Teenagers in Florida are heading back to school. Summer is ending, some teens are excited to go back and others are worried. For many of them, there is anxiety, new schedules, pressures, and teacher shortages. Whatever they are going through, I hope the following information can help Parents and Guardians be aware that something may be wrong and have some tools in your toolbox to support your teen.
7 Reasons Your Teen Might be Struggling and What you can do about it
Summer often gives kids a break from all the stressors of the school year. Before school even starts they often begin to experience symptoms of Anticipatory Anxiety, which is the fear or worry that bad things could happen in the future, they can fixate on the things they can’t control or predict, a fear of the unknown. Your teen may not even know this is happening; they may just not be feeling right. The following are some of these stressors:
1. Social Anxiety is one of the biggest. Teens are adults in training, and as they enter the high school years, they have really begun to formulate their self-image and their sense of belonging. Teens want to be liked and look to their peers for social acceptance. They often overthink everything.
2. Constant academic pressure can present itself because of a heavy academic workload, teacher-student ratio and or relationship, inadequate instructional methods, learning disabilities such as ADHD, limited ability to maintain the balance between personal time and school time.
3. Bullying may have been happening in previous school years or is your teen afraid of it happening. They may be feeling powerless. Bullying is a deliberate repeated behavior
done on purpose to make a person feel intimidated, threatened, and dominated. It can be verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, or through exclusion and cyberbullying.
4. Stress has to go somewhere so it usually will manifest physically if not managed properly. Your teen may be getting headaches, stomachs or other ailments more than usual.
5. Family conflict as teens start to find themselves wanting more independence from their families. Your teen may feel they have to figure out how to handle their problems, in school or with peers, themselves and their grades may suffer. There may also be very high expectations and pressure from families to do well.
6. In an article published in the American Academy of Pediatrics from May 1, 2022, Turning Vicious Cycles into Virtuous Ones: the potential for schools to improve the life course, they talked about the potential for schools to transform health trajectories in your teens’ future health outcomes. This article suggests that psychosocial stress and biological changes including developing brains and raging sex hormones there is an increased prevalence of depression, anxiety, nervousness and stress related disorders.
7. Your teen has a higher curiosity and exposure to substances and may be experimenting. They may discover that drugs or alcohol relieve their stress and may be using it to cope.
When you see some of these 7 things, try the following:
1. Help your teen understand social anxiety. If you are not sure how to have the conversation, google it and you will come up with dozens of ideas. Share that with your teen so they can see you role modeling when you have a problem that you want to educate yourself to better understand it.
2. Let them know they are not alone and that there are probably many of their friends and classmates feeling the same way.
3. Validate their feelings by being an intentional listener. Listen, don’t rush to speak, restate their feelings and ask if you got it. Tune into their world, even if you don’t agree be attuned to their needs, if you try to push your agenda they will shut down and stop talking to you.
4. Regulate your own emotions. They may say things that disappoint you or bring out your fears. Check in with yourself. If you need a moment to catch your own reaction, take it. Tell your teen you will back in a minute, then go back and cultivate the space that your teen needs to express themself and not feel punished for it.
5. Brainstorm with them on how to proceed with a plan that can help them feel more grounded. It could be that they get an extra hour of sleep a night, exercise, use an agenda, learn mindfulness or just simply get outside and breathe in the fresh air.
6. Check in with them once or twice a week, this gives them the space they need but also creates the open door for them to communicate with you regularly.
7. If things continue to get worse, reach out to a professional.