Wellbeing
Self-esteem and Identity
Adolescence is a time of self-discovery, and many teenagers face fluctuating self-esteem as they navigate peer comparison, social media, and new responsibilities. A healthy sense of self-worth comes from valuing personal strengths, achievements, and relationships rather than only appearance, popularity, or grades.
Parents can nurture self-esteem by reinforcing effort, resilience, and positive qualities, and by helping teens explore their interests and values. Teens who feel valued for who they are more likely to develop confidence, make positive choices, and cope with challenges.
What parents can do:
- Praise effort, kindness, persistence, and creativity rather than looks or outcomes
- Avoid comparing your child to siblings, friends, or peers
- Encourage participation in hobbies, sports, clubs, or volunteering that align with their interests
- Talk openly about media portrayals and highlight unrealistic comparisons
What students can do:
- Focus on personal strengths and achievements rather than social comparison
- Participate in activities that make them feel competent and confident
- Limit time on social media if it triggers negative self-comparison
- Keep a “strengths journal” to track achievements and positive feedback
Learn more:https://raisingchildren.net.au/teens/mental-health-confidence/confident-healthy-self-esteem
Social Media platforms on notice
From mid-December, eSafety has been monitoring age-restricted platforms to assess how they are complying with their obligations to prevent under-16s from having accounts. It is clear the restrictions are already having an impact. Based on information gathered through legally enforceable notices, many platforms have removed, deactivated or restricted a large number of under‑age accounts.
However, based on the information gathered, including through submissions from the public, field research with parents and carers and engagement with key stakeholders, children under 16 continue to retain accounts, create new ones, or pass platforms’ age checks.
Because of these concerns, eSafety is now focusing its investigations on five major platforms - Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. These platforms have been notified about our concerns and expectations for improvement and warned eSafety will take enforcement action if they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent systemic failures that allow children under 16 from having accounts on their service.
Major reforms like this take time – not just to embed, but to spark a broader cultural shift in how industry designs services to keep children safer online. It won’t happen overnight, and although we can see some progress has been made, it's clear there's still a way to go.
This update explains what eSafety has learned so far since the legislation took effect on 10 December 2025. We will continue to provide transparency where we can while protecting the integrity of our ongoing regulatory processes and provide relevant up-to-date information for the community, including children and young people, parents and carers and educators at our social media age restrictions hub.
eSafety remains committed to holding platforms accountable, and ensuring these restrictions deliver real change for Australian families.