Debra Beck's Blog, page 38
January 22, 2014
Make Your Teenage Girl Understand Her Uniqueness Is Beautiful
The definition of beauty has evolved into having a body that conforms to what the media has been marketing. The issue about defining realistic beauty has been critical in building self-esteem for teenage girls and as parents, we are obliged to make them understand the realistic measurement of beauty. We all know the truth that most of these picture-perfect bodies they see in advertisements are not all healthy in reality. We’ve heard so many cases of eating disorders and issues of low self-esteem in teen girls arising from continuously chasing these ideals therefore our affirmation of their uniqueness is very important to develop their confidence.
Health and beauty are definitely big factors in an individual’s life but these do not have to be in conformance to all the media-publicized type of women’s body and looks. Each individual have unique features therefore teenage girls have to understand that we can’t all have that Sports Illustrated bikini body. Most teenage girls fail to see that being beautiful is more than just about being sexy and physically fit, it is also about being mentally, emotionally and socially healthy.
The obsession to have the six-pack abs and defined and toned body are simply not the only measurement of beauty. Having a model-type body and face are not a guarantee that your teenage girl is living a healthy life. Make them understand that we are all beautiful in our own ways and having a realistically healthy lifestyle is worth more than having a model-like body to flaunt. The need to get affirmation, a part of building self-esteem for teenage girls, can also be considered as unhealthy depending on the lengths of how they would go just to achieve it.
The first step in building confidence in teenage girls is for them to develop awareness of themselves. This means understanding themselves and their uniqueness. When they are aware of themselves, they become more present to their own identity, needing little affirmation from other people.
The second thing you may need to teach them is to embrace their imperfections and accept that it is a part of their uniqueness. Let them understand that being different from people doesn’t mean they will not be accepted. Show them acceptance regardless of their weakness and let them know it’s OK not to be perfect.
The third is to teach them how to open themselves to changes and help them experience positive growth. If they have low self-esteem due to unhealthy lifestyle, encourage them to find realistic ways to change it for the better like being involved into sports or any of their passions.
Building Your Daughter’s Teen Confidence
Connect with your teenage daughter by making her embrace her own body and assure her that her individual uniqueness is enough for her to be a valuable person. Remind her that life is more than about looks and that people will love her not merely for the way she looks.
Check out helpful tips on how you can help build your teenage girl’s confidence by getting a copy of Debra Beck’s book entitled My Feet Aren’t Ugly. Get more information by visiting http://empoweredteensandparents.com/buy-my-feet-arent-ugly/.
Keep Loving Yourself, Debra
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January 17, 2014
Teenage Shopaholics: The Importance of Teaching The Value of a Dollar
Most young girls go through phases of being obsessed with their personal style, and having the perfect wardrobe is a big part of that. You do everything in your power to supply your daughter with the clothes she feels she needs to be cool, but sometimes, with other expenses piling up, you can’t afford the items she longs for. How can you get your brand-obsessed teen to understand that sometimes, a pricey label doesn’t make for a better item?
Show The Value of Money
Your kids aren’t born with an understanding of how hard it is to make money, so you can’t really blame them for not appreciating why you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on the newest designer handbag. The only way they will learn is if you make an effort to teach them, which you can do by providing a limited allowance each week. Tell your daughter that you will provide certain necessary items for her, but if she would like expensive designer brands, she will have to save up the money herself.
Teach Budgeting Skills
Budgeting is an important life skill, and the teenage years provide an excellent opportunity to gain some experience before the pressures of adult life take over. If your daughter has an expensive item she would like to save for, sit down with her and design a budget that will funnel a certain percentage of her allowance into savings while still allowing for things like seeing movies with friends.
Allow For a Part-Time Job
If your daughter is old enough, she should be allowed to take a weekend or summer job to help earn money for the things she wants. No one can possibly understand the stress and difficulty of work until they’ve done it themselves, and a first job can be a major wake-up call for any shopaholic teen.
