Help your teen be proud of who they see in the mirror- teach them to be significant. Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Today in church I heard a great little tidbit from Pastor Rick Warren. He said, “Seek to be significant, not prominent.” I thought that was extremely applicable to the teenagers here in Orange County. We’re trained to differentiate ourselves, be a leader, and try to stand out from a very young age. The fact is though, there can really only be a few leaders. Everyone else has to be a worker-bee. We need to teach our teens that this is not a bad thing.
I have seen a number of teenagers in my counseling office who are struggling with the fact that they don’t stand out. Sometimes they are frustrated they don’t stand out academically. Other times they wish they could be the best athlete on their team. Still others desperately long to be the most popular teen in their school. They often see themselves as insignificant because they aren’t prominent.
For your adolescent to believe they lack significance because they are not prominent is a fallacy. Significance is something one decides to develop. It’s our job as the parents of our children to help our kids focus on doing significant things. It’s also our job to help them understand that these actions are not usually glorified, or attention-grabbing.
Here’s what I mean: It’s very significant for your teenager to go to a party where everyone else is drinking alcohol but they choose not to drink, and maybe even call you to pick them up. It’s significant for your adolescent to be one of the slower runners on their cross-country team, but they are always positive and cheering on the other runners. It’s significant if your teenager chooses to acknowledge and respect you in front of other kids, even when it’s unpopular. It’s significant if your adolescent volunteers at a soup kitchen on a Saturday morning before all their other friends are up; none of these things garner prominence.
If you work very hard at helping your children make a contribution to this world, and help them understand that for the most part those actions do not get them attention or accolades, you will help raise happy, self-assured, motivated teenagers. You will teach your teen what it means to have humility. You will help your adolescent know how to work hard. You will teach your child integrity and honesty. They won’t mind taking the longer road if it’s the right one. They will be patient, intentional, focused, and able to set long-term goals.
In short, if you teach your teenager the importance of being significant, whether or not that gets them prominence, you will help them develop strong character and inner contentedness.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Anxiety sucks! It’s the constant worry about things out of one’s control. It can be physical too. Do you ever have those days where your body is irritated or agitated for no good reason?
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Teens are consistently short on sleep. Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
School, sports, homework, social life, texting…these are all things that get prioritized above your teenager’s sleep. There honestly is enough time in a day to accomplish all these goals, but barely. If your adolescent isn’t carefully managing his or her schedule, sleep will get put on the back burner.
The average teenager needs to sleep 9 hours and 15 minutes each night! If they have to get up for school at 6:30am, that means falling asleep at 9:15 the night before. For the vast majority of teenagers, this is definitely not happening. They sleep around 6 hours per night during the school week, and then sleep 12+ hours on the weekend.
Here’s the problem with getting inadequate sleep during the week. Your teen is more likely to have depression, irritability, struggle to remember things in school, be less efficient, have a weaker immune system, have more acne, might have weight gain, and lead to an unhealthy diet (people crave more sweets and fats when they’re tired, and they use more caffeine). These are not small issues.
Sleep needs to be one of the top priorities. As a parent it is important to force the issue when it comes to sleep. Insist your teenager gets at least 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep during school nights. This doesn’t mean they lay in bed looking at their phones, it means truly asleep. Do whatever you have to. Many adolescents don’t have the will-power to turn off their devices, or text their friends less often so their homework is finished sooner. It might be up to you to restrict their use.
I have worked with a huge number of teenagers who come into counseling for symptoms of depression. When we get them back on track with their sleep, their symptoms improve rapidly. They feel more energized, are nicer, do better in school, and are overall happier.
I know it’s really hard to tell your kids what to do at this point. However, some things need to be non-negotiable. Help your teenager be his or her best self by getting regular sleep. A great number of parents spend time and money getting their teens treatment for their skin, getting help for depression, getting a tutor in difficult subjects, etc. They forget to try the simplest thing first, which is more consistent sleep.
