“Just be confident.” “Don't let it bother you.”
If your teen just bombed a test, got cut from a team, or had a humiliating moment in a packed cafeteria, you may have said some version of the above and what you said probably didn't land.
Watching your teen spiral over something that seems small from the outside can be exhausting, and saying things like “just get over it” to your teen feels like it should work. Here's the thing that you may not be aware of, telling an anxious teenager to feel differently, or shake the feeling off, doesn't actually change how they feel. It tells them their reaction is wrong, and this usually makes them shut down instead of open up.
The Neuroscience Behind a Teen's Setback Reaction
When a teenager hits a setback, their brain's stress response activates before the reasoning part of their brain gets involved. That's not because of their character or that they are overreacting. It's how teenage brains are built to respond to a perceived threat as their prefrontal cortex is still developing.
The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for reasoning, weighing consequences, and managing impulses, is one of the last regions of the brain to fully develop. It doesn't finish maturing until the mid-twenties. Meanwhile, the amygdala, the brain's threat-detection center, is already fully developed and active well before that. That timing gap means a teenager's brain can sound a fully mature alarm in response to a stressful moment, while the part meant to reason through that alarm is still under construction.
What to Ask Instead of Telling Your Teen to "Just Be Confident"
When a teenager hears 'just be confident' or 'stop worrying,' what they actually hear is that their reaction is wrong, or too big, or something to feel embarrassed about. Once a teen feels judged for how they're feeling, they might stop telling you how they're feeling at all, and it is now harder for you to reach in and help them.
The truth is, teenagers process a setback better when they're the ones doing the thinking, not when they're handed a conclusion. Instead of telling your teen how to feel, ask a question that gets them talking. What do you think happened there? What's one thing you'd approach differently if it happened again? Open-ended questions like these do something a pep talk can't. They let your teen actually process the setback instead of being told to move past it before they're ready.
What an Open-Ended Conversation Sounds Like
Say your teen comes home upset about failing a quiz. Instead of, “It's just one quiz, you'll be fine,” try, “That sounds really frustrating. What do you think happened?” If they say, “I don't know, I just froze,” you might follow with, “What do you think might help next time, more time studying, or maybe asking the teacher a question beforehand?” You're not solving it for them. You're giving them room to actually think it through.
Here are some other questions you can ask your teen rather than saying “don't worry about it”:
- What's the part that's bothering you the most?
- What would you tell a friend in this exact situation?
- Looking back, what's one thing you'd handle another way?
- What's one thing that actually went okay today?
If Your Teen Doesn't Want to Talk
Other times, you might find your teens shutting the conversation down before it starts, and that's normal too. If a direct question gets a shrug or a closed door, don't push. Try again later, when they're not in the middle of the feeling, maybe in the car or during a walk, when eye contact isn't required and the conversation can stay lower-stakes.
Normalizing the Setback Without Dramatizing It
A bad week doesn't need to become a bigger event than it already is. Setbacks are a normal, expected part of a school year. The goal is helping your teen process the setback and move forward. In order for this to work, try making it into a habit and slowly build trust with your teenager. The first few tries might feel awkward or you might get short answers from your teenagers, keep doing it until it becomes a habit.
If your teen's setbacks are turning into a pattern that open-ended questions and time can't seem to shift, let us help you. Find us at our contact page, and our therapists can help you get to the bottom of it.