Anxiety in Teenagers

Let’s imagine for a moment, a typical day of a teenager. She is on her way home from school after a good, average or not so good day. Maybe someone said something nasty about her online. Perhaps she struggled keeping her up with her classes and the busyness of her day. Maybe someone filmed her falling over as she walked up the stairs to go to her next class. Maybe she overheard a group of kids talking, and she swears they were talking and laughing about her.

On her way home from school, her phone constantly vibrates with notifications from friends, from group chats, from apps, from parents, from school, from strangers, always reminding her that the world never stops needing something from her. She arrives home and heads straight to the safety of her room, a place she loves to get away from the world and just chill. As she sits alone in her room, silent, still and shut away from the world, she pulls out her phone to have some downtime and relax.  

She heads to Instagram and starts scrolling through all the beautiful, perfectly altered and selected images that appear on her feed. She doesn’t think about the fact that most of these images have been photoshopped or chosen from hundreds taken to find the perfect one. As she continues to scroll, she grabs her stomach, looks at her thighs, her hair, her eyelashes, her room … nothing she sees around her comes close to the pictures she is seeing. What is wrong with me?  

Next, she heads to Snapchat, hoping to change how she is feeling and check out what all her friends are doing. Here she can see all the group chats she is NOT included in and the streaks her friends have with other friends that are way longer than what she has (therefore much more important). She can see where all her friends are, in real-time and to her surprise a group of her friends are all down the beach, together, without her, at a gath that she was not invited to. No one told her and now she is watching everyone (at least it feels like everyone) having a great time while she sits in her bedroom.  

The information from her phone keeps flowing through, and she hasn’t even had a chance to process anything from her day. There doesn’t seem to be time to process life. She is smart and knows on an intellectual level that she can’t be included in everything and knows most images are not real, but this doesn’t stop her feeling unworthy. Her anxious thoughts begin to rise, causing her heart to race, her blood to pump through her body and the over-thinking escalates. Her days may vary, but this is all she knows – this is her world and this is all she has ever known. 

Comparing our childhood and teenage years to what your child experiences is no longer viable. In fact, it is impossible. In our childhood, we suspected who were the popular kids, who were the smart kids and who had all the parties. Often we didn’t know anything about a party until Monday at school and even then, there was rarely any evidence thrown in your face. If we had a bad day at school, we could go home to the safety of our bedroom and no one could get inside our minds. We had time to process the day. Today, the teenagers know and often they can watch it all in real-time. They know who is popular as the likes and comments tell them. They know who everyone thinks is pretty, athletic, smart, better than them because it is always in their face. They are exposed to information way beyond what their young mind is capable of processing. 

And this is where an anxious mind starts … and this is where connected and understanding parenting is vital.   

1. Listen. The first way to help your teenager not only survive the teenage years but to thrive is to listen. Listening involves removing the judgment from what you hear, which is a challenge for most parents. When you truly listen to your teenager, from a place of love, not fear, you are showing them that you see them – really see them as a person and you value them. Often parents listen from a place of fear, of what could go wrong. Listening is not about waiting to respond and letting your teenager know what you know and why your way is better. Just because you were a teenager once, we have already discovered that comparing the two is like comparing blue tooth AirPods to our old adjustable headphones with the long cord.

Listening = connection. Not listening = pulling away and shutting down.   

2. Work on your own beliefs. Many parents who had a good upbringing what to replicate it with their children. I get this. However, the way we live, the pace of life, the constant access to information and even the way we interact with each has changed dramatically since you were a child and therefore so should our parenting styles. If a belief is causing constant friction and draining you, maybe it is time to take a closer look at it. A belief is just a thought you have had for so long that you BELIEVE it to be true – but maybe, just maybe it’s time to revisit the belief and find out if it is working in the modern world. If you hear yourself saying “should” or “my way” or “when I was a child” a lot, this is a great place to start analysing any beliefs that may be obsolete. 

3. Build your Emotional Bank Account (EBA) with your teenager. Research still shows, parents still have a major influence in their child’s life, and yes, even in the teenage years. The stronger the EBA you have with your teenager is, meaning the more in the black you are (positive interactions), the greater your influence will be over your teenager. The EBA is about connecting with your teenager, constantly building the trust and letting your teenager know you see them. To assess whether your EBA is in the black or the red, analyse your interactions with your teenager over a few days. A strong EBA has 5 x positive interactions to every 1 x negative interaction. 

4. Anxiety is contagious. If you struggle with over-thinking, or perfectionism or make all your decisions from a place of fear, start by working on yourself. Teenagers are smart. They can spot someone who is not telling them the truth, especially their parents. We cannot possibly teach our teenagers about reducing anxiety and living in the present moment by being mindful when we do not do it ourselves. 

Teenagers are truly the most amazing, beautiful and in tune people and if we allow ourselves to learn from them, together we can reduce anxiety and depression and appriacaite this wonderful gift of life we have been blessed with. 

Have an awesome day and be amazing

P.S: If you would like to show your teenager that you see them, you truly hear them and that you are their number one supporter, check out this #selfcare in a box 📦 toolkit. 

https://bekind2you.work/selfcare-in-a-box

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