How do friendship problems and sibling relationships affect young people’s self-esteem? How will your own mother child or father child relationship help your child's confidence? Use our articles and activities to address their concerns and bring you closer together.
As your child grows up, their relationships with friends and family will influence their sense of self-worth enormously. As their parent, you'll be a huge influence on their ideas, values and beliefs, and play a crucial role in helping them develop healthy, positive behaviours.
Our articles and activities are perfect for any family with teenagers and pre-teens, helping you open up communication around body image and self-confidence. Use them to break a cycle of poor self-esteem or a preoccupation with appearance.
11 to 16 years
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
generation gap
Life can feel lonely for teenagers. Have you considered writing a message of support to your son or daughter about being a teenager? Sharing your own experiences, words of wisdom and encouragement can help you empathise with them and improve your conversations.
11 to 16 years
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
positive talk
talking topics
emotions and behaviour
Communicating with teens about the problems they're facing can be difficult – it’s all too easy to say, “You’ll get over it.” But being dismissive can discourage them from expressing their feelings.
11 to 16 years
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
positive talk
talking topics
psychology
behaviour change
Communicating with your child should be easy. But miscommunication is easier. You make a simple comment about what they’re wearing and they storm off, slamming the door. You ask what they had for lunch and they assume it’s an attack about their diet. While you’re just trying to show how much you care about them, their reactions suggest you’re speaking a different language.
8 to 16 years
father-daughter relationships
parenting
You may never have been a girl yourself, but that needn’t be a barrier to father daughter bonding. You want your daughter to grow into a self-confident young woman – and she’s going to need her dad on her side.
8 to 16 years
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
talking topics
generation gap
emotions and behaviour
Convincing kids that it's worth devoting time and effort to schoolwork can be a major source of tension. Here, a mother, Jennifer, and her daughters, Emily and Samantha*, give their views on a typical mother-daughter struggle over homework – showing how understanding other people’s points of view in family disputes can reduce anger and upset on all sides.
family
3 to 9 years
talking topics
body image
body confidence
looks and appearance
body talk
self-esteem
If you’re wondering how to build self-esteem in children, find out more about body talk, being a role model and boosting confidence.
11 to 16 years
relationships
emotions and behaviour
What's going on between your daughter and her friends? What are they texting and messaging each other about? To get the inside story, we talked to girls around the world about what’s most important to them – their friends.
9 to 11 yrs
bullying at schools
media image
body image
body confidence
looks and appearance
self-esteem
psychology
teaching
10 to 14 yrs
talking topics
body image
body confidence
self-esteem
diversity
LGBTQ2S+