Update On Current Teen Trends: vaping, sexual identity and social media
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
The Stigma of Mental Illness
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.ne
For people who suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar, OCD, etc., it can be hard to share this openly with family and friends. If your teenager has any of these diagnoses, the stigma is even more profound. As a rule, your teenager’s peers are not the most accepting when it comes to psychological struggles. On the surface they might be, but they tend to gossip about these things to their friends. In my work with teenagers I’ve noticed they are not the best secret-keepers. If your daughter takes an antidepressant and she confides in one of her friends, there is a decent chance a lot of other teens will find out.
This means you’re left with two approaches. The first is to encourage your kids not to tell anyone about their counseling, psychiatric treatment and challenges. While this will prevent them from experiencing teasing, it also might create a sense of shame in them. It’s tough too when they want to spend the night at a friend’s house and need to take a pill at the end of the evening. Their friend might be curious, which means your teenager will have to lie.
The second approach is to work hard with your teenager on not feeling shame. The thing I tell a lot of my clients is that even though they don’t know it, there are a handful of their friends who get medication and/or are also in therapy. I remind them that very likely some of the most popular, good-looking, athletic, smart kids in their school get counseling for things. I try really hard to help them know that emotional struggles happen to most people at some point in their lifetime.
If they can feel confident in their knowledge that they are just fine even if they have a psychological diagnosis, other teens will be more comfortable with it. It also really helps to have some others know in terms of getting support. There will be days when your adolescent needs a pick-me-up from their friends. If their friends know what’s going on, they might better know how to help them.
I had one client who struggled with OCD. It caused her to do a few things that were noticeable in social situations. She just confidently said she had OCD and then was able to laugh about it. Her friends felt a lot more comfortable after that, and laughed right with her. Another thing started to happen. Different teens would come up to her in confidence and tell her about their experiences with anxiety, depression, etc. Because she refused to give in to the stigma of mental illness being something shameful, she became a safe refuge for a great number of struggling teens.
The stigma associated with mental illness makes us want to hide. It makes us want to keep it to ourselves, and fight through it alone. Unfortunately that makes the battle a lot more challenging to overcome. When I struggled with an eating disorder my junior and senior year of high school I didn’t tell anyone. When it progressed and continued into college I was much more open about it. At that point I found I was able to get the support I needed, which was the first step toward healing. I want the same for your teenager.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
Help! My Teen Wants A Tatoo (Or Some Other Style I’m Not Happy With)
Oh no! It’s finally happened! Your teen has come home asking for permission to get a tatoo. Maybe you have a hundred tatoos already so this doesn’t really bother you. However, if you’re like most parents you’re not exactly ecstatic about this new development. Here are some therapist thoughts on what to do when your teenager wants to do something to their body you aren’t really comfortable supporting (or flat out refuse to permit):
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
Getting Your Teen to Help Around the House
Getting your teen to do housework is possible!
Image courtesy of artur84 via freedigitalphotos.net.
You work full-time and your teenager is home after school. It feels very frustrating that they stay home a good part of the day, or are out having fun with friends while the house needs a lot of attention. Maybe you don’t even care about the chores around the house if they’d just keep their room clean, bathroom picked up, and put away their dishes. How do you deal with this?
1. Let them know how you feel. This is not to be said in anger or with hostility. That is the quickest way to ensure a teenager isn’t listening to you. On the other hand, if you gently tell them it’s frustrating for you, or that you feel taken advantage of, or that you are overwhelmed and stressed, they will often listen. This isn’t true for every teen but if you don’t get a kind reaction when you’re truly being kind, there are likely other problems in your relationship that need addressing.
2. Make sure you ask. As obvious as this sounds, a lot of parents lament they don’t get any help around the house, but they don’t specifically ask for what they need. You might have hoped your adolescent would take the initiative, look around, and just see what needs doing. This is great in theory but pretty much will never happen. Try writing them a reasonable list each day before you leave to work, asking things be done before you get home (Reasonable for a teen who has no history of cleaning is probably a 30 minute task).