Teach Smart Shopping Skills
It’s understandable that fashion-conscious teens want designer labels, but a lot can be said for choosing other quality brands that offer the same look and feel without the expensive price tag. Unless your daughter plans on winning the lottery or becoming a famous actress within the next year, she will need to learn to make compromises. For example, if she really wants to carry a designer handbag, maybe she can sacrifice the designer jeans and t-shirts in favor of more mainstream brands.
Your daughter may not be ready to hear some of this, but it will certainly sink in over time. The harder you can work to create realistic expectations, the easier time she will have managing her money as an adult.
Keep Loving Yourself, Debra
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January 14, 2014
The Importance of Self-Expression: When to Let go and Listen
These days, it’s all too common for teenagers to suffer from emotional problems. It seems like every time you turn around, you hear about another of your child’s friends being medicated for these disorders, and it makes sense that you might fear your own teen going down a similar path. While these problems can arise because of a variety of reasons, there is one common issue that can be found among anyone who suffers this way: A lack of the ability to express emotions.
Our bodies are built with a “fight or flight” mechanism that is designed to give us energy and thinking power in an emergency situation. However, the chemicals that give us that edge can also cause a lot of stress on our systems, leading to anxiety, depression or physical health problems. Even simple things, like a pop quiz at school or a fight with a friend, can lead to this adrenaline response, and unless your teen feels comfortable talking about his or her problems, that emotion will likely remain bottled up inside.
Keeping Communication Open
If you want to support your teen and help him or her remain balanced and healthy, you will need to provide a listening ear. You have problems of your own, and sometimes, after a long day at work, it can be difficult to listen to your teen whine about the dramas of high school. However, scoffing at the problems or generally turning away will only result in your teen feeling like there is nowhere to find support, which can lead to seeking comfort in unhealthy activities like drinking, drugs and self-harm.
Keep Your Emotions Out of it
If your teen comes to you with a problem that is beyond the realm of the typical teenage soap opera, it’s important to keep your cool. Even if the problem involves drugs, sex or some other similarly upsetting subject, commit to fully listening to what your teen has to say before you get angry or make any judgments. The same goes for times that your teen may be angry and snapping at you, another adult authority figure or a sibling. Even if you think the anger is unreasonable, your teen still has the right to express it and be heard by you. Snapping is usually a sign of containing feelings. If they are containing their feelings this can lead to possible cutting so they can let the feelings out someway.
Don’t Assume You Have to Fix Everything
As parents, we always want to make things right. We’ve been tending to our children since they were born, and it hurts when there is a problem we can’t instantly make better. However, sometimes our children don’t want or need us to make things better. Sometimes, they just need an outlet to vent their anxieties. If you can provide this outlet, you might be surprised and impressed at how easily your child will take care of the problem alone.
Keep Loving Yourself, Debra
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January 10, 2014
New Year, New Chances: Three Ways to Make This Year Better Than The Last
January is a good month for reflection. With the arrival of 2014, many of us are looking back on 2013 and seeing how we feel about what we did or didn’t accomplish. With a new year comes new chances, and if you can move forward with a clear idea of what you want and how you plan to get it, this year will be sure to bring you wonderful things.
1. Look Back, but Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Sometimes, hindsight can help you see things you missed. If you reflect back on some of the more difficult situations you faced last year, you can probably see some of the mistakes you made. Resolve to learn from these mistakes, but don’t beat yourself up about them. Life is about learning, growing and moving forward.
2. Look Forward, But Set Realistic Expectations
It’s important to look toward the future and set goals, but those goals should be realistic, and you should have a plan about how to accomplish them. If you set the goal of becoming a millionaire in 2014 but currently work as a clerk at a grocery store and have no other career plans, it isn’t likely that you’re going to accomplish your goal.
Setting unrealistic expectations will only lead to feeling like a failure. Instead, choose one or two meaningful and possible goals, and set a number of small goals to help you along your way. For example, if you would like to double your income by the end of the year, you should first look for a career that would help you accomplish this goal, and set a number of smaller goals, such as enrolling in a trade school, doing well in all of your classes and graduating with numerous letters of recommendation from your teachers.
