Why Outdoor Adventure Builds Teen Confidence Better Than a Lecture
We all want our young people to be more confident. After all, you see how great they are – why can’t they see it? You’ve told your child over and over that they need confidence or that you’re proud of them, but it never seems to click. Adults love telling teenagers to “be confident.” Surprisingly, their confidence does not grow, even after our voice does.
What is Confidence?
First, let’s use a different word. Researchers often use the term “self-efficacy,” which simply means a person’s belief that they can complete a task, solve a problem, or reach a goal. Sounds a lot like confidence to me. Confidence is not looking in the mirror and liking how those jeans fit. It’s not walking a certain way with swagger (or rizz). Confidence is the quiet voice in your head saying, “You can do this.”
Why Do Lectures Fall Short?
Hey, no one loves a good lecture more than we do, but there’s a fundamental problem with lectures. You can’t practice what you hear. Lectures are great at explaining the concepts of confidence, courage, resilience, and leadership, but your child can’t fully practice courage just by hearing about it or reviewing a curriculum. They need real-world experiences to help reinforce formal learning. It’s one thing to hear it, it’s another to believe it. Teens do not need to be told they are capable forever. At some point, they need proof.
Do Outdoor Adventure Programs Help?
In 2021, a systematic review and meta-analysis (which combines the results of many studies to see what they say as a whole) found that outdoor education programs improved adolescents’ self-efficacy with a medium effect size (Fang, Lu, Gill, Liu, Chyi, Chen). Another analysis found that adventure education programs enhanced young people’s self-efficacy by providing opportunities for them to overcome challenges and achieve goals in demanding environments (A. Ghani, Lau, Lu, Zhou, Wang, 2025). In plain English: well-designed outdoor programs give teens chances to do hard, meaningful things, and that can strengthen their confidence.
Why Does Outdoor Adventure Help Build Confidence?
Outdoor and adventure education programs do this in several ways. First, we provide real evidence of their ability to accomplish a goal. Each day on an adventure, groups are hiking, paddling, cooking their meals, serving the community, or something similar. This provides a real opportunity for teens to set goals and accomplish them – often when they may have been worried about their ability to do so. At the end of our Land of the Trembling Earth Adventure, the participants will be able to say that they paddled over 15 miles in slow-moving water. This is something they will always be able to say, “I did that.”
Second, the outdoors gives immediate feedback. You paddle incorrectly; you go the wrong way. You pack the wrong thing, not a super comfortable experience. You don’t listen to instructions and decide to dance in your canoe? The canoe may decide you look better in the water. Outdoors, teens learn hands-on.. They try something, notice what happens, make adjustments, and try again until they succeed. This is a huge confidence booster.
Third, outdoor adventure with a group requires contribution. You have to help paddle, set up camp, carry group supplies, listen, make decisions together, and more. This creates an environment where young people feel like they belong. They feel useful and like they have influence. These are healthy building blocks to foster confidence. Our smaller groups also ensure that all youth feel this – and that they don’t get hidden in the shadows.
Fourth, outdoor adventure programs are essentially a supported challenge. We all need things that stretch us out of our comfort zone in a safe and supportive way. Telling someone to sink or swim is not development. It is just bad lifeguarding. On the other hand, having adults who care about you and your success is support. In outdoor programs like ours, we do stretch participants outside of their comfort zones. We are going to stretch them, and they may struggle. If they do, we will be there to support them, help them reset, and encourage them to try again. This stretching in a safe environment allows young people to start believing they can do more – it builds confidence.
Lastly, outdoor programs create stories that your child will remember. They may not remember the time you let them pick the movie out for movie night, but they will remember the cool place they visited, how they climbed a mountain, explored somewhere significant, learned about a new place, met different people, and how they accomplished it all. They will remember the stories, the way they felt when they saw that view, and how they made it. These are life’s applesauce moments – the stories we will still be telling when we are old enough to have very strong feelings about fruit cups.
So, How Does Bridgeford Do This?
At Bridgeford Adventures, adventure is the vessel we use to help teens build life skills like confidence, responsibility, teamwork, and resilience. We are deeply focused on skill development and creating a positive environment for participants. We do this in a few ways.
One, we utilize small groups. This ensures that all participants feel important and vital to the group. Our staff-to-youth ratio never exceeds one to six.
Two, we place a youth development professional on each adventure. This means someone with a degree in youth development, education, or a closely related field is going on the adventure. They understand how teens learn, grow, struggle, and succeed.
Three, we debrief and reflect on everything that we do. Without reflection, the experience is not as impactful. This is the experiential learning model we use: do, reflect, and apply.
Lastly, our adventures are built to challenge youth in a safe, supportive environment where our team and other participants cheer on each other and uplift one another.
This Sounds Great, But I’m Not Sure My Child Is Ready.
We get it. Some of the things we do may sound extreme or too challenging. But we promise, your child does not need to be a wilderness expert. All they need to be is willing to learn and to try. Our leaders will guide them through the rest.
Citations
A. Ghani, R. B., Lau, P. W. C., Lu, N., Zhou, P., & Wang, J. J. (2025). Investigating the impact of adventure education on children’s physical, cognitive and socio-emotional development: A mixed method systematic review. PLoS ONE, 20(6), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0327181
Fang, B.-B., Lu, F. J. H., Gill, D. L., Liu, S. H., Chyi, T., & Chen, B. (2021). A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Outdoor Education Programs on Adolescents’ Self-Efficacy. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 128(5), 1932–1958. https://doi.org/10.1177/00315125211022709