3. Attach monetary value to certain tasks. This works for the highly social child. If you have a teenager who loves to be out with friends, this will be effective. Here’s the caveat, if you plan to make them earn their going out money by doing tasks around the house, you can’t give money otherwise. It’s fine to pay for their sports or things they need for school. However, if they want to meet a friend for lunch, absolutely no money! You can gently remind them they will get a few dollars when the house has been vacuumed, which is a great way they can pay for their own lunch. Something else you’ll notice happening, when they have to earn their spending money they are more careful with it.
4. Require it. There are certain minimum tasks that each household should require of every member. If you want to require everyone to keep their bathrooms and bedrooms picked up, make sure yours is too. There’s nothing an adolescent resents more than a hypocritical parent. It’s fine to attach privileges to the completion of these minimum tasks. One family I worked with had success when they told their teen daughter the bathroom and bedroom had to be picked up each night by 8pm. If it was, she got the privilege of using her cell phone the next day. If not, they would keep it and she could try again to have everything picked up by the following evening. They were very careful not to bend on this, and she fell into line within a week. If she finished at 8:05pm, they thanked her for cleaning up, but still did not give the phone the next day. Boundaries around these types of limits must be strict and unemotional.
It is possible to get your teen to help you around the house. It’s all in how you ask, and how consistent you are with whatever rules you set up. Once you are able to get their help, it’s great for your relationship because you’re nagging less often, and they feel a sense of pride.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
Too Much Authority In Parenting Doesn’t Work
If you’re a parent who wishes to connect better with your teen, you’ll have to have elements of friendship in your relationship. The parents who know how to listen well and care about what their kids care about seem to also have authority. The parents I see in therapy who just try and control behavior with discipline have either a rebellious teen, or one who doesn’t share much with them. If you really want to influence how your teen thinks, their moral compass, and their ability to make decisions later in life without you, you have to be in their hearts. They need to learn to think and feel through hard things, and that’s impossible if you use your emotional muscle to prevent them from making mistakes.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
How to Argue Effectively With Your Teenager
Arguing with a teen can seem impossible, but it’s actually not.
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
To argue effectively with your teenager, you both have to be listening. It doesn’t do a lot of good just to try and overpower each other. Here’s the mistake a lot of teens and parents both make when they are disagreeing: they continue to restate the same point repeatedly. When the other person doesn’t seem to hear it, they just say it more loudly. Eventually the tone of voice gets rude and then the argument can turn nasty. That’s when teenagers are blamed for “having an attitude,” or “being disrespectful,” or “talking back.”
It’s essential to realize deescalation has to occur before anything else. This means the discussion must remain calm. It’s completely fine, and actually positive to feel and express emotions. It’s not encouraged to do this offensively, with a blaming and/or defensive attitude. When’s the last time you were happy to hear someone’s point after they called you a name, rolled their eyes, or spoke with contempt in their voice? I know I have no interest in what someone has to say after that. All I’m thinking is what a jerk they are, and then I dig my heels in.
Parents and teenagers ask me all the time why it’s so much easier to talk about things in my office than at home. The answer is in remaining deescalated. When a family is learning to communicate better my primary goal is to keep the emotional triggers deescalated. I do this by slowing the discussion down and making sure each side acknowledges what they’ve just been told by the other side. In other words, I make sure parents are listening to their adolescents, and vice versa. I also don’t allow blaming. I ask each person in the room to expound on anything they’ve said by also explaining their current emotional state. For example, a teen might say to her mom, “I really want to be able to go to the party even though there won’t be any parents there.” When asked to expound on this, she may say, “I feel left out if I can’t go. I also feel I’m not trusted if I’m not allowed to go.” While this may not cause Mom to change her mind, she can certainly relate to feeling left out and not trusted. Those are really unpleasant emotions. Instead of Mom arguing that these types of parties are unsafe, Mom can tell her daughter she hates those emotions too. Once Daughter feels heard, she and Mom can work together to come up with some kind of creative solution.
It’s so incredibly important to communicate with your teenagers in a way that deescalates them. You won’t even have an impact on them if they are angry, defensive, and otherwise emotionally charged; they are not ready to listen in that state. You aren’t ready to listen either and the only two options become either fighting or shutting down. You may get your child to comply with you, but they will resent you. This is not what your objective is. The objective is always to keep them safe and teach them whatever they need to learn from a situation.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Lauren Goodman, MS, MFT
Philosophy
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.
For Teens
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