• Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Fix My Life

    Holy shit, you guys. The question of how to fix my life is a big one. Like you want me to tell you how to fix your whole. Frigging. Life?! Yeah right. No seriously. Yeah, alright. I can do that. Here you go. 10 Simple Steps for How to Fix My Life 1: Make a list of what’s going okay in life. This will calm you down by helping you realize there is stuff that doesn’t totally blow. 2: Make a list of what’s going sucky in life. This gives you clarity on exactly what needs fixing. 3: Which three things on the suck list do you most want to…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Make Boys Notice You

    Okay, sigh. The question of how to make boys notice you can be answered two ways. There’s like the devil-on-your-shoulder answer (the icky one) and the angel-on-your-shoulder answer (the one I like way better). Because I don’t truck in bullshit, I’m gonna give you both. How to make boys notice you the icky way: 1: If you’re a girl, play the old, gross, gendered role. Translated: present yourself like you’re sexy and submissive. An awesome kid I coach told me about how at her high school’s football game, all the girls from the other school had on super cleavage shirts and glitter…in their cleavage. They laughed at everything the boys…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    I have no one in my life

    Okay, first things first. I see you. I hear you. I understand you. If you’re here reading this post, you probably typed “I have no one in my life” in Google. If you did that, we’re so, so much alike. I spent the first three decades of my life feeling like I have no one in my life. My childhood was chock full of abusers and cruelty. I learned from a young age that I was unlikeable, unlovable. Because I believed that, my thoughts and behavior and body language sent that message to others. Result? The people who were drawn to me were the people that wanted to use me…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Be Popular

    When you’re not in their group, the popular kids seem like they’re dipped in gold. They shine with confidence and good clothes and a huge group to sit with at lunch. How easy their lives must be, right? Wrong. I am telling you. I work with every kind of teenager, from all over the world. They tell me the stuff they hide from everyone else. Truth bomb: the popular kids don’t feel popular. They zero in on the one thing they’re insecure about and think everyone else is talking about it behind their back. Long short: they’re exactly as anxious as you are. So the answer to the question of…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    My Friend Stopped Talking to Me

    This sucks, and I’m sorry. That’s the first thing I have to say whenever one of my teen life coaching kids tells me, “My friend stopped talking to me.” This is legit one of the worst things that can happen in high school. All you really need is just one friend. More is better, but with that trusted one, you know you’ve got somebody to stand in the hall with before school starts. To message when cute boy or girl smiles at you. To make weekend plans with. If they suddenly ghost you, it can feel like you’re walking through school naked…but you still have to see them, laughing with…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Start a Conversation

    I’m not going to tell you that knowing how to start a conversation and then doing it is super easy. Especially when there are other kids around. Especially especially if you’re an introvert. But if you want to make friends, you can either wait for people to talk to you first—and how’s that working?—or you can be the one to start a dialogue. It takes some social cajones, but it can be done. Here’s how. 1: Find people you’re actually interested in talking to. For how to do that, read my post explaining how to make friends. 2: Take a breath and notice your feelings. If you feel anxious, that’s…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Make Friends in High School

    Okay, seriously? Like every kid I teen life coach wants to know either A: How to make friends in high school or B: How to deal with the B.S. that happens in their friend group. You are so not the only one. There are so many layers to this struggle. (I’m actually going to be doing group teen coaching around building confidence and making friends. HMU if you want more info on that.)  A lot of times it’s a confidence issue. There’s also confusion about how you’re supposed to start a conversation. Then there’s the question of—no, really—exactly how am I supposed to make friends? Short version: you find your…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Be Cool

    Cool boils down to not caring what people think. Seriously, think of the coolest kid in your school. Then think—ohshit, this sounds so mean—of the lamest kid in your school. I’ll bet you ten bucks the cool kid is totally doing their own thing, wearing their own style, whatever, and the lame kid will do anything to fit in, is desperate to make people like them. True? True. So the answer for how to be cool is simple: do your own thing, and f*ck what anyone else thinks about it. Here, I’ll prove it. Back in the day, Britney Spears was super hot. She knew that how to be cool…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    What to Do When Your Family Hates You

    It’s weird being a teen. In a million ways it’s weird, but one of the weirdest is the fact that you’re almost an adult, expected to think and act like one (Get good grades! Do chores! Get a job!)…but you’re also living under someone else’s roof and have no control over your life. Um, not fair? When your relationship with your adults doesn’t feel loving or supportive, it goes from weird to bad. For the question of what to do when your family hates you, I have two totally different answers. First, the hard one. When I was a kid, I was abused by my mother’s husband. My mother blamed…

  • Advice and Help for Teens

    How to Feel Confident

    You guys, this is the biggest topic that comes up with my teen life coaching clients. I’ll be in a Zoom with some kid who literally wakes up Instagram perfect and they’ll be like, “I feel so ugly compared to everyone else. I have no idea how to feel confident.” I kind of want to shake them and yell, “Look in a mirror! You’re gorgeous!” But that would be pointless. Because… A: I’m a grownup so my opinion doesn’t count. B: Nobody’s opinion counts when it comes to how to feel confident. You have to see it in yourself. So how do you see it in yourself? What’s the trick…

Get Cyndy’s tips on teens and mental health, plus chapter 1 of her YA novel SEND RUDES!

Get articles sent to your inbox once a month.