Self Esteem Worksheets For Teens
Learn how teenagers can boost their self-esteem in this guide. Explore self-esteem worksheet examples for your teenage clients here.
Fact Checked by Ericka Pingol.
Every person experiences feelings of doubt and anxiety at certain stages in their life, and while this is both expected and normal, individuals must do what they can to keep their self-esteem levels high.
Good self-esteem will positively affect the general quality of life, allowing individuals to work toward their goals, elevate their confidence, and value their role in other people's lives. Although self-esteem can (and should) be worked on throughout a person's life, it is most effective when established from an early age.
For this reason, introducing self-esteem worksheets to young clients as a part of therapeutic treatment is a fantastic idea. These resources encourage child and adolescent therapy clients struggling with healthy self-esteem to begin improving their self-perception, self-image, self-confidence, and self-worth from a young age, setting them up for a positive future.
Self Esteem Worksheets For Teens Template
Self Esteem Worksheets For Teens Example
Tips to boost self-esteem in teenagers
The methods you use to treat adolescent clients will fundamentally differ from those used to treat adult and child clients. Adolescents are often experiencing a turbulent period of their lives, on the brink of adulthood, and face new challenges. It can be quite common for teens to experience low self-esteem, but fortunately, helping your clients with overcoming low self-esteem is possible with these tips.
Praise efforts
Praising efforts over outcomes is important for showing teenagers that the work they put in is what matters, rather than the consequences. For example, if your client performs well on their exam, you should praise their study rather than the specific score or result.
Encourage self-improvement
Self-improvement can help show teenagers that working toward achieving goals is more productive than dwelling on failures, limitations, and other negative thoughts related to them.
It can often be the case that teenagers over-dramatize their shortcomings, for example, deciding that they are “dumb” if they struggle in a certain class. When these situations start to occur, you should explain to your client that self-improvement is both positive and achievable and encourage them to set goals about limitations or weaknesses they perceive in themselves. At the same time, during the final step of your process to encourage self-improvement, you should emphasize that making mistakes is inevitable and an important part of learning.
Impart assertiveness skills
Learning how to be assertive is a very important skill to develop. An assertive teenager can communicate effectively with peers, teachers, and family. They will be less likely to succumb to peer pressure and will be able to explain their needs and wants to the people in their lives.
Encourage new opportunities
Developing new skills and exposure to different opportunities can be fantastic tools for improving confidence. Unfortunately, many teenagers are scared to try new things out of fear of embarrassment, failure, or negative comments. You should take the time to get to know your clients and encourage them to pick up a new sport, instrument, hobby, or general interest that suits them.
Build self-worth
Self-worth can be complex. It's important that teenagers don't externalize the source of their self-worth, but rather, focus on their positive qualities and establish a strong basis of self-worth internally. This can be a difficult thing to achieve, but by encouraging your client to develop a strong set of values and showing them the benefits of being a kind and caring person, you should be able to work your way towards this goal.
Self-worth activities for teens
Going one step further, there is also an array of different therapeutic activities for teens and kids you can introduce to your young clients to help them build their feelings of self-worth.
Positive goal-setting
Goal-setting helps guide teenagers toward achievable and meaningful outcomes in their future.
For this activity, you and your client should come up with around 3 short-term goals and 3 long-term goals, along with a strategic plan for how your client can achieve these. When devising and writing down these goals, it's a good idea to keep the SMART acronym in mind (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based).
Challenge negative beliefs
Negative self-esteem often derives from negative opinions about ourselves. Most of the time, we internally overexaggerate these, and they don't reflect how others see us. Talking through negative beliefs with a trusted person can help diminish the power of the belief and change it into something positive.
For this activity, teenagers should write down 2-3 negative beliefs about themselves. They should then take these to someone in their life (parents, friends, teachers, etc.) and ask for their opinion on the belief.
Motivational jar
Starting the day thinking about oneself doing something positive is a great mindfulness tip that can also help with emotional regulation.
For this activity, teenagers should write down motivational quotes that inspire them – these could be from their favorite book, song, role model, or even a person in their life – and put them in a jar. Every morning, they can take a quote out of the jar and begin their day on a positive note.
Commonly asked questions
When you decide to use this self esteem worksheet for teens is entirely up to you. You may find yourself with a client who is being specifically treated for self esteem reasons, or it may be a side effect of a different issue. Regardless of the reason, if you think your client could benefit from completing this worksheet then no harm would come from distributing it. Additionally, we would recommend giving them the worksheet as early into the treatment journey as possible, as it is a fantastic resource for developing a plan.
The self esteem worksheet for teens has been designed to be completed by clients. However, this can be dependent on the specific client’s needs and general capabilities, and you may find it is an easier process if you assist them in completing it. This is completely fine, provided the answers included on the worksheet have been mainly dictated by the client, as they should be an honest reflection of the client’s experiences.
Because these documents contain confidential information, they need to be stored according to HIPAA guidelines. There are a couple of ways that this can be done. You can either store them in a physical location that has adequate security, or you can use a HIPAA-compliant EHR system. While both of these options are fine, we recommend using an EHR platform, as these are often the most secure and have the additional advantage of being highly accessible.
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