When Helping Becomes Taking Over

What my conversation with Sheri Gazitt taught me about confidence, friendship, and giving teen girls room to grow

Parents are natural problem-solvers. When our children hurt, we want to locate the trouble, pull out the proper tool, and get everything working again before supper. Unfortunately, teenage friendship problems rarely respond to a socket wrench.

That tension sat at the heart of my recent Generation Youth Podcast conversation with Coach Sheri Gazitt. Sheri is an international friendship expert, the founder of TeenWise, and the author of Girl Drama Decoded. For more than 30 years, she has helped girls and their families work through friendship struggles, social anxiety, and the emotional changes that arrive during adolescence, usually without knocking first.

I appreciated Sheri’s calm, practical way of talking about a world that can feel anything but calm to a teenage girl. Friendship conflict has always been painful, but today it follows girls home. A disagreement at school can continue through group texts, social media, and the constant awareness that other people may be gathering somewhere without you.

One of my biggest takeaways involved the inner critic. When a girl feels excluded, she may decide the problem is not one difficult friendship or one awkward afternoon. She may begin telling herself that nobody likes her or that something is wrong with her. A painful moment starts rewriting the way she sees herself.

That is where parents often rush in with reassurance.

“You have plenty of friends.”

“They probably did not mean it that way.”

“You are making too much of this.”

We mean well. We are trying to reduce the pain. Yet when we argue with what our daughter feels, she may hear that we do not understand it. Sheri reminded me that listening does not require us to agree with every conclusion. It simply tells a young person, “I am willing to sit here long enough to understand what this feels like to you.”

Our conversation also sharpened something I have long believed about confidence. Lasting confidence grows through self-mastery. Young people need chances to face hard situations, make decisions, recover from mistakes, and discover that they can handle more than they thought.

That means adults sometimes have to step back. We can ask questions, offer perspective, and remain close without taking control of the situation. This is difficult because solving the problem ourselves feels faster. It also leaves the teenager dependent on us to solve the next one.

Sheri helped me see that stepping back is not abandoning a struggling girl. It is staying close while leaving enough room for her own strength to develop. Sometimes the best help we can offer is a steady presence, a listening ear, and the patience to let growth take longer than one conversation.

Teen girls need adults who care deeply. They also need adults who believe they are capable. The wisdom lies in knowing when to move closer, when to remain quiet, and when to let them take the next step themselves.