3. Look Within, and Be Grateful For All You Have Done
Gratitude and self-esteem are two keys to a more positive and fruitful life. No matter what your circumstances, you can look back and find something you did in the previous year that you should be proud of yourself for. Even if all you did was survive, you should remain driven to find a better life for yourself in the future. You can only go up from here!
This year, my resolution is to bring more peace and love to the world. If we all made such a resolution, life on Earth would change dramatically. However, even just by bettering yourself, you are increasing the contributions you can make to the world around you. As long as you keep yourself growing and improving, you are doing something wonderful with your life.
Keep Loving Yourself, Debra
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January 7, 2014
Dating, Hooking Up and Hanging Out: What do Teenagers Mean?
If you’re the parent of a well-behaved teen, you hopefully don’t feel the need to snoop on web chats or read text messages when he or she isn’t around. However, you can’t help it if you overhear a phone conversation from time to time. If, during these accidental incidents of eavesdropping, you hear your teen mention certain terms, such as “hooking up,” “hanging out” or “dating,” you may be wondering what exactly is being said.
1. What is “Dating?”
When teens talk about dating, they don’t necessarily mean going out on a date to the movies. “Dating” in today’s world generally means being involved in some sort of committed relationship. “Going out” is another common way to describe the typical boyfriend/girlfriend connection. To hear that your child is “dating” may be a bit odd for you, especially if he or she is too young to spend time with the opposite sex without supervision. However, it’s probably one of the better options considering that it usually involves staying true to one person and doesn’t necessarily indicate that sexual activities are taking place. Kids today often start “dating” long before they even think about having sex.
2. What is “Hanging Out?”
When your teen says that two people have been “hanging out,” it usually means that they are in the early stages of dating, hooking up or both. People who are hanging out are interested in each other in some way, but they are not necessarily looking for a committed relationship. If you find out your teenager is “hanging out” with a member of the opposite sex, you might want to consider having a talk about birth control. Sometimes “hanging out” may indicate a friends-with-benefits style relationship.
3. What is “Hooking up?”
“Hooking up” is a term that encompasses any form of an intimate physical relationship that doesn’t come with a strict commitment. It can indicate anything from kissing and heavy petting to full-on sexual intercourse. If you hear your teen talking about hooking up, it’s without a doubt time to talk about birth control. It’s also a good idea to talk about self-respect, reputation and how taking part in such casual intimate relationships can create lasting negative effects in life.
As parents, we all have to face it: At some point, our teenagers are going to begin having sex. We can’t necessarily control how and when that happens, but by practicing open, honest and non-judgmental communication, we can encourage them to talk to us about it. Try to remember that you were once a teen yourself, and while our culture has perhaps become a little less strict on sexuality over the years, certain things remain the same. Teenagers date and have sex, just like they always have. The only difference is, the parents of today are facing the issue with more honesty.
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January 2, 2014
Your Teen’s First Overnight Trip: Five Simple Ways to Prepare
Whether it be a major field trip, a session at sleep-away camp, an overnight sporting event or a trip with a friend’s family, at some point, your teens or preteens are going to leave the local area without you present. When this happens, it’s important to prepare them to be on their best behavior and avoid any trouble that might occur.
1. Get Organized
The first and most important aspect of preparing your teen for a trip is ensuring that he or she packs everything that might be needed. This includes weather-appropriate clothing, first-aid, toiletries, prescription and non-prescription medication, and any special foods, paperwork, passports and identification cards that might be required. Don’t leave your teen to take care of this alone. Many teens will focus on bringing the most stylish clothing and completely forget the more important items.
2. Talk About What’s Expected
If you have an itinerary for the trip, go over it with your teen and talk about what is expected each step of the way. Discuss any potential issues, such as what your teen might do if he or she were to become separated from the group. If the field trip involves a visit to any special places, such as war memorials or museums, be sure to discuss the proper etiquette for these locations.