One challenge adolescents face when dealing with sleep is their circadian rhythm. Adults and small children naturally want to go to bed a little after the sun goes down and wake up a little after the sun comes up. Teenagers go through a phase where they want to stay up late and sleep in late. It’s not just that your child is being irresponsible with their schedule, it’s that their body naturally prefers this schedule. Most high schools though start very early in the morning, making the preferred sleep pattern impossible. As a result a lot of kids stay up really late and then fight with their alarm each morning. this added challenge makes it especially important for you and your teenager to work together to help them get enough sleep during the week.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Teenagers, this post is addressed to you. Some of you aren’t aware if one of your friends has had too much to drink or has overdosed on drugs, but others of you can tell. For those of you who can tell, you may fear calling an ambulance or dropping a friend at the emergency room if they’ve overdosed or had too much to drink. Please, don’t make that mistake! Don’t worry about you getting into trouble. There aren’t many consequences that outweigh what can go wrong if your friend is in physical distress from substances. Being grounded or even getting in trouble with the police will pass in time, but if your friend dies or has permanent physiological damage from an overdose of drugs or alcohol, you will struggle to get past your guilt if you could have gotten them help.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Having good friends is one of the best parts of adolescence. Photo courtesy of Marin and freedigitalphotos.net.
For some of you, you have had the same core group of friends ever since you started school. Your group is so tight-knit that hardly anyone new joins and hardly anyone leaves.
There are also some of you who have that one best friend. You have been best friends as long as you can remember. You’ve done everything together and even your families are close friends. You hardly need anyone else.
Then, there are the rest of us. If you are like I was as an adolescent you have a new “best friend” every few months. You sort of bounce from group to group. For a few weeks or even a few months you hang out with one person. When your activities change, e.g it’s a new sports season, you become really close with someone else. One of the primary factors in determining how close you are with someone is proximity. If you are on the same team, or in the same classes, you become really close. Once your classes change or your season ends, it’s onto someone else.
If you are a little tired of feeling like you’re always starting over at getting close with friends, here are 5 tips I wish I’d known as a teenager. I think if I had followed these, I would have made lifelong friendships instead of friendships that lasted a few months.
1. Stay in the same extra-cirricular activity. If you play on a sports team, stick with it. Stay with the same team. A lot of people switch their allegiance based on getting onto the best team possible. However, the majority of you won’t be playing sports in college, and definitely won’t be playing professionally (If you’re the exception to this, then don’t follow this tip). The point of youth sports is to make really good friends, learn some work-ethic, get exercise and have fun. If you stay with the same group of girls or guys season after season you’re giving yourself the chance to get close with your teammates. The same goes for a scouting troop, school club, dance studio, etc.
2. Try and convince your parents to let you bring a friend on a family vacation. These are the kinds of things that bring you really close to someone. It’s concentrated, one on one time, having a lot of fun with your friend. You build memories that create solid friendship.
3. Work on boundary setting. Some of you allow yourselves to get in with a group or a certain friend who actually doesn’t treat you very well. You don’t really think you will be accepted by anyone else so you put up with tons of garbage. Your “friend” talks behind your back, or makes fun of you in front of others, or is embarrassed to bring you around certain people, or uses you for rides. This is the kind of person that is really nice to you one on one, but kind of sucks when they are around other teens. In these cases, you should definitely consider where you need to draw the line. It’s a little easier to do if you can trust that you can make other friends besides the one who treats you poorly.
4. Talk with your parents about what it means to be a loyal friend. You can’t change anyone else, but you can work on you. Are you doing all the things a loyal friend does? You’re not dating your friend’s ex-girlfriend or boyfriend, are you? That’s a big no-no in the friendship code. Do you stand up for your friends if someone says something rude about them? Do you make plans with a friend and then break them if something better comes along? Pay attention to your behaviors and make sure you’re doing the right thing to be a loyal and true friend.
5. Lastly, if you want to be close with people, do the little things that matter. Make sure you text your friends on their birthdays. Congratulate them when something good happens for them. Just pay attention to the details because they really matter to people.
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.
