a point. So he bought me flowers for our anniversary and this was October 30th was our anniversary. And so these flowers are still alive. And I know that they are alive because I continuously every morning I do one thing. It's like one small habit for these flowers so that I can keep them as long as possible.
I will fill them up with new water and I will literally talk to, like I will speak to them and I will speak into the water and I will just give like positive energy to them, like stay alive essentially, but you're beautiful. You're so powerful, like you're so strong. And I swear to you, I will go get them if you want me to prove they are still alive. And when I think about the fact that we as human beings are like, I don't know if it's like 70 % energy or something, don't quote me on that, but it's close.
It's all in the way that we speak. It's all in the way that we show up. It's in the way that we communicate. Like to me, like your words have such power. And so if just by, and this is just me doing an experiment to prove to my husband that these things are going to be alive till freaking Christmas, and then he'll finally believe me. But it's true if we can understand that from that perspective, like 90 % of, 90 % of life I believe is all about energy. The other 10 % is strategy.
Dr. Cam (08:19)
I want to see that. That'd be amazing.
Kristi Simons (08:46)
And once you can, you know, as I said, really see things through a lens of love and just start communicating in small ways to help build the confidence for them. Like for me, I didn't have that belief until my coach started to instill it in me. I had zero belief. All I knew is I wanted to change, but I had no idea how. Like there wasn't any belief. So it took her holding that belief for me and seeing it for me before I could see it and believe it for myself.
I feel like we all need those people in our lives. So it's really about just shifting the conversation and also like giving ourselves a ton of compassion as well, because I know there's conversations that I used to have about other people, about myself, that yeah, I just, don't want to be hard on myself for that anymore. It's just about, okay, today, like what can I do to start making some changes and focusing in a direction that actually benefits everybody.
Dr. Cam (09:34)
Yeah, I love that and setting that expectation of it is it's just changing what you hear because that changes the voice in your head. Like you take the voice that you hear in your head is really the voice you heard often from your parents growing up, right? It becomes your internal. And so a lot of times parents get very focused on fixing and changing and improving their kids for good reason, like I understand why they're doing it, but it comes across as constantly, you know, nagging and berating and changing and criticizing and judging and all of a sudden, and I get all these kids coming into my office that have zero self-esteem and everything is a should for them. Like I should do this, I should be this, I should feel that. And that's because the messages have come to them constantly that what they're doing and who they are is not enough, they should be more. And they're never gonna be that because no matter what they are, there's still more that they should be. And that feels completely defeating. So how do we as parents balance this motivation and teaching with our kids where we wanna give them guidance and we wanna help them grow and develop and learn? How do we balance that with this positive reinforcement in positive words so that we're giving them an internal voice that is compassionate to them.
Kristi Simons (11:12)
Yeah, I love this question. it really to me, it's all about, well, first the belief. So if we're starting to instill some beliefs in them, some new beliefs, that's already going to be a step one, right? And then what comes next, it's really about, okay, if you have those beliefs, like what are the thoughts that you're having? So what I see with my clients is just the importance of having more of a connection with themselves and actually you know, speaking about their feelings, journaling about their feelings. And I know that for a lot of parents, like that's a big like, like, wouldn't it be nice, like something that they put on their wishlist? Like, wouldn't it be nice if my teen like knew how to feel their feelings rather than holding them in because they know what that can do like internally for their system. And so it's just really about helping them to express that. And again, it in the beginning,
It may seem awkward or feel awkward for everybody because if it's not something you're used to doing, of course it's going to be different. When you're creating change, there's going to be that discomfort. And so what I see is just for them, it's really being aware of their thoughts and learning to think about what they actually think about. And then once you're in that space, you can then take action from a different perspective.
Because to me, it all comes down to choice. We all have a choice in that moment, whether we want to lean into all of the limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves or whether we want to lean into the feelings that we're actually desiring to feel. Because again, to me, at the end of the day, all of this, it all comes back to feeling. We want to feel connected to our children. They want to feel confident. They want to feel proud of themselves. These are words that I hear from my clients.
