Heading back to school can be scary for some teens Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This is a time of year when I suddenly get an upswing in calls from parents worried about their teenager’s anxiety level. Right around the time kids have to go back to school, things start to stress them out. It makes sense, they are about to have social and academic pressure again after three months of relaxation time.
Here are some things you can do to help your teenager reduce their stress as school starts back up:
1) Help them go into school with an academic plan. Some teens are anxious about school because they work really hard in school, and they anticipate too much homework. Other adolescents are anxious about starting school again because they don’t work hard enough, and they fear poor grades. Some kids need help understanding how to work smarter instead of harder. Other kids need help learning how to study effectively.
2) Talk about any social pressures they might feel. For a great number of middle and high school students, there are intense worries about fitting in. They really want to be liked. Some even wish to be popular. For other teenagers, there is anxiety around dating. It’s different for each one, but it will increase as school gets started again.
3) Some adolescents worry about how they’ll get along with you when school starts again. All summer you’ve been letting them hang out with friends, go to bed late, and haven’t asked too much of them. You might have asked them to do a couple chores, but that’s the extent of it. Now you’ll be back to checking on them daily about if their homework is complete, telling them to get off their phone and get to sleep, and waking them up early every morning. When you have to force a teenager to follow a schedule they don’t care for, it’s bound to create some battles. In general, I encourage you to turn over as much of this to your child as is appropriate for their age and maturity. If it’s up to your teen to wake up for school, your role changes from irritating parent to sympathetic parent.
4) Some teens get anxiety about how bored they will be sitting in class. It’s tough to sit for 6-8 hours per day listening to someone talk about things that don’t interest you. It’s easy to make it through some classes, but others are dreadful. I used to feel this way about math. It was complete torture to sit through two hour block classes of geometry. I found it very dull. I was definitely in a worse mood on days I had math. While there isn’t much you can do about this, you can certainly let your teenager know you understand how they feel. Sometimes that is enough to help them feel better.
I guess most of what I’m saying is to talk to your teen about the start of school. Sometimes their anxiety shows up in other ways. They might tell you they’re suddenly stressed about their sports team, friends, death, or you name it. A lot of times though, underneath all this is a worry about going back to school again. If you can help them recognize this, you can work together to take steps to help control it.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
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Feeling left out really hurts. Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Today I was at the park with my daughter. We saw our neighbors there. They had their 6 year old daughter, a cousin of about the same age, and were meeting a friend who also had a 6 year old daughter. While the three girls were playing together, another mom brought her 6 year old daughter to the park. It was clear the kids all knew each other from school because greetings were exchanged. Despite this, there was no effort to include the new girl. I watched as she played near the other three. They never made eye contact with her. A couple of times she contributed to the conversation and the other three girls acted as if they couldn’t even hear her. Finally she gave up and enlisted her mom to play with her.
It was a bit of a shock to me how early this all starts. As a therapist I should know this, but since I mainly work with teenagers, I don’t encounter the cliques of young children on a daily basis.
However, I do know both personally, and from my clients, how devastating it feels to be on the outside during teenage years. I experienced being left out mostly ages 11 through 12 and it was painful. Many clients I work with continue to feel this pain through high school.
For the boys and girls who come to therapy because they are disincluded, we work hard on assertiveness (not to be confused with rudeness or aggressiveness). It seems kids who are not included lack the ability to confidently assert themselves. They express a weakness in their opinions that leaves them open to ridicule. They don’t defend themselves when they are teased, they struggle to tease back, and they personalize the off-handed things their peers say. It is hard work, but not impossible work, to help these teenagers change how they relate to other teens.
On the other hand, I think there is a responsibility parents have to work with their teenagers on being inclusive. Kindness is natural to some, but for most it is learned. We all like certain people better than others, and are drawn to certain personalities more than others. It takes maturity to include the people who are not as likable for whatever reason. This doesn’t mean your teenager needs to be best friends with someone they don’t mesh with. However, it’s really important for your child to make an effort to be inclusive in group situations.
Here are examples of situations where you get the opportunity to help your teenager practice being inclusive. If your teenager is on a sports team there is always one or two other teens who don’t quite fit in with the team. If your teenager is in a high school youth group or small group, when the whole group is together help your teen practice making an extra effort with the ones who struggle to flow with the group. These are important skills to learn because they teach empathy, awareness, and compassion. Besides this, your child just might make a world of difference for someone else who feels dejected and rejected.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Love your teens by letting them figure some things out on their own. Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Instilling confidence in your teenager is a challenging proposition. One of the primary places they develop confidence is through their relationship with their parents. When a parent does too much for the teen, it hurts their ability to believe in their own capability. Here’s an example of what I mean:
I have worked with several families where this has occurred: Mom or dad loves their son or daughter so deeply that they cannot stand to see the child get hurt. So, they help them with everything. They help them study for tests at school, help them in their sport by providing private lessons, give them a car when they turn 16, give them money to buy whatever clothes make up the latest trend, etc. While this is very kind, it actually hurts the teenager in the long-run.
Here’s what I see happen in my office all the time. I see a teenager who is very frustrated with a parent, or both parents. When we start to look into the reason why, the teen will tell me it’s because they aren’t allowed to do anything for themselves. They see their parents’ help as condescending and displaying a lack of confidence in them. One girl told me when her mom asked her if she studied for her math test, the girl took it to mean mom doesn’t trust her to get it done. When we talked to mom about it she said it was not because of a lack of trust, but instead caring about her daughter feeling upset if she forgets to study and then doesn’t do well. I told the mom to let her child figure these things out by herself because it shows that mom is confident in her daughter’s ability to organize her schoolwork. On the contrary, if mom reminds her daughter to do everything, it displays a lack of confidence in her daughter’s ability.
Parents, if you’re not giving your adolescent the room to be responsible commensurate with their age, you’re accidentally sending a message to your teenager that you don’t believe in him or her. This is almost certainly not what you’re intending. Most likely you’re intending to make things easier on your teenager and trying to help him or her avoid painful consequences. If you know your teen isn’t great at leaving herself enough time to write essays for English class, so you require her to sit down and work at it a little bit each day, you might be doing her a disservice (This depends on how old she is of course). It could be a lot better for her to start the essay at the last minute, and then feel the pain of getting a low grade. She will likely decide a better course of action next time. You can always offer to help her make a better plan next time. If you do though, leave it up to her to approach you for help once you’ve put it out there that you’re willing. You can tell her you know she desires to do better, and you believe in her that she will figure out how to make this happen; after that, leave it alone.
So, if you’d like to help your teenager know you believe in him or her, and to become more confident in his or her abilities, give them room to do things themselves. Don’t be afraid of their failures. A small metaphorical scrape of the knees today can save a broken leg in the future.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