3. Provide a List
We can help our teens pack for the road, but once they are out there, they are essentially on their own. There will be adults present, but when it comes to things like packing up hotel rooms, it will be helpful for your teen to have a list of important items to check and ensure nothing gets left behind.
4. Make Sure You Can Get in Touch
In an emergency, the teachers, chaperones or supervising adults will get in touch with you. However, it’s still a good idea to make sure your teen knows that your cell phone will be on the whole time. Most teens have cell phones these days, and they shouldn’t be afraid to use the in a moment of homesickness, confusion or trouble. Remind your teen that it’s important to respect authority, but it’s also okay to call home if anything fishy is going on. Unfortunately, adults can’t always be trusted.
5. Relax
It’s natural to be a little nervous, but you’ve raised your child well, and it’s okay to let go and trust that everything will be okay. Most teens go on overnight trips without any problems, and by allowing this to happen, you can build trust between the two of you. If nothing else, you’ve earned a night on your own, so be sure to enjoy it!
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December 21, 2013
Bullying: An Issue That Can’t be Ignored
Bullying is an issue that is very close to my heart. Beginning at age 12, I was verbally and physically bullied by the other kids in my school. This led to constant feelings of fear and worthlessness, which really messed up my life until I decided, at age 15, that enough was enough. After a girl accused me of purposefully running into her, I decided to stand up for myself and fight back. I yelled at the girl, and she actually apologized to me.
Unfortunately, some kids aren’t strong enough to fight back. After many years of depleted self-esteem, many feel that they no longer have a voice, and thanks to the Internet, the issue of bullying has become more serious than ever before. Many states now have anti-bullying laws, and parents and teachers everywhere are beginning to see that this isn’t something we can tolerate.
Modern-Day Bullies: A Crueler Breed
It used to be that bullying simply involved pushing someone down in the hallway or laughing at them for wearing the wrong shirt, but today’s bullies seem to have a greater lust for cruelty. Cyber-bullies will use many tactics to take down their victims, from setting up mock social-media profiles to using the web to spread nasty rumors. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the anonymity that is possible on the Internet makes it much harder to catch these bullies in the act. Some tech-savvy bullies will even go so far as to use IP blockers to conceal their location and identity.
The Horrific Consequences of Bullying
Bullying is not something that we can or should ignore. Not only does it have the potential to bring devastation to a teen’s current social life, but it can also ruin his or her future as well. Many bullied teens fall into depression, refuse to go to school, or if they do go, they have difficulty focusing on their assignments. This can ruin the chance of getting into a good college, let alone any chance of having a positive high-school experience. The life of a bullied teen often becomes nothing more than an attempt to survive, and many of them become so drained that they no longer have the motivation to even bother.
Deciding What Should Be Done
If your teen is being bullied or you suspect that he or she is bullying others, it’s very important to take the issue seriously. Communication is the first and most important step. Each situation is unique, and it’s important that you, your teen’s teachers and the school administration all work together to get past the problem. Bullying is an issue that our society faces as a whole, and until we get to the root of why our children feel the need to use cruelty as a means of making themselves feel better, we are going to have to actively work to put a stop to it.
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December 18, 2013
The Physical, Emotional and Social Consequences for Teens With Serious Acne
Many people consider acne to be a simple rite of passage that most teenagers endure and later grow out of. However, in recent years, doctors are beginning to take acne more seriously, especially severe cases that cause physical pain, leave scarring and may continue into adulthood. A minor pimple is to be expected here and there, but if you notice your teen developing acne that consists of red and inflamed cysts or nodules, it’s important to treat it like the legitimate medical problem that it is.
The Differences Between Minor and Severe Acne
Minor acne usually consists of small, non-inflamed bumps or lesions. It isn’t painful and usually either goes away on its own or responds well to over-the-counter creams. Severe acne consists of large, painful and inflamed cysts that begin in the deep layers of the skin and may last for weeks or even months at a time. This form of acne can be completely devastating to those who suffer from it because it usually doesn’t respond to typical treatments. Doctors are still unsure what causes this type of acne, but a mix of genetics, hormone shifts, stress levels and dietary factors are possibly to blame.