It has more to do with what they're experiencing internally rather than the external. So we really have to come back to a place of how do we encourage them slowly to start either, you know, connecting with a mentor, connecting with a teacher, a best friend, a cousin, like a role model, somebody that really inspires them in their life. Like find them that person. If you still feel that, you know, there's stuff that you want to work on for yourself and just start having those conversations with them, start exposing them to a different language. This is what this is. And I feel like for a lot of people, like even leaning into that feels uncomfortable. And that's where the confidence is created. And I feel like that's the part that we often miss is to be emotionally uncomfortable is where you will start to build the resilience and the knowing and the evidence that you are in fact capable of overcoming anything in your life because what doesn't challenge you won't change you. So that's essentially what we're after.
Dr. Cam (14:02)
Let's dig into the emotion thing because I think this is something that I see a lot of parents struggle with for good reason again. Hard emotions are uncomfortable as you just said and I think being able to be okay in that discomfort is what is so important because as you were saying, a lot of kids learn to push down their emotions or they don't learn to regulate their emotions. And what I commonly see is we're uncomfortable with that emotion, anger, sadness, frustration, mean, jealousy, any of those things. Our knee-jerk reaction is to shut the emotion down, change the emotion, or just completely brush the emotion off and say, it's not that big a deal. When we do that with these big emotions that are just as equally fair and needed as happiness and pride and excitement, right?
We are okay with those being really big. We're not okay with the other emotions. So when those emotions come up, allowing our kids to feel those emotions without trying to change them, without trying to fix them is part of what builds confidence because we are, especially teenagers, they are their emotions. that leads every day, they are living in their emotions. So when we tell them their emotions are wrong,
or we try to push back their emotions, we're telling them they're wrong, that something's wrong with them, that how they're feeling is not okay, which means they're not okay. And I think that's what I'm, then they don't trust themselves. They start going, well, if I'm feeling this way about this and I shouldn't, then I don't trust how I feel. So I don't trust myself. So there goes my confidence in my ability to understand what's going on.
Do you agree with that? .
Kristi Simons (16:01)
yeah, 100%. And I just, you know what I know to be true for me as well is just that my teen self would have understood this if somebody explained it to her, that the E in emotion stands for energy in motion. So when I actually started to understand that I was more of an energetic being, and that these emotions were essentially energy, I’m so visual. So I really started to like connect with that and I could see when my energy would shift. So now I'm actually making like, like I'm not always up in my head. It's like you're actually making like a mind and body connection. And I feel like that's super important because then you're able to actually feel what it feels to be grounded, feel what it feels to be present. And I think that that's super important as well. So for me, that was huge. then again, being able to like some of the biggest aha moments I feel like my clients have is when they realize that rather than as you said, being like, like the victim of the emotion, because all emotions are so important and need to be celebrated, right? It's like you, you learn to become friends with them and actually hear what they are trying to tell you because you have all the answers within. So what I help them to do is rather than be a victim to the emotion, help them to be the coach, once they get to that point in their lives, which is so beautiful to see. And also just like the creator of how they want to feel. So leaning more into that and then actually challenging themselves to reframe. And I feel like those three roles that they can play in their lives, the coach, the challenger and the creator are just, they're so empowering. It's literally called the empowerment dynamic. It is not mine. It is just a tool, another strategy that I teach.
But yeah, so many of these different ways of being that once you're aware of them, you're like, my gosh, why didn't I know this before? it's a muscle though. This is the thing. It's a muscle. Like anything else in life that say we desire, I desire to run a full marathon this year. And I'm not going to lie to you. When I signed up, I was like, yeah, fully confident. Then throughout the year, holy gosh, it was a roller coaster. I was like, I don't think I can do this. Now I'm ready for sure. No, I can't do this. I was all over the map. But it really just came back to the person that I had to become along that journey and the overcoming of each and every emotion and each and every belief that was telling me that I couldn't or I shouldn't or whatever the case may be. Like once it finally came race day, it wasn't even so much crossing the finish line. Like I am looking back now thinking to myself like, yes, I did run and complete a full marathon. And I'm proud of myself for that, but I'm so much more proud of every small step that led me to that finish line along the way, because I was overcoming so much and I was proving to myself that I'm capable.
