How to improve teenage sons self esteem?

[twirlypoo]

DS is 14 and I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to help him. He’s got a good group of friends around him, academically doing well, has lots of hobbies etc, but keeps saying he doesn’t feel great and he needs to work on himself.

We had some issues a few years ago when he worried about his weight (he’s always padded out then shot up when he was having growth spurts) and we subtly got rid of the scales so he couldn’t obsess over it. He needed to be weighed recently for some medication at a&e and I was shocked at how panicked he was by it. He plays a lot of sport (rugby, basketball, cricket and running) so is already very active, but he’s asked to join the gym over the summer holidays. He’s a very athletic build with no fat at all on him, but obviously he’s still growing and he does pad out before he shoots up usually.

He has done a few days work for a friend and I commented earlier on how it was good to be earning Lego money (what he usually spends his money on!) and he replied he wanted to spend it feeling better about himself instead.

im at a loss as to how to help him feel better about himself to be honest, and wondered if people could help me not fuck this up!

I should add, any comments I have made have been focussed on how strong / fast / healthy he is etc.

I appreciate these come from a good place, but I'm not sure they are necessarily helpful. For a boy lacking sef esteem he may hear it as his self worth being tied up in being strong/fast/healthy and it sounds like he thinks he isn't, so he'll see this as false praise or that he has to be stronger/faster/healthier to get your approval.

When he says he wants to do things to feel better about things have you asked him what he is thinking about? Do you validate his feelings? Have you talked about puberty and how his body will change (or maybe his dad or other trusted male adult if he would feel uncomfortable talking to you). Do you praise him for things that are unrelated to health/exercise/body shape?

How is he on the team, is he good (by that teams standards)? I think boys can be more sensitive to hierarchies

Talk to him about his social media use. Everything he sees on tiktok and insta is a lie. It's all good angles, soft lighting and gym bro adult men cosplaying as teens. Also talk to him about the manosphere. The intensity of the "beauty" standards for teen boys now are akin to heroine chic standards for women in the 90s, it's just a different aesthetic. Same shit.

If he wants to join a gym and improve his fitness and strength, that's fine. But talk about it as being only one aspect of himself. He's still worthy if his body doesn't conform completely to the current look. He'll still meet someone, have relationships and find happiness if he's not ripped, with a knife edge jaw line and shorter than 6'4". Talk to him about your body issues, how the media was responsible for them in the same way it's responsible for what he thinks is important now. It's just people wanting to sell stuff and make money from us. Today it's influences and gyms trying to get rich off his poor self esteem. In the 90s it was a fashion industry.