Help with a teenage girl who has some self esteem issues (asked by family member)?

[Brandi]

My 15 yr old niece is having issues with comparing herself to others. she is a good girl (makes good grades, has good morals) and some of her friends make her feel bad for not being more "daring"....she shouldnt want to be more like this particular girl yet she does....the boy my niece likes apparently has a crush on the other girl. How can we help her to feel better about herself, and stop comparing herself to someone else?
of course we have said the things i mentioned above--these ppl just arent like she is and thats OK she is a good person and should be OK with that but at 15 she just doesnt want to hear that but i dont want to see her not loving herself or thinking she isnt as good as someone else

[crystal~lily]

first of all have her evaluate her friends - they don't seem like good ones.
we're always attracted to be friends with people who don't want to be friends with, i have personal experience in that.
show her everything she's done - and tell her that YOU are proud of her. i have parents who always demand more from me even though i am one of the only students in my school to make all a's as a junior. parents and family can be extremely encouraging.
tell her that she is amazing and when she does leave high school she'll come to realize that fact if she doesn't now, because all of these kids who are "daring" now and care about other things more than school probably won't be as successful as your niece who concentrates on school and being a well rounded good person.
i really hope this helps - and good luck with your niece, she seems really nice. self esteem is a hard thing to build up - i know, from personal experience from having my self esteem shattered by peers.
it's really important for her to build it up now - otherwise people will be using/walking all over her, and that is terrible.
good luck.

[changudada]

just getting out of my teens i guess i know what ur neice feels like - its called peer group pressure. she wants to feel part of the group and therefore is enforced to behave like them. no amount of stopping her is gonna have a positive effect.

instead try a different route.

praise her for all her good qualities and tell her how much u all love her for what she is. make her feel that she is one of the best people and she is unique.

dont tell her that her friends are bad or not good, it will only encourage her to be with them more often. just let her know that her friends are different people with different qualities and different talents. there are things that they can do while she cant and vice versa. let her know that she has the freedom to choose her friends and her activities but she is also definitely responsible for them. tell her not to do anything which might make her regret later on.

tell her that her true friends will eventually accept her as a different and unique person although she may not seem like them but she will soon notice that many of them are also different from each other. tell her to be part of the group but not necessarily behave like them.

but if she is really finding it difficult to cope with them its time for her to find people who think on the same wavelenght.

dont push things too fast with her as teenagers have a penchant for doing exactly what elders dont want them to do.

[Lyric H]

u should tell her if they feel that way then they r not her friends and tell her she iz beautiful and that she can get a much nicer better looking boy than the 1 she has this crush on