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Your emotions
Feeling good about yourself
Part of being a teen is having thoughts and feelings about different parts of your life, such as how you feel about:
- your friends and other kids your age
- how you are doing in school and in other activities
- your parents
- the way you look
While having these new feelings, many changes are also taking place in your body. It is normal to feel self-conscious or shy about the changes in your body and emotions but there are also changes to celebrate. Some cultures even have celebrations to recognize these changes. For example, the Western Apaches have the Sunrise Dance or "Na'ii'ees" and the Jewish community has the Bat Mitzvah – both mark a girl's passage to becoming a woman. Even though it might seem tough sometimes, remember that you are absolutely great!
If you would like to learn more about other cultural celebrations for girls, read the book “Coming of Age (World Celebrations and Ceremonies)”, by Lisa Sita.
Self-esteem 
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Self-esteem: Self-esteem describes the value and respect you have for yourself. If you have a healthy self-esteem, you feel good about yourself as a person and are proud of what you can do. However, it is normal to feel down sometimes.
Having a healthy or high self-esteem can help you to think positively, deal better with stress, and boost your drive to work hard. Having low self-esteem can cause you to feel uneasy and may get in the way of doing things you might enjoy. For some, low self-esteem can contribute to serious problems such as depression, drug and alcohol use, and eating disorders.
Find out if you have healthy or poor self-esteem.
What you can do to boost your self-esteem.
Self-confidence top
Self-confidence: Self-confidence is having a positive and realistic opinion of yourself and being able to accurately measure your abilities.
Self-confidence is also an important part of feeling good about yourself. Self-confidence is that little voice inside of you that tells you that you are okay, that you are a good person, and that you know how to deal with things in good times and in bad.
You are not born confident – confidence is learned. As a baby, you started to learn self-confidence from knowing your family loved you. As you learned to walk, play and talk, you also learned self-confidence. Now as a young woman, you are learning to be more self-confident in school, playing sports and in other social settings, but sometimes it's not easy. Participating in class, talking to new teachers or students, or trying out for an after-school activity may make you feel stressed or anxious...but that is normal. The good news is, as you try these new things, you are gaining confidence in spite of your fears. In fact, that is what real self-confidence is – your belief that you can do things well even when you have doubts.
Find out if you have healthy or low self-confidence.
What you can do to boost your self-confidence.
Content last updated June 11, 2008