Dr. Cam (18:43)
You kept doing it. So having those wins and those examples of overcoming difficult things and going, you can overcome difficult things. You have overcome difficult things, I think is so important too because we often focus on what they could do or they can do in the future. And that causes a lot of anxiety and pressure because they question if they can. So now they just feel pressure to do it. But when we focus more on what they already accomplished, they've already done. This then builds that belief in themselves. Yeah, I do do that, which now, since I have all these examples of me succeeding in the past, I can do it in the future. And I think what's really important and what you were saying, like we're going up and down in our belief system. I think for parents, what we need to learn to do is have a belief system in our kids that is on the up all the time. giving them the benefit of the doubt, believing that they are a good person doing the best they can, believing that there is a reason underlying whatever they're doing and it's not just to annoy us and be difficult. And when we change our mindset about our kids, changes our approach to our kids, which changes the words and the tone and the dynamic with our kids, which changes how our kids feel about themselves.
Kristi Simons (20:25)
my gosh, I love this conversation so much. I really love you. You're so fantastic. You just gave me a visual this time. Like now I'm seeing a literal like ladder, like a ladder almost of like believability. Like it's constantly as you were describing this. And this is why I connected with you, especially through your Instagram, because when you were explaining things and using your hands, I just feel like the way you explain things, I like, you have a gift of being able to explain things that I can like visually see, which is so, so cool. But yeah, this time I was literally seeing like this ladder of believability. So every step you take, like you are building that belief and it's just constantly going to grow and get better and better and stronger and stronger. Yeah, you just have to keep taking the actionable steps and moving up. Like there's no way, the only way out is through and it's gonna be up. It's gonna be up.
Dr. Cam (21:11)
It is, and just keep stepping there. And I think I wanna address Christy, I want you to help me address and help kids. And thank you, thank you for that compliment, that made my day. That boosted my confidence. So when we, when we've got a teen right now, let's say, and they're struggling with confidence, right? And we see them and we get this, and this happens a lot when they go into middle school and high school because they start comparing, as you said, comparing themselves.
Kristi Simons (21:24)
You're welcome.
Dr. Cam (21:41)
Our word as parents becomes completely irrelevant, right? Kids no longer believe R, but you're smart, but you're beautiful, but you're, they're like, you have to say that you're my mom. You have to say that you're my dad. So it has zero value to them anymore. So now we're in a place, kids are insecure. We don't have a lot of power in our words so much anymore. How do we help boost their confidence now. How do we start and I loved I want to get to that reverse engineering you said I wrote that down I love that talk to us a little bit about how do we as parents help reverse engineer their belief system now.
Kristi Simons (22:24)
Yeah. So what comes up for me is just be brave, trust yourself, take action. Because this is an affirmation that I have been speaking to myself for, gosh, probably four plus years now. And it just helps me to remember that we need to be brave enough to actually lean into like what's going on, what the root cause is. Because to me, if you're telling your teen something that is making them uncomfortable in that way, like something like, I'm so proud of you or you're so beautiful and they're not receiving that. It's because they don't have that belief, like they don't believe that about themselves. So at some point in the game, like they started to believe that they're not enough and that they're not worthy of a compliment like that. And so this isn't something that can just be changed overnight, but I do believe by leaning into, you know, what is it that hurt you? Like, what is it that is causing that blocks, like just asking them plain and simply like, how come? And if they're not ready to talk about it, they're not ready, but at least they know that with you, they have like a safe place to land if they ever need to. But once you actually do connect with that, and again, sometimes it's just about talking through that with other people, if they're not as open to communicating. Again, I don't have a teenager. So again, it's so interesting that I fell into this work based on what I have needed as a teen. I'm really hoping that this work helps me as I move along as a parent of teens.
Dr. Cam (23:53)
It does because I started this with Mike without a teen and now she's 18. It works people. do everything I teach and it's like what's fun Christy is she is
Kristi Simons (23:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what I see with my clients, but I don't have like, my own. So I'm like, I can't speak to that yet.
