Updated July 19, 2024
As teenagers step into their own, they encounter a unique blend of challenges: while doors of opportunity swing open, so too do questions, worries, and their journey of identity.
Guiding your teen through these ups and downs isn’t always a breeze. However, many great resources can help your teen cope and build self-esteem and plan for the future. See below for a few top-rated teen ‘self-help’ books that may encourage a healthy sense of well-being in your young adult. These books aren’t just about offering advice; they’re tools to help your teen navigate the challenges of growing up, boost their confidence, and inspire them to reach for their dreams.
1. Life Skills for Teens
#1 Best Seller. This book covers how to Cook, Clean, Manage Money, Fix Your Car, Perform First Aid, and Just About Everything in Between. “Congratulations, you are a teenager! The big question is, now what?! The teenage years are an exciting yet ever-changing period of your life. New challenges and tasks seem to pop up almost daily—not to mention all the transitions your body is going through.”
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2. Anxiety Relief for Teens
Is anxiety disrupting your life? With proven CBT-based skills and mindfulness techniques, this book can be your guide out of the spiraling stress of anxiety and get you back on track to living a happy and healthy life.
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3. Building Unstoppable Self-Confidence for Teens
Not just another workbook to add to your teens already overloaded schedule. It’s a new toolkit for confronting all anxiety and self-doubt – and a formula to rise triumphantly from it. Teens can discover how to be truly self-confident and boldly bring their inherent magic to the light.
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4. What Color is Your Parachute? for Teens
No idea what you want to be? No worries! This fun, rewarding guide draws on the time-tested principles of the career classic What Color Is Your Parachute? to help teens discover their passions, skills, potential college majors and dream jobs.
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5. 97 Things to Do Before You Finish High School
This fun book is about the stuff they don’t teach you in high school, like how to host a film festival, plan your first road trip, make a podcast, or write a manifesto. Want to make a time capsule? Spend a day in silence? Learn how to make beats like a DJ? Or do the right thing to be a better person!
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6. The Teen Girl’s Survival Guide
As a teen girl, you are likely feeling pressure and stress from every direction. Having good, healthy relationships with friends you can count on makes all the difference. In this guide, psychologist and teen expert Lucie Hemmen offers ten tips to guide teen girls toward creating and maintaining the social life they want.
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7. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
A handbook to self-esteem and success. This classic book applies the timeless principles of 7 Habits to the tough issues and life-changing decisions teens face, helping teens improve self-image, build friendships, resist peer pressure, achieve their goals, and appreciate their parents, as well as tackle the new challenges of our time, like cyberbullying and social media. This book is filled with cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world!
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8. Chicken Soup for the Pre-teen Soul
If you have a younger ‘tween’ this book is the perfect gift. Written by and for preteens, this uplifting collection of stories touches on the emotions and situations they experience every day: making and losing friends, fitting in while keeping their personal identity, discovering the opposite sex, dealing with pressures at school including violence, and coping with family issues such as divorce.
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9. The 6 Most Important Decisions You’ll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens
Sean Covey helps teens figure out how to approach the six major challenges they face: gaining self-esteem, dealing with their parents, making friends, being wise about sex, coping with substances, and succeeding at school and planning a career.
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10. You Got This – A positive Thinking, Mindfulness and Wellbeing Journal
A daily journal for kids to promote happiness, gratitude, self-confidence and mental health wellbeing. You Got This is a unique journal for kids and teenagers, allowing them the time to record their feelings each day.
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11. The Confident Teen
Don’t let your teenager settle for mediocrity. Instead, give them the gift of confidence, resilience, and self-assurance. This book doesn’t just preach; it provides practical advice, real-life stories from fellow teenagers, and the essential tools for your child to craft their own extraordinary life.
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12. The ADHD Workbook for Teens
Teaches simple skills to confidently handle school, make and keep friends, and organize and finish projects. This workbook helps teens with ADHD find out who they really are through a series of exercises and worksheets that focus on identifying your strengths and interests. Then, they can begin to use those strengths to create strategies for overcoming the ADHD-related issues they struggle with.
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13. Hey Girl! Self-Love Workbook
New for 2024 – This colourful 125 page workbook features inspiring stories, engaging prompts, and fun activities to instil self-acceptance in teen girls! The activities help empower teenage girls to cultivate self-love and confidence in themselves. Best suited to teens and tweens.
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