The Social, Physical and Emotional Consequences
Teens who are dealing with severe acne need compassion, respect and help. Not only are they more likely to receive bullying and ridicule at school, but they also may lose friendships because of the tendency to isolate themselves socially. Sometimes, it’s easier to hide indoors than face the world with acne.
There can also be serious emotional consequences from acne. The constant need to try and cure the breakouts can lead to an obsessive fixation on diet, medications and health supplements, which can sometimes turn into an eating disorder. Having acne can also lead to depression, anxiety, self-harming tendencies and even suicide attempts. Sadly, there have been teens who took their own lives because of being unable to find a solution to their acne problems.
Lastly, there can be serious physical problems that come from acne. Cystic acne can often damage the bottom layers of the skin and leave permanent scarring. It can also be incredibly painful, interfering with chewing, smiling, laughing, putting on makeup, giving hugs or any other activity that involves moving or touching the face. Cystic acne on the back or other parts of the body may interfere with sports and other activities as well.
The bottom line is this: Acne is serious, and it needs to be treated that way. Ignoring your teen’s acne problem, telling him or her to lighten up about it or otherwise shrugging it off can have lasting consequences. If your teen is suffering from acne that has not responded to over-the-counter treatments, please consider a visit to the dermatologist. Professional treatments are improving each year, and there is real help available for tough cases.
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December 11, 2013
Mothers and Sons, Fathers and Daughters: The Importance of Both Parents Participation
The single-most important thing that parents can provide their children is love, and children can receive love in many different types of families. However, studies have shown the importance of both a mother and a father being in a child’s life. As much as some people would like to think otherwise, men and women are different, and they can each offer different things to a growing child. In fact, having a strong role model of the opposite sex is a crucial building block for any child’s development.
Research Suggests That Both Parents Are Important
Statistics from the Family Research Council suggest that at least one out of every three children that loses one parent will experience a decline in the way he or she performs at school. It has also been shown that women who lose contact with their fathers at a young age are more likely to become sexually active during their teenage years, pregnant during their teenage years or even divorced later in life. Teens of both sexes suffer a greater frequency of health and emotional problems when they come from single-parent homes.
Why Young Girls Need Their Fathers
Young girls essentially learn everything they need to know about love from their fathers. As a young girl grows, she watches how her father treats her mother, and as a result, her concept of love and romance begins to grow within her mind. If she sees her mother being abused by her father, or if she doesn’t see her father at all, she may have a difficult time understanding how romantic relationships are supposed to carry out. She also may suffer from damaged self-esteem, especially if her father left by choice. When a young women spends the entire first part of her life wondering why her father left her, it’s difficult for her to imagine why any other boy would want her either.
Why Young Boys Need Their Mothers
Much like fathers and daughters, sons learn many cues they will need later in life from their mothers. If a mother provides her son with a loving and secure home environment, he will be more likely to grow up with confidence. It’s important that a mother provide discipline and structure for her son, because if she lets him walk all over her, it teaches him that women don’t deserve a fair say. If a mother lets her husband walk all over her or even abuse her in front of her son, this message is ingrained even deeper. Men who grow up with strong women become men who are attracted to strong women, plain and simple. Therefore, if you want your son to have a happy marriage when he gets older, you should work on the relationship you have with him now.
If you’re a single parent, you’re going to have to try twice as hard to ensure that your children get the attention they need. It is so important for both parents to participate in your kids lives. The mom can’t be the dad and the dad can’t take the place of the mom. If you’re single and dating, always keep in mind that the people you expose your children to can and will have a profound effect on them as well.
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December 10, 2013
“Unconditionally” by Katy Perry
One of the gals I mentor told me that she has been listening to this song Unconditionally by Katy Perry every morning and feeling so amazing. She said that it makes her feel so close to herself and source and care about the world and the people in it. She said that everyone should listen to this song and really check in with how they feel. Check it out! I too love it.
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Debra Beck's Blog
