Tonight with your 13 to 17 year old

The prompt

“Tell me about a time something knocked you down and you actually came back stronger than before.”

What to listen for

A confident retelling, especially one where they name what they learned or how they're different now, shows real pride in their own resilience, and that they see themselves as someone capable of recovering, not just someone things happen to.

If the story focuses more on who helped them through it, that shows they value the people who showed up, and it's worth reflecting that back to them warmly.

If they can't think of one, you might gently offer one you remember witnessing, sometimes they need someone else to name the comeback before they can see it themselves.

What this tells you

How they tell their comeback story shows whether they see themselves as someone who grows through hard things, which shapes how they'll face the next one.