Teens, it’s so hard when you feel let down. This is particularly true if you’ve worked at something for a long time and it didn’t pan out. One of our family friends has a daughter who is a senior in high school. She’s worked her whole high school career with her eyes set on UC Berkeley. She didn’t get in. She can’t seem to cope with the disappointment. She is blaming everyone else. She is stomping around mad. She is especially picking at her dad. She’s so upset over this disappointment that she isn’t grateful for what she does have. She has been accepted to some incredible schools, and will likely attend UC San Diego, but she can’t see that for the blessing it is.
When something happens to you, do you handle it better than she has? Her problem is that she thinks this result defines her value. Newsflash: It doesn’t! And whether or not you made a certain team, got a particular prom date, or were mentioned in a certain social media post doesn’t define your value either.
Here are some quick thoughts on recovering from a disappointment.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
I’m stressed. I’m freaked out. I’m worried. I’m feeling uncertain with the unpleasant sense of dread and trepidation that can only happen when something ugly from the past reappears out of nowhere. Let me be real; this is an autobiographical post.
I have moments like this in life. These are the times when the rubber hits the road for a therapist. This is when I am faced with a dilemma: I can either give myself over to panic or I can use the myriad of tools I teach clients every week. After a couple of deep breaths, I choose the latter.
Let me let you in on the problem first. I’ll try and describe the magnitude of fear it evokes in me even though it will seem trivial to you. Sometimes in this profession we get cases that turn out to be high stress for us as therapists. After more than a decade in practice I’ve gotten really good at screening during the initial phone call. This is so that I refer out when I’m not the right fit. However, because I’m human, sometimes one slips past me. This was one of those instances. While this case was transferred to another person’s care quite quickly, it caused a few weeks of intense stress and exhaustion. Now I’ve received a phone call that I’ll need to revisit the case. What’s worse is, I haven’t touched on this case in years so I can hardly remember it. All I can recall is the sense of anxiety that was paired with it. I remember knowing I’d need to refer, and knowing how sensitive it is to tell that to a client; it’s one of the most delicate conversations a therapist ever has to have with patients.
After receiving the phone call I find myself stepping out of a time machine straight back into those dreadful three weeks. I give myself over to stress and angst for about five minutes. Then I take some deep breaths and decide to think. I realize this is the perfect opportunity to practice the good coping skills I preach. Here’s what I do:
I recognize there is time before one has to return a call from a voicemail. I think through all the legal and ethical requirements to release information about a former client. Then I plot out what steps to take so that confidentiality is protected while still honoring the request for information within legal and ethical bounds.
I remind myself, “The past is the past, and it cannot be changed.” You’d be surprised how powerful it is to meditate on that a little bit. Do I wish I’d never taken this case in the first place? Unequivocally yes. However, that choice is far in the rear view mirror, so I all I can do now is the best I can.
I do some calming breathing.
I think through possible outcomes. I see I am WAY overemphasizing the worst possible outcome. Because of my focus on that, I hadn’t initially seen all the other possibilities. This is a common error in thinking when anxious. Anxiety is caused by fear of a possible future event. Usually that event is pretty unlikely. As it turns out, we’re not very good prophets. This is especially the case when we’re feeling anxiety.
I think about how I’ve seen a few hundred clients in the past decade. I remember that most have been really enjoyable. I tell myself one bad instance doesn’t taint everything unless I choose to give it that level of permission.
I have a negative thought creep in even after working all my coping skills. I disenfranchise the thought quickly though by seeing it for what it is (simply a negative thought) and what it isn’t (In other words, just because I think it doesn’t make it true). Our own negative thoughts have the power to hijack our day into “Negativeland” if we permit them. It’s our choice to stay on the hijacked train of thought though. I actually envision myself hopping off the train. I feel much lighter after that.
I go into great detail about ten minutes of my day because it happens to you too. You too find yourself shrouded in negative thoughts of what could be. You too feel panic or fear when triggered. I want you to know two things from today’s post. Firstly, even therapists fight with irrational thoughts, emotions, and reactions. Secondly, you are not stuck in your uncomfortable feelings if you’ll just put in a little work.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
For someone with anxiety, hanging on sometimes feels like the only option.
If you or your teen struggles with anxiety it can be miserable. It’s a feeling of dread that is often in excess of an event. An example of anxiety is having a lot of worry that you will fail your next test even though you’ve never failed one this school year. People who struggle with anxiety really wrestle with believing a severe consequence is coming. Usually people with anxiety are overly confident of a bad result, and do not have enough confidence that a good result will occur.
