Teenagers are often written off as emotional and dramatic. Especially when having to deal with difficult teens, adults tend to brush off certain signs that maybe they should be paying better attention to. Depression and anxiety in teens is very real and can cause major issues for teenagers. While communicating with teenagers may be difficult, as the responsible and wiser adults, we need to present ourselves as approachable when dealing with teenagers and be open when they want to talk.
Positive Affirmation
Depression and anxiety in teens can mount when they are not given the proper affirmation that they need. Children and teenagers want to know that someone is proud of them and loves them. You know you love them even if they frustrate you but maybe you want voicing it as much as you should. Try looking for the good things in your teen rather than focusing on all the bad. Teenager sometimes do certain things simply as a way to get attention. Subconsciously they can feel that attention is attention so if they aren’t getting affirmation they’ll at least be paid attention to if they’re doing something wrong. It could be that if they got enough positive attention they wouldn’t feel the need to act out in order to get negative attention.
Communication Skills
Proper communication is not just about talking to your teenager. You could talk and yell till you’re blue in the face and it will do nothing if you never listen to their side of the story. Sometimes a teenager just needs an ear or a shoulder. Try to be a little more sensitive about when to talk and when to listen. Adults do have a lot more experience and wisdom and it is good to share that. However, there are times when a teenager doesn’t need answers; they just need to vent. Depression and anxiety in teens could be lowered if they had someone to bring them out of their own world in a caring and loving way. Part of how this is done is by simply listening to the teenager to find out how they