Stressing About Your Teen-to-Be? Here’s how to prepare for the wonder years…
As parents we have learned to dread the teenage years. Hormones, arguments and attitude have always haunted parenting nightmares, but add a global pandemic and the very serious downsides of social media to the mix and you have a seriously toxic environment for these age-old dramas. But what if we could enter these years with wonder, curiosity, and even excitement about the amazing people our children are growing into?
Act positively
“A positive mindset is probably the the most critical factor,” says the positive psychologist and teen expert Dr. Andy Copeits author The Teenager’s Guide to Life, The Universe and Being Awesome. “Essentially kids are going to model the behavior they see around them — it’s called social learning — so the biggest thing you’ll ever do for your kids is to model positive, confident, upbeat behaviors yourself. There’s a concept called ” emotional soup” which says that in any social situation—including families—everyone has a say in the flavor, the emotional tone of the family. As parents, do you add positivity, optimism, confidence, and hope, or do you add panic and anxiety?”
Speak positively
Your role in stimulating your teenager is greater than you might imagine. “Parental language is really important,” says Andy. “You should be eight times more positive than you are negative. So you can grumble, but every time you catch yourself saying something negative, you balance it out with eight positives. It’s all about noticing the little things they’re doing really well.” This can be difficult and may require some self-care to make sure you’re supporting your own feelings of well-being. “We’re bombarded with messages that we’re not enough,” says Andy. “Positive psychology comes from the starting point of ‘You are enough – you are amazing – but the world will make you forget that. You need to learn positive strategies that protect you from the outside world.’
Play together
When the going gets tough, there are some great resources to support parents and teens. Young Minds is a charity that fights for young people’s mental health and can support you in difficult times. Private mental health services can help you when you are worried about your child. “It is usually challenging behavior with children that leads parents to therapeutic work,” says the play therapist Lucy Llewellyn. “For some families, the home can be a war zone; everyone is at odds and adults can disagree about how to manage their child.” As part of her practice, Lucy uses a branch of play therapy called ‘child therapy’, which trains parents to carry out half an hour of one-on-one play with each of their children each week, but she recommends Families Create a Little More play time in their week. “Just by spending time and spending time playing with a child, you have the shared experience of doing nice things together. There is evidence that child therapy not only improves child-parent relationships but also parent-parent relationships. You understand the child more, but yourself”.
Be tolerant
Neuroscientists have shown that the teenage years are a period of intense activity in brain development, a long-term renovation that can lead to risk-taking, impulsive behavior and strong emotions. As frustrating as these changes are to experience, they are a necessary and inevitable part of growing up. “Teenagers live in a different reality than we do,” says Andy. “Chemical imbalances mean their highs are higher and their lows are lower. Parents have to be aware of that and be compassionate and tolerant. Teenagers are moving away from their family and joining a new tribe, basically. For them, it’s more important to be part of a group of friends rather than their family. This is really painful as a parent – they start disrespecting you, taking risks and questioning authority – but it’s what teenagers have always done. The message for parents is just keep calm . The kids go through it, but they come out the other side.”
“Growing up has always been a contact sport,” Andy concludes. “There’s peer pressure and hormones…add to social media and the pandemic, I think it’s harder to grow up right now. But if you can create the right family environment – the right soup – you can immunize kids against the pressures of growing up.”