Dr. Cam (24:07)
Yeah. And I have a kid and the whole focus for her, a big piece of how I interacted with her was to ensure as best as I could that she felt confident in herself. And that kid feels confident in herself. She's, it's amazing. Does she have a big ego? No, not even remotely, but she pushes herself and tries and it's okay failing. And she steps up and does it again and again. And like, she's so incredibly resilient. So I think, and that's, I think that's bigger than the confidence. She's resilient. She goes up and down in confidence as we all do, but she keeps getting up and keeps getting up and she's able to do it and not giving up. And I am proud of myself as a parent for being able to help her instill that because I did it without necessarily feeling it myself.
Kristi Simons (25:06)
So I think exactly what you just said, I'm gonna veer off what I was saying because it just came to me so clearly. That's exactly what we need to be doing as parents as well. Like that is my reminder. I'm gonna hope that that stays and it sticks, but they keep getting up and trying again and again. I feel like that's the same way that we should be showing up for them if we wanna see like lasting sustainable change. You need to say it over and over again. And yeah, it's going to probably drive you a little crazy, you're probably gonna feel frustrated. You might hit your red zone in some ways because yeah, it's gonna be emotionally uncomfortable. know again, as I said, like even just as a parent, like seeing my toddlers in discomfort, it already, it just, pulls at your heartstrings. It's not fun. But at the same time, I feel like, yeah, we're doing them such a disservice by not showing up for them in this way. Like it is just so important to continuously speak to them in that way because when I truly think on a daily basis, even with the awareness that I have, I still have thoughts that loop in my mind and I will catch myself. I'm like, my gosh, that is terrible. I can't believe you just thought that about yourself. And then it just makes you wonder, you know, that's what the upbringing and the expectations, you know, that I had in my family, like things are totally different now.
And it's just, makes you wonder like, you know, what thoughts they're thinking in their minds on a day to day basis. And so it's just, I feel like it's so important to be just kind with people because you don't know the battles that they are facing. And so, yeah, you just gotta keep, as much as it feels annoying, I promise you it's not, it'll be worth it. Just keep reinforcing the positive belief because it's like, it's there, it exists. You just have to make the choice to choose it.
Dr. Cam (26:51)
Christy, I think when you just said kind, that to me is bottom line. as parents, and this has been my approach as parenting the whole time, whenever I approach something, and there's times that I'm not in a great mood, but in general, overall, my approach is kind. It's all about kindness. And it's no matter what is going on, no matter what the situation is, you have a choice to respond in either being harsh and unkind or being kind. No matter what the situation is, you always, always, always have that choice. And as a parent, we should always, always, always be choosing kindness with our kids. There's no reason not to. And when we approach them with kindness, that gives them that belief in themselves that they are worthy of being treated kindly. And when they're feeling worthy of being treated kindly, that gives them that sense of like, I'm not okay when somebody treats me unkindly. I can recognize that and I'm not okay with that. When we treat them unkindly, they believe that that's how they should be treated. And they keep finding those situations in their life and saying, I deserve being treated that way because I've always been treated that way. So I think it's really important that how we treat our kids is teaching them how to treat others, but how others should treat them. And that to me is bottom line essential as a parent.
Kristi Simons (28:23)
Yeah. And so important also to your point that, you know, just in teaching and being kind to them, I feel like it's just so it's equally as important for them to be kind to themselves for us to be kind to ourselves. Like I know even like with my toddlers, for example, like there are times where again, yes, still human. So I will react. And then I have in that moment, the choice to, you know, continue reacting or to become aware of it and then just repair it.
But I feel like the in-between, like what we sometimes miss, which is why it makes it so hard to repair, is because we lack kindness for ourselves. We lack empathy for ourselves. So then our hurt just keeps projecting onto them. So it's really about healing ourselves. And I feel like this is one of the biggest things that needs to start happening for our teens. It's again, it's a lot of everybody's discomfort that gets in the way from them actually achieving.
Dr. Cam (28:53)
That is the biggest thing. It is our discomfort. And I think we need to be able to be aware when we're uncomfortable and that is not our teens' to make us feel comfortable. That's not on them. That's us to be able to sit in that discomfort and not have to fix it for them, but just be there for them while they figure it out. And when they're able to figure it out and know it's okay to not be okay, I think that's the biggest thing. A lot of parents say, I just want my teen to be happy. I just want them to be happy. And that is such an unfair expectation to put on our kid. Nobody on the planet is happy all the time. And that, you know, to be able to not be happy is something that I want for my teen too, to be able to be okay when they're not happy, when she's not happy, knowing that she's going to get through it. That's important to me.
