Lucero’s wellness app is designed to make the journey of self-discovery easy and fun,  because self-discovery creates confidence, maintains mental health, and leads to lifelong well-being. Here are four key ways self-discovery guides tweens and teens towards confidence:

1. Self-discovery strengthens their capacity for self-care.

Learning how to take care of themselves mentally, physically and emotionally is a big part of tweens and teens becoming independent young adults. Self-care requires figuring out what they need to maintain their own well-being, manage stress, and find balance. As they come to value their uniqueness, adolescents get more skilled at identifying their own needs and understanding how their needs may differ from those of other people. Increased confidence also helps tweens and teens get comfortable meeting their own needs and asking others for support.

2. Self-discovery supports self-regulation.

Lucero’s model draws from the research of Albert Bandura, who found that people learn to change their behavior, in part, through self-reflection. Reflecting on feelings and how they affect behavior begins with naming emotions, a strategy Dan Siegel calls “Name it to tame it.” Neuroimaging research shows that labeling an emotion reduces activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain responsible for processing emotions. As tweens and teens get better at managing their emotions, they learn that they have control of their emotional state, which leads to more confidence.

3. Self-discovery helps them make better decisions.

The prefrontal cortex– responsible for self-control, impulse regulation, and other executive functioning skills– is still developing in teens. At the same time, increased hormones fire up the brain’s pleasure-seeking mesolimbic system. This Dual Systems Model explains why tweens and teens often struggle with making wise decisions. Self-discovery helps them make decisions based on their own beliefs, values, and goals instead of looking to others for answers. Anchored in self-awareness, a confident adolescent is less likely to just “go along with the crowd” or take a risk that jeopardizes their physical or emotional safety. And practice making decisions expands tweens’ and teens’ capacity for responsibility and confidence.

4. Self-discovery leads to a sense of purpose.

“The biggest problem growing up today is not stress, it’s meaninglessness,” says Stanford School of Education professor and psychologist William Damon. “We all need a purpose, but at that formative period of life, when you don’t even know who you are, you really need it.” Damon defines purpose as a goal that’s both “meaningful to the self and consequential to the world beyond the self.” Thus, self-discovery and purpose are intrinsically linked. When tweens and teens have opportunities to explore their curiosities, talents, and passions, they’re more likely to find activities and connections that give them a sense of purpose and build their confidence.

Lucero helps adolescents engage in self-discovery with gamified, bite-sized tools to explore their inner and outer worlds, created by licensed clinical therapists and a team of youth advisors. Our approach to self-discovery makes it easy for tweens and teens to develop self-awareness and learn emotional regulation skills, growing their confidence with each and every step.

Caregivers of tweens and teens need to know that connection can be cultivated. How? Start with these five simple strategies to strengthen relationships:

1. Remember, your teen wants to connect.

American families spend just 37 minutes of quality time together per day, according to a recent survey. Why so little? Busy schedules make it a real challenge to carve out quality time. But while parents often perceive that their teens have lost interest in spending time together, teens say parents are the ones who are too busy. Remember, even as teens seek greater independence and spend more time with friends, quality time with parents continues to be critical for their overall well-being. Teens want to connect with you even when they don’t say so, so go ahead and make the first move.

2. Be more present in the time you already spend together.

When it comes to connection, quality matters more than quantity. Quality time means being present: you’re not letting distractions, worries, or feelings of overwhelm intrude. You’re really there for each other, listening, sharing, having fun, or just being. Ask yourself how you might be more present during the time you and your teen already spend together. Do you drive them to school most mornings or eat dinner together a few nights a week? Consider declaring a phone-free zone, playing a conversation card game, or creating a family ritual to check in with each other. And be sure to ask your teen what would make it most meaningful for them.

3. Don’t leave connection up to chance.

When families see each other often, it’s easy to make time together a low priority or leave it entirely up to chance. But that means you’re hanging out when you’re stressed, tired and distracted. To foster deeper connection, make family time sacred and spend time together when everyone can be energized and engaged. Block off regular time in all your calendars and make a plan together. Create a few simple rituals, like cooking dinner one night a week or going for a hike once a month. Keep it simple with easy, everyday moments of connection, then mix it up by trying new things or planning an adventure once in a while. Teens benefit from regular routines and opportunities to get out of their comfort zone, so aim for a balance of both.

4. Support teens’ friendships with peers.

Connection with parents or caregivers is key, but it doesn’t replace the need for close, supportive peer friendships. Studies show that connection with peers decreases stress, increases teens’ sense of self-worth and protects their mental health well into early adulthood. Caregivers can help teens nurture these critical friendships with a little background support and structure. Teaching your teen to prioritize authenticity, getting to know their friends, and encouraging extracurricular activities are all ways you can help teens build a network of supportive connections. Read our post on nurturing teen friendships for more ideas.

5. Help them create their Crew.

Connection supports adolescent mental health, and healthy habits like connection are easier to build when tweens and teens have a support system. That’s why we designed Lucero to be a place where friends and families can radically support each other. Teens can invite up to seven “framily” members to join their Crew. Crew members cheer each other on, support each other on the hard days, and always apologize if their actions or words hurt someone’s feelings. With the support of their Crew, teens discover themselves, strengthen their relationships, and deepen their capacity to connect.

1. Build a strong relationship with themselves.

Teens with high self-esteem have more positive relationships, and positive relationships lead to better self-esteem. Self-esteem often takes a hit during adolescence when physical, neurological, psychological and social changes combine with increased stress and responsibility. Healthy habits that boost teens’ connection with themselves include self-reflection, self-care, journaling, positive self-talk, and getting clear about personal values and goals. Encourage your teen to think about what it means to be their own best friend– how do you talk to someone you love and care about? What would you do if that person were having a hard time? Teens who love themselves have a built-in model of a supportive relationship, so they know they deserve a high level of care and respect from others.

2. Ramp up resilience.

Healthy habits help teens build a tool-kit of coping skills to deal with stress and regulate their emotions. Each tool increases their resilience, or the ability to bounce back from and overcome adversity. According to researcher and author Dr. Brené Brown, the five most common factors of resilient people include:

• They are resourceful and have skills to solve problems.
• They are more likely to seek help.
• They believe that they can do something to manage their feelings and cope.
• They have social support.
• They are connected with others.

3. Define their \”Framily.\”

According to the Urban Dictionary, a framily includes “friends or blood relatives to whom we would actually choose to be related, because the relationship is mutually respectful, close, supporting and affectionate.” Defining their framily helps teens reframe their support systems to include all the important relationships that don’t necessarily fit into traditional roles, like their mom’s best friend who’s more like an aunt, or a youth group leader or neighbor who always looks out for them. Take some time with your teen to map out your own framily members and highlight any relationships you want to strengthen. Let those people know that they’re a part of your teen’s tribe, then plan ways that you and your teen can deepen the most important connections.

4. Get serious about radical support.

At Lucero, we define framily as any combination of youth and adults who want to radically support each other. Who are the people your teen can rely on for radical support? Those are the relationships that belong in your teen’s inner circle. Radical support means different things to different people, but some key questions your teen can ask themselves include:

• Can I be my most authentic self around this person? Do they like and love me even when I’m feeling sad, silly, vulnerable, etc.?
• Can I trust this person? Do I know they will respect my boundaries and keep what I say confidential? Are they honest with me?
• Would I feel comfortable asking this person for help or support?
• How does this person handle conflict when it comes up? Can we get along even when we disagree?
• Is our relationship equally important to both of us?

To help your teen learn connection-boosting healthy habits like these, download Lucero. It’s a gamified wellness app that builds emotional regulation skills and self-care habits in just a few minutes a day. Lucero is the most fun and engaging way for teens to gain healthy habits with bite-sized content co-created by experts and tweens and teens themselves.