A tip for this is to honestly assess the reality of a situation. One thing I tell teens who have social fears is that nobody judges you as harshly as you do. I ask the teen, “Even when you hear someone say something stupid, how long do you think about what they said?” The normal answer is, “Not for very long. Not more than 5 minutes.” I tell them, “This is the same for others when you say something you feel is stupid.” Assessing the reality of a feared situation helps reduce anxiety.
It’s difficult to be realistic about outcomes that make us nervous. I worked with a boy who ran cross country at his high school. He was consistently the last person to finish team workouts. He had a lot of anxiety about his first race because he was afraid he would finish dead last in the whole race. He felt certain his teammates would make fun of him. He thought he might even need to give up the sport. He kept saying if only he could even finish second to last it wouldn’t be as bad. When he ran his first race his fear came true- he finished in last place. What he had predicted incorrectly was the reaction of his teammates. They were cheering him into the finish. They gave him a pat on the back when he finished. He felt more a part of the team than he ever had before. He was shocked they cared so much. He discovered that his predictions about the future were partially true, but largely untrue.
When we have anxiety we go through the same process. We think something is impossible to work though. Later we find out that somehow we survived whatever it was we dreaded. It is rarely as unpleasant in reality as it is in our imaginations. Even when it is as unpleasant as we imagine, we have more strength to survive than we thought.
Next time anxiety creeps up on you, you might try a simple exercise. It helps me to write out all the possible outcomes. I then try to put down what percentage chance each one has of occurring. My emotions make me want to rate negative outcomes highly, but when I’m being honest I know I’m inflating the negative. I am able to see that positive outcomes can happen. It calms me down a little bit. I then write down how I will cope with the worst outcome if it does happen. For example, when I was a teenager I always worried that Allison would make fun of me at soccer practice when I messed up (She was not a very nice girl). If I had done this exercise I would’ve recognized that 1) Allison might make fun of me (20%) 2) Allison won’t notice (40%) 3) Allison will notice but say nothing (15%) 4) Allison will notice but say something encouraging (25%). I would then try to work through how I would cope if Allison did make fun of me: 1) I will look at her and say nothing or 2) I will tell her that’s not very nice or 3) I will look at one of my other friends and just shake my head. This would’ve reduced my anxiety about soccer practice a lot. Unfortunately I didn’t have these tools in high school so I just dreaded practice for the 3 years that we were on the same team. How sad!
I hope this helps you or your teen next time anxiety takes over because it really is an awful feeling. Nobody wants to dread something, and this is especially true when it’s wasted worry.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Teens need (and secretly want) affection from their parents. Image courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A lot of parents wonder when their child has become too old to kiss and hug. By time your teen graduates high school you probably don’t kiss them anymore, and might not hug them. This seems to be particularly common between dads and their sons. Dads also often express feeling uncomfortable holding their daughters.
Physical affection is a very important aspect of love. Part of the reason it is really important is because you are building a framework for your child in their older life. Your kid is developing a sense of what they perceive as “normal” for their adult life based on the way things work in your home. If you and your spouse never make physical contact in front of your kids, they are less likely to be affectionate with their future spouse. If you are a divorced parent, and you have your date come home to spend the night, your kids will learn that this is acceptable for them too. You need to be very, very intentional about how, and to whom you show physical affection in front of your kids.
When your child was young, you likely hugged, kissed, held, wrestled with, and tickled them without a thought. Once your child hit puberty, this might have felt awkward. However, if you continue to hug them and kiss them before they leave for school, sit right next to them on the couch, or rub their shoulders from time to time, you will maintain more emotional closeness.
What do you do if you are already pretty far down the path of not touching your adolescent child? What if it’s been two years since you last hugged your son or daughter? How do you overcome this unspoken rule? Start small. Help your teen put their jacket on. Help your teen take their backpack off when they get home. Look for small opportunities where it would be acceptable to make contact. When you feel you won’t be rejected, give a quick side hug, or a squeeze to the shoulders. Even try a high five. Basically, make a purposeful effort to slowly increase the frequency and duration of your physical contact with your teen. At first they might give you a look that says, ‘Are you an alien from Mars, what are you doing?’ Eventually though, most teens warm to attention and affection from their parents. In fact, as hard as this is to believe, most teens crave affection from their parents.
Remember, even if you think your teen no longer knows you exist, they are watching everything you do. Physical touch is one area where you can make a quick impact on how they feel. So, make it your goal today to give physical affection to your kid; they probably want and need it.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
School refusal is often caused by anxiety about something particular. Photo courtesy of Marin from Freedigitalphotos.net
As a therapist who works primarily with teenagers, it is not uncommon to see clients who have “school refusal.” They might be willing to go to school on occasion, but it is a huge battle for parents to get them there. School refusal has a variety of causes. Some of these include drug use, general opposition, and anxiety. Today I am going to focus on the anxiety component. I believe this is the most common reason for school refusal.