Kristi Simons (30:20)
I love that. So beautiful.
Dr. Cam (30:21)
Yeah. So confidence is this internal thing that we want to help build, but what we do as parents is we're reflecting back how they think about themselves.
Anything that you want to make sure parents walk away with from this episode.
Kristi Simons (30:47)
I think the last thing that was coming for me was just that there can be so much information out there. And like, I want parents to have the same confidence that I want their teens to have, right? Like I want them to just believe in trust in themselves and the decisions that they're making and that they're right there for their families. Like I am just somebody who's here. I feel more so like as a vessel just to share with all of you this language because I believe that it is a very positive direction for everybody. So I would just say like to keep it simple. And by simple, mean just literally lean into what feels good for you. Like that's all that you have to do. Just ask yourself in that moment, stop and be aware and just ask yourself like what is going to help like just essentially shine more light rather than, you know, keep them stuck in the dark.
And I feel like if you can just continuously remind yourself of that, you're already on the right track. And over time, once the language shifts, like everything just becomes easier.
Dr. Cam (31:42)
Once it becomes natural. you know, I want to kind of add to that a little bit too, Christy, because I think that is such an essential message. And it's one that I don't feel like I repeat enough. If parents, I hear from parents a lot, I'm failing. I feel like I'm failing. I feel like I've done everything wrong. And when we get stuck in that mindset, we don't end up growing or moving or changing or doing the things that can replicate and repair that. So I think if you're first of all, if you're listening to this, you're a damn good parent because you're taking time out to listen to how to be a better parent. So you're already a good parent. So you can't say you're failing. Sorry. Take that off the table. Not allowed. Even when we have made mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake, we're still not failing as a parent if we keep saying,
What can I learn from each time? What can I do differently today? What can I learn today to be a little bit better than I was yesterday? Then you're not failing. So I think I love that where we were does not define where we are now and where we're going to be able and where we can go.
Kristi Simons (33:11)
Yeah, I honestly would just like to highlight and just encourage you to just look back at your journey with them. Like take time, like if you're ever really feeling frustrated, if you all of a sudden realize that your emotions are shifting and you know, you're angry or you're upset or you feel disrespected, like whatever the case may be.
In that moment, here's a little tool for you, can use just literally start from like when they were like first born and take yourself like through like the years of you know, just their life so far and all of like your happiest memories, I promise you it will shift your energy in that moment and it will help you to make a more conscious and aware decision.
Dr. Cam (33:39)
That is a phenomenal tip. We will leave with that tip. That was really good. Christy, how do people find you?
Kristi Simons (33:52)
So I'm most active on Instagram, I would say. So you can find me at Confident Teen Teacher. Apart from that, I am opening my books right now for teen audits. So that's the first step. If your teen is looking for support, that's the first step they can take on their journey. Just fill out that application and then we do that initial audit and action plan to see if it's a good fit. And then we would move into a coaching container if it is. So you can find all of that at my website. It's just Christy Simons, S-I-M-O-N-S, my goodness, can't even spell my last name, .com forward slash teen audit. And then, the podcast as well. Yeah, if you love listening to podcasts like this one, and you just love listening to inspiring and meaningful conversations, yeah, Confident Teen Podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Dr. Cam (34:29)
Fantastic, and I will put all the stuff in the notes so people can find it. Christy, thank you so much for joining me today.
Kristi Simons (34:52)
Thank you. It was lovely. I told you, I feel so freaking energized. So energized.
Dr. Cam (34:57)
I know I love talking about this stuff. This is great. I really enjoyed talking to you too.
About the Show
The Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam Podcast is your go-to resource for navigating the challenges of raising teenagers. Hosted by Dr. Cam Caswell, an adolescent psychologist and certified parenting coach, this podcast offers expert advice, practical parenting strategies, and real-world insights to help you build a stronger relationship with your teen and support their emotional growth. Whether you’re struggling with teenage behavior or looking to improve communication, each episode provides actionable tips to make parenting teens easier and more rewarding.
#ParentingTeens #TeenConfidence #RaisingResilientTeens #TheTeenTranslator
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