 For most of us, it's been more than a few years since high school. Looking back, you might remember the good times with friends, as well as some moments that you'd just as soon forget. But for children today, high school is a pressure cooker of emotions and responsibilities, and that's before adding social media and the many ways that drama can follow your child home, increasing anxieties and providing no respite in the modern teen's life.
Making matters worse, teens aren't as adept at dealing with stress as adults, which further exacerbates the impact of uncomfortable feelings that may dominate your teen's day. Caused by an emotional response to a situation, upcoming event or some other external stimuli, stress is how the body deals with emotional and physical pressure, and many of our kids are drowning in it. As adults, we may look back on our teenage years as filled with superfluous worry and drama. But in the moment, teenage stress is every bit as real as more grown-up worries of work, money management and all the other stressors of adult life. And because stress is personal and subjective, it truly may be the case that your teenager is more stressed than you are. The Causes of Stress Today, just being a teen is stressful in and of itself. There are the normal commitments of school and extra-curricular activities such as sports or clubs, as well as countless other stressors that may come from home, peers and a desire to do well and succeed. Add on a part-time job and the constant reminder that university and adulthood is just around the corner -- and then there's that worldwide pandemic, social strife and environmental issues that kids today see as inheritable problems down the line. In all, it's a wonder our kids aren't more stressed. But the real problem is that many of them are. While it may look like your teenager is building confidence and accomplishments, odds are they're stressed and overwhelmed -- and while stress can be good in small doses, helping to drive your child to excel, too much is debilitating, and it may be doing long-term psychological harm. Identifying Stress Before seeking out calming techniques for your teenager, it's important to recognize stress when it's present. But because everyone responds differently to stress -- exploding over the smallest things or bottling emotions inside until they spill over, and everything in between -- you can't judge a person's stress level from their actions. Instead, look for the common manifestations of stress such as headaches, irritability, insomnia or other sleep issues, as well as trouble concentrating and nausea. While some stress can be good, helping increase our focus and attention when it matters most, too much stress -- especially for teens that lack coping mechanisms and techniques for managing it -- can quickly overwhelm and introduce a sense of despair. Some kids are better at managing their stress, but it goes without saying that no teenager should be stuck with a daily sense of burden. Calming Techniques for Teenagers The good news is that with a little bit of work, your teenager can learn calming techniques that will help them manage their daily stress load. Some teens see a marked improvement with a bit of exercise when stress starts to rise, while others do well with an organizational approach to knocking things off the to-do list. But whatever approach you and your teen take, it's important to set priorities. With a comprehensive plan of attack, your teen will be able to focus on the important stuff first, in addition to the benefit of breaking down more complicated problems into smaller, more easily accomplished tasks. Another important calming technique for teenagers is to set realistic goals. Instead of encouraging your teen to overreach and fall short, leading to disappointment and more stress, try helping them set more realistic goals that can be achieved. Once they build up a few successes, future stressors may even turn into a drive to get more accomplished When dealing with stress, it's important for your teenager to acknowledge their feelings. Stress isn't wrong or something to be ashamed of -- we all deal with stress from time to time, and it's important to realize that stress is a natural response to the difficulties of life. The next calming technique for teenagers is for them to accept and move forward when confronted with an undesirable outcome or situation. No one's perfect, and obsessing about shortcomings and failures can be destructive for overachievers and those that demand perfection from themselves. But sometimes a situation is simply too much, and prolonged exposure only increases anxiety and stress. In these instances, taking a break can be a great idea. Whether it's going for a walk or bike ride -- or getting creative with a musical instrument or pen and paper -- getting out of the stressful situation allows your teen's mind to unwind and recover, and they just might find that when they return, progress is just around the corner. Another useful calming technique for stressed teenagers is to get by with a little help from their friends. Instead of shouldering the burden alone, or turning to coping mechanisms such as alcohol, tobacco or other substances, friends can provide the right kind of support to lift your teen above the challenges of adolescent life. Interestingly enough, while stress is largely personal, stress relief often comes in the form of spending time with others. When your teen helps someone else, be it a friend or family member, they'll feel better about themselves for having helped, and they'll also see how their actions affect how others feel, a key component of empathy. If all else fails, it's important for your teen to love themselves. If they have a poor or distorted view of who they are, they'll never be able to build a foundation for the difficulties in life. By accepting and loving themselves, including all their unique qualities, they'll discover even more ways to get the best out of themselves and any situation, which will make for a more emotionally healthy teen. Seek Professional Help If after applying several calming techniques your teenager is still struggling with stress and hopelessness, they may need professional help. While a certain amount of stress is normal, a feeling of despair or giving up could indicate a more serious issue. By speaking with a professional that can help them organize and sort out their complicated and overwhelming feelings, they'll learn more tools and tricks that will help them cope whenever stress hits. But it's important to take extra care not to introduce professional help as a last-ditch effort to "fix" things. In this instance, the burden is placed on the child, which can propagate a feeling of inadequacy or disappointment in their struggle with stress. Instead, present professional help as a third-party source of independent assistance, a resource that your teen can leverage to help them cope. After all, your goal is their mental health, not a behavioral modification that makes them easier to deal with. If you have an overly stressed teen and don't know where to turn, look to the experts at Quick Results Counseling. Unlike never-ending, weekly check-ins that do little except waste time and money, our approach to counseling is that therapy isn't a forever pursuit. Most patients get the help they need in about three to six months, with tools that encourage coping and dealing, not endless chatter about feelings. Contact us today to see how we can help your child develop the emotional toolbox to overcome the challenges of being a teenager today.
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 Everyone feels nervous and anxious from time to time, and as adults it’s very easy to dismiss the anxiety our children feel because we tend to look at their situations from the lens of adulthood. Too many times, we tend to see our children encounter stress and think, for example, “Why should my daughter worry so much about what a classmate said about her clothes today? Doesn’t she understand that in the grand scheme of things, this really doesn’t matter at all?” The answer to these thoughts is that no, your child does not understand the big picture, because her “picture” of life is much smaller than those of us who have lived a few decades longer.
Therefore, it’s up to us as parents to recognize the signs of anxiety and to attempt to handle them as soon as they arise. Doing so could help prevent small, daily problems that many children face from developing into serious situations that will ultimately require professional intervention. Quick Results Counseling has been working with children suffering from different forms of anxiety for years, and below we’d like to present some easy and straightforward child anxiety hacks designed to calm your child and help your little one process this stress in as healthy a way as possible. Signs of Childhood Anxiety The first step we should take before getting into examples of child anxiety hacks is to examine some of the common warning signs that a child is suffering from this problem in the first place. There is a difference between “ordinary” daily stresses and full-blown or even developing anxiety. A few examples of childhood anxiety include:
Every child is different, but the examples above are common examples of a young person who is experiencing anxiety. The “good” news in this regard is that no one knows your child as well as you, so if your parental instinct tells you that something is wrong in this regard, chances are that you’re correct. If this is the case, you need to take additional steps to help put this problem in the past. Breathing Exercises One of the most basic child anxiety hacks is also the most basic human function: breathing. When a child encounters a situation that prompts anxiety, he or she is going to react like many adults in that the child’s breathing will become rapid and shallow. Think about the last time you were extremely nervous – you probably found yourself gasping for breath and feeling your heart pound in your chest. Someone with anxiety experiences this problem often, especially when faced with a triggering event. If you start to notice this shortness of breath or rapid breathing, take your child aside and speak to him or her in a soothing voice. Ask your child to breathe slowly, counting to three while inhaling and counting to three while exhaling. You could also teach your child to inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. This exercise could help slow your child’s heart rate and help calm the nerves that are firing that are leading to this problem in the first place. Tell the Story We are taught from an early age to face our fears, and for the most part that’s a good strategy. It’s also one of the potential child anxiety hacks that you can use if your child is struggling before dealing with a certain situation. If you see this occurring, ask your child to tell the story of what’s happening inside of his or her mind. Ask your child to describe what he or she is feeling, what he or she is seeing and what is causing the fear that he or she is feeling. Once again, it’s important to be as reassuring as possible. When you hear the story, discuss it calmly and rationally, and don’t make too big a deal out of it. However, be careful not to be dismissive with your tone, either, as that could make the child feel belittled and lead to a bottling up of those emotions and thoughts. If possible, as your child opens up about those fears, make little jokes that prompt laughter in the face of that description, as that will help your child realize that there’s a lighter side to almost anything. Analyze Together Afterward Finally, one of the most important child anxiety hacks is to make sure that you take some time to analyze what occurred after your child encounters an anxious situation. Whether your child navigated things successfully or not, discussing the process afterward can help him or her process things and put it all into context. Once again, describing the fears encountered and what specifically led to the internal problems is helpful, and the more this is done the better off things could turn out. To repeat, though, you need to be careful not to either take too serious or too dismissive a tone, as that could lead to something other than the desired effect. Encourage your child to tell you everything. Congratulate your child if he or she managed to overcome this anxiety and handle the situation, but reassure the child if he or she could not get through things without running from them. As far as things are concerned for parents, you too should give yourself one of the common child anxiety hacks that’s otherwise known as knowledge. For instance, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, approximately 4.4 million children between the ages of 3 and 17 have diagnosed anxiety. That doesn’t even take into account those who have not been diagnosed. In other words, this is a common problem and something that can and often is overcome successfully. If your child is persistently struggling with anxiety, you should seek professional intervention. You can always feel free to contact Quick Results Counseling for the help you need, and in the meantime we wish you the best with your child anxiety hacks. |
Dr. Jayn Psy.D.CEO of a San Francisco Bay Area group practice. She specializes in trauma treatment in adults and children Archives
May 2021
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