Trying Too Hard to Impress Others: Support for Overcompensating Teens
Watching your teenager exhaust themselves trying to win approval from their peers can be heartbreaking. They may constantly brag about their accomplishments and exaggerate stories to seem more interesting, going to extreme lengths to get the validation that never quite seems to satisfy.
Overcompensating teens are insecure, not intentionally manipulative. This constant social performance often tends to mask deep fears about not being “good enough,” liked for who they are, or worthy of acceptance from others.
Adolescence naturally involves exploring identity and an increasing sensitivity to others’ opinions. But some teens take it to an extreme, losing themselves completely in a desperate attempt to impress others – causing the opposite effect they’re seeking.
Learning about why your teen feels compelled to overcompensate can help you respond with more understanding and compassion. This page can help by exploring:
- The reasons why teenagers engage in people-pleasing and overcompensating behaviors
- How to recognize attention-seeking behavior in adolescents and what it might mean
- Common insecurity signs in youth that may require attention
- Ways of coping with the peer pressure teens are facing
- Mental health support for youth with identity struggles
Why Teens Can Become People-Pleasers and Overcompensate
People-pleasing teenagers don’t just wake up one day deciding to exhaust themselves seeking approval. These patterns develop from complicated interactions between their temperament, experiences, developmental stage, and environmental factors that make authentic self-expression feel risky.
People-pleasing behaviors may stem from:
Developmental Vulnerability
Adolescence is a time that naturally involves a raised awareness and sensitivity to the judgments of others. Teen brains are wired to care passionately about social acceptance during these developmental stages, with peer relationships often taking on extreme importance.
The prefrontal cortex, which manages impulse control and perspective-taking, hasn’t fully matured, while the limbic system, which processes emotions and social information, is often operating at maximum intensity.1
This neurological reality means your teenager may genuinely experience rejection or judgment as much more devastating than you do. Social pain activates the same brain regions as physical pain, and some teens then develop compensatory strategies to avoid these feelings of rejection.
Insecurity Signs in Youth Rooted in Early Childhood Experiences
Attachment patterns formed in childhood can shape how teens approach relationships. Insecure attachment (especially the anxious style), which develops when caregivers are inconsistent or emotionally unavailable, can teach children that their worth depends on pleasing others.2
Children who experience criticism and high expectations are often desperate to prove their worth as teens. After all, if love came only when they achieved or made their parents proud, they internalized that acceptance requires constant performance.
So an overcompensating teen might be replaying dynamics they learned early on, where they learned their authentic self never seemed to be acceptable.
Additionally, trauma, bullying, or other rejection can create a major impact on their self-worth. A teen who’s excluded, mocked, bullied, or ignored might overcompensate to prevent repeating those painful experiences.
Comparison and Social Media’s Influence
Coping with peer pressure as a teenager in the 21st Century has never been harder, as teens face an unprecedented level of exposure to one another’s lives through social media.
The constant comparison to their peers’ curated, edited life highlights can ramp up feelings of inadequacy. Your child frequently sees others appearing confident, popular, and successful – which can lead to feelings of not quite measuring up.
Such comparisons can fuel overcompensation as teens try to create impressive personas that match what they see online. The bragging and exaggeration are often a mirror to social media’s presentation: everyone appears to be living amazing lives, so your child feels they must do so as well.
Influencer culture also teaches teenagers that worth is derived from attention and likes. Teens can think that being ordinary is unacceptable, and that they must be exceptional and admirable to truly matter.
Perfectionism and Overcompensation
If nothing you do feels good enough, then it’s hard not to seek external validation to fill the void. Overcompensating teens often develop perfectionism from a wide variety of sources, from parental expectations to spending lots of time in high-achievement environments.
Identity Confusion
Adolescent identity struggles involve figuring out who you are, separate from your parents and family. Some teens, uncertain of their own authentic identity, adapt whatever persona seems most likely to win acceptance as a result.3
Teenagers can be confused about who they are when not performing for others, learning to value seeking approval above all, and losing connection to their own internal experience.
What About Mental Health Causes for Trying Too Hard?
These constant performances can provide temporary relief from the symptoms of social anxiety, yet they can also prevent the genuine kinds of connections that could help to challenge underlying fears.
Over time, maintaining these performances becomes tiring and also serves to increase their baseline level of anxiety. This can create a cycle in which they need even more validation just to feel okay (even if only temporarily).
And speaking of anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder can also be a driver of people-pleasing, overcompensating behavior. Teens with GAD worry constantly about lots of things, and often believe that being “perfect” or “impressive” will prevent bad things from happening.5
Overcompensating, then, represents attempts to control their anxiety by controlling how others perceive and pick up on their anxious cues. Depression can also occur alongside these patterns, with low self-esteem fueling desperate attempts to prove their worth with others’ approval.
Attention-seeking behaviors in adolescents sometimes also indicate underlying attachment disorders, trauma responses, or emerging personality patterns, all of which can benefit from professional evaluation and treatment.
Common Signs of Insecurity That May Require Attention
Insecurity signs in youth exist on a spectrum, from normal adolescent self-doubt to patterns that need professional assistance. While all teens experience insecurity, certain signs can indicate the struggle has progressed beyond developmental challenges into territory affecting their overall well-being and ability to function.
Signs of Insecurity in Teens:
- A constant need for reassurance: Asking repeatedly if they look okay, if you’re proud of them, if their friends really like them, or if they’ve done well. Plus, your reassurance might only provide temporary relief before the questions resume.
- Extreme reactions to criticism: If minor feedback or constructive suggestions trigger big emotional responses (including crying, rage, shutting down, or defensive attacks), then these may be a sign of a deeper issue.
- Frequent, constant personality changes: Dramatically altering speech patterns, interests, opinions, and more depending on who they’re with, appearing to have no stable sense of self in several situations and environments.
- Excessive bragging and “one-upping” behavior: Constantly needing to top others’ stories, exaggerating their own accomplishments, and steering discussions back to their own achievements in ways that alienate, rather than impress, others.
- Struggling to make decisions: Becoming paralyzed by choices big and small, desperately seeking others’ opinions because they don’t trust their own judgment.
- Defaulting to self-deprecating humor: Constantly putting themselves down to others in an effort to be liked, which may reveal a genuinely negative self-image.
- Avoiding new experiences and challenges: Refusing opportunities that could add to their life due to the fear of failing or looking foolish in front of others.
- Unexplained physical symptoms: Frequent stomachaches or headaches, or feeling sick before situations where they might be evaluated or judged by their peers.
- Becoming preoccupied with their appearance: Obsessing about their looks, often with distorted perceptions. Making constant negative comments about their appearance, displaying distorted eating patterns as a result of feeling inadequate.
Helping Your Teen Navigate Peer Pressure
Coping with peer pressure can be tough. Parents can help by resisting the urge to overly criticize the behaviors that frustrate them – telling your child to “knock it off” rarely helps and can increase their anxiety around being acceptable.
Instead, express curiosity about what they’re going through. Ask what makes them feel like their friendships are so pressured, and what they worry might happen if they don’t impress their peers.
Try to give them unconditional acceptance at home that’s not tied to their popularity or performance. People-pleasing and performance might decrease when your teen knows they’re valued for who they are. Model healthy boundaries and authentic self-expression instead of people-pleasing in your own relationships.
Also, help your teen identify their values, interests, and preferences. Ask questions that prompt reflection: ”What matters to you, regardless of whether it’s cool?” “Who do you want to be? Is this different from what you think others want for you?”
Although important, supportive parenting also has limits when self-confidence issues reflect deeper mental health concerns. If your teen’s actions persist despite your support, then professional help might be the right call.
Professional Support for Identity and Insecurity Issues
Mental health support for youth with ongoing identity struggles and overcompensating behaviors leans on several evidence-based, holistic approaches to address the underlying insecurities behind their struggles.
For example, cognitive-behavioral therapy helps teens identify distorted beliefs driving their behaviors. CBT challenges these thought patterns and helps them develop more balanced perspectives about self-worth and relationships, along with teaching new coping skills for negative and distorted thoughts.
Acceptance and commitment therapy teaches teens to observe their insecure thoughts without letting them control their behavior and to accept discomfort. It also encourages them to seek out new action patterns that reflect their values and needs.
Narrative therapy can help explore the stories your child tells themselves, helping them recognize how they’ve internalized messages about needing to perform. Teens rewrite these narratives in therapy to reflect more compassionate approaches.
Art therapy, meanwhile, provides a non-verbal outlet for exploring identity issues and discovering authentic parts of themselves.
In some cases (such as those involving self-harm or an inability to engage in day-to-day life), support programs for teens can also include residential treatment. This provides an immersive, supportive place to step away from peer pressures and learned habits to engage with therapeutic work daily, developing genuine self-acceptance and confidence for the long term.
Teen Mental Health Treatment at Mission Prep
Mission Prep provides outpatient, intensive, and residential treatment where teens can learn more about themselves and the causes of their struggles. We also promote new coping strategies to deal with the peer pressure and stressors of the teenage years.
Mission Prep involves your family at every step of the process because sustainable change requires addressing family dynamics that may have contributed to their beliefs about their authentic self.
Contact us today to explore our treatment options and how to get started. We can also help you understand your insurance benefits.
Frequently Asked Questions About Overcompensating Teenagers
If you have any persisting questions about overcompensating behaviors in teens, the following responses to FAQs may help.
How Can I Talk to My Child About Things Without Making It Worse?
Do your best to approach the conversation with compassion instead of criticism. Avoid any statements that might cause them shame or sound dismissive, focusing on expressing your concerns about what you’ve been seeing in their challenges lately.
Validate their experience and how important acceptance feels to them, perhaps sharing your own experiences in life with people-pleasing or trying to fit in. Most importantly, show them unconditional acceptance by showing interest and appreciating their thoughts and feelings.
Is It Normal for Teenagers to Act Differently Around Different People?
Some degree of social flexibility is totally normal and healthy. For example, adjusting communication styles with teachers versus friends is expected and appropriate.
However, people-pleasing teens can struggle when they don’t feel as if they have a core identity, which can lead to overcompensating. If your teen is constantly changing their opinions and interests to fit in with whatever group they’re in, that might be a sign that they’re dealing with identity confusion.
References
- Arain, M., Haque, M., Johal, L., Mathur, P., Nel, W., Rais, A., Sandhu, R., & Sharma, S. (2013). Maturation of the Adolescent Brain. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 9, 449–461. PubMed Central. https://doi.org/10.2147/ndt.s39776
- Bosmans, G., Van Vlierberghe, L., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Kobak, R., Hermans, D., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2022). A Learning Theory Approach to Attachment Theory: Exploring Clinical Applications. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 25(3), 591–612. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-021-00377-x
- Branje, S., de Moor, E. L., Spitzer, J., & Becht, A. I. (2021). Dynamics of Identity Development in Adolescence: A Decade in Review. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(4), 908–927. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12678
- Leigh, E., & Clark, D. M. (2018). Understanding Social Anxiety Disorder in Adolescents and Improving Treatment Outcomes: Applying the Cognitive Model of Clark and Wells (1995). Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 21(3), 388–414. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-018-0258-5
- University of Rochester Medical Center. (n.d.). Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in children and teens. URMC Health Encyclopedia. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content?ContentID=P02565&ContentTypeID=90