Anxiety is an overwhelmingly unpleasant feeling usually associated with a fear of some future event. Some teens are afraid of ridicule from peers, while others fear failing a test in class. If your teen strongly does not want to attend school, try and find out what they are afraid of first. There might be such a strong feeling of dread about school that a teen cannot stand the thought of attending. Every single school day is torture and feels very scary. I worked with one teen who was being pushed and cursed at by another boy each time he tried to get to his third period class. He felt helpless to defend himself because when he had asked the bully to stop, he was made fun of even more. He tried to seek help from school administrators, but then other kids started calling him a “tattle tale.” This teen’s anxiety grew to levels that were unmanageable for him, and he began to refuse school.
What can you do about school refusal as a parent? Firstly, you have to find out the reason for refusing school. We all have days where we don’t feel like going to school or work, but we don’t adamantly refuse to go. School refusal is normally caused by something much stronger than, “I don’t feel like it.” Once you’ve identified the reason for school refusal, sit down with your teen and work out a plan. If it is anxiety related, your teen needs to regain a sense of control over some situation; a plan can really help with this.
If you are unable to curtail the school refusal with talking and making a plan, it’s a good idea to call the school counselor and talk, and/or to seek outside help for your teen. Usually they can’t overcome this on their own. With anxiety, when something feels scary and then we avoid it, it feels bigger and more frightening. Because your teenager is still relatively young, most don’t know to push through scary things in order to make them more manageable. They tend to go with what feels most comforting in the moment, which is refusing to attend school.
You will face tension as you try and help your adolescent through their school refusal. You will need to be both comforter and enforcer. It’s a really challenging line to walk. Your teenager needs compassion, but they also cannot be allowed to miss school. It will really break your heart to send them to school when you know how awful it is for them, but if you continually allow them to miss, you’re doing them a disservice.
Sometimes loving our kids well means pushing them through emotional pain, but the good thing is we can walk beside them every step of the way.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Stress is manageable, but we have to control the extra little things that add to it. Credit: David Castillo Dominici/freedigitalphotos.net
Here is a list of 5 things that raise anxiety that might surprise you:
Watching a TV Series on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. It seems relaxing to sit down and watch a TV show, so why is this on the top of the list? For your teenager, and probably for you too, having immediate access to a TV series causes stress. This is because you get into the show and your brain finds pleasure in watching it. When something interrupts you from watching it, you feel irritated. This is where the stress comes in. Homework becomes more annoying than usual for your teenager. Chores aggravate, and so does really anything that gets in the way of finding out what happens next. Consider watching things that have an end in each sitting like a movie or documentary.
Reading/watching the news. It is nice to know what’s going on in the world, but that’s only true to an extent. Whatever is going on with national politics is likely to capture your attention and to cause you stress. The thing about it is though, you can’t do anything about it. You don’t have the time, money or influence to make much of a difference. Beyond voting, donating a little to a cause, or calling your congressman, let it go. Don’t get absorbed in every little crisis in the media each day.
Checking emails/texts too often. It’s okay not to check your phone more than once per hour. It is disruptive, and it creates an anxiety that you must respond to whatever you’ve received immediately. That also translates to an interruption in your present activity. The more you allow interruptions, the less you can enjoy the present moment.
Taking on too much activity. For your teenager one or two social things a weekend is actually enough. This is the same for you. Don’t cram your day too full. You actually can survive on less activity. In fact, you might thrive on less. If you’re constantly driving your teenagers to school, practices, friends’ houses and other activities, then maybe you’re saying yes too often.
Commercials. Commercials are designed to make you dissatisfied with what you have because dissatisfaction is a strong motivator to spend money. If you look at magazines about fashion all the time, you’ll have anxiety that your wardrobe isn’t up to snuff. If you constantly hear home improvement commercials on the radio, then you’ll think about that one project in your house you need to get done. You probably won’t actually do it, but you will feel an increase in stress. Your teenager is susceptible to this even more than you are. Try to limit how much exposure they have to advertising. I know we don’t live in caves, and so totally avoiding advertising is impossible. However, we can try to maximize the amount of time we aren’t exposed to commercials. When we’re reading, hiking, playing sports with friends, at the beach, swimming, etc., we’re not being fed messages of discontent. The more screen time we have, the more we are told the way we do things isn’t good enough.
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.
