What Does Your Child Believe About Themselves?
Focus on the Family Parenting Podcast
Focus on the Family
4.4 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 14 April 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How do you help your teen embrace who God says they are? Danny shares how kids in his counseling office have struggled with low self-esteem. You'll also hear Jim Daly talk with Tricia Goyer and Leslie Nunnery about how to be aware of messages your kids are hearing from social media.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down, trust fading, conflict that never seems to resolve? |
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| 0:23.2 | every marriage intensive. Visit hoperestored.com slash marriage-dash-investment. |
| 0:32.4 | What does your team believe about themselves? What's their identity? The world gives us all sorts of ideas. |
| 0:39.3 | I'm an athlete. I'm a nerd. I'm a geek. I'm a whatever. But your identity in Christ is what |
| 0:46.3 | really anchors you in life. And how do you help your child see that? That's what we're about today |
| 0:51.2 | on this episode. I'm along with Dr. Danny Werta. |
| 0:54.5 | Thanks for being here. |
| 0:55.7 | I'm really interested, Danny, in the counseling work you've done over the years |
| 0:59.7 | because you have seen so many kids come into your office. |
| 1:04.1 | Without an identity, kids just kind of float around. |
| 1:08.9 | They do. |
| 1:09.3 | And even go under the water a little bit, it seems. |
| 1:12.6 | I certainly did as a teen. I struggled. Who am I? Because I didn't fit into any of the groups |
| 1:18.2 | in, in middle school, high school. I was, I was an outlier. Well, and that's survival, right? You want to, |
| 1:25.5 | you want to know that you belong somewhere. And God reassures us of that in Scripture, but if you don't have it based on that, it's a very loose place for your mind to be. And I've seen that with teens, where they come in with absolutes. If they feel they're not doing well, they'll say I'm worthless, |
| 1:45.3 | I'm stupid, I'm a failure, I've heard some kids say I'm garbage, I can't do anything right, |
| 1:53.6 | I'm never going to do anything right. And so these absolutes in their brain, and they'll go to |
| 1:59.0 | always never, and then they'll go to IM ms a lot they'll go to i am this |
| 2:04.7 | i'm that and it's this identity according to their performance because we naturally measure that way |
| 2:11.5 | or in competition or comparison to other people and that can lead you either to devastation or pridefulness. Nowhere good. |
... |
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