The importance of family relationships and friendships for young people
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 behaviors.
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.
A secret code for your mother-daughter relationship
How a codeword can improve communication with your teen daughter, helping you offer relationship advice and strengthening your mother-daughter relationship.
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![Dove Words of encouragement: how you can support your child]()
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
generation gap
11 to 16 years
Try writing encouraging messages to your teenage childKeep reading for some tips on how to support your child with an encouraging and inspiring letter. -
![Dove What is active listening and how can it help you communicate with your child?]()
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
positive talk
talking topics
emotions and behavior
11 to 16 years
What is active listening and how can it help you communicate with your child?Discover the secrets of active listening, and learn how to talk so teens will listen, to improve communication with your young adult.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.
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![Dove A Secret Code For Your Mother-Daughter Relationship]()
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
talking topics
generation gap
body image
looks and appearance
emotions and behavior
health and wellbeing
8 to 14 years
A secret code for your mother-daughter relationshipHow a codeword can improve communication with your teen daughter, helping you offer relationship advice and strengthening your mother-daughter relationship.It can be hard for a teenage girl to talk to her mom—or anyone—about a sensitive issue. A private mother-daughter code may help her talk when she’s feeling awkward or unhappy.
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![Communicating with teens]()
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
positive talk
talking topics
psychology
behavior change
11 to 16 years
The Parent TranslatorThis checklist will help you work on your parent-child communication.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.
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![Dove How to have a great father-daughter relationship]()
father-daughter relationships
parenting
8 to 16 years
How to have a great father-daughter relationshipHow to build a strong father daughter-relationship and improve your communication skills to support your daughter growing upYou may never have been a girl yourself, but that shouldn’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.
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![Dove Differing points of view in your mother-daughter relationship]()
parenting
mother-daughter relationships
talking topics
generation gap
emotions and behavior
8 to 16 years
Differing points of view in your mother-daughter relationshipHow to improve communication skills to talk to your daughter effectively and strengthen your mother-daughter relationshipConvincing 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.
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![Dove Body talk and self-esteem in kids]()
family
talking topics
body image
body confidence
looks and appearance
body talk
self-esteem
3 to 9 years
Body talk and positive body image for kidsBe mindful of how you talk to kids about their body.We’re talking about how to build positive body image in kids – join us
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![Teenagers and friendships]()
relationships
emotions and behavior
11 to 16 years
Teenagers and friendship: girls tell us why their friendship groups matterDiscover the importance of friendship to adolescent girls, and teach your own daughter how to be a good friend and how to deal with teenage friendship problems.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.
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![Celebrándome: Building self confidence in Hispanic/Latinx Youth]()
body confidence
self-esteem
11 to 16 yrs
Celebrándome: Building self confidence in Hispanic/Latinx YouthIntroducing Celebrándome (Celebrating Me) – a new tool to boost confidence and self-esteem in Hispanic/Latinx youth, brought to you by the Dove Self-Esteem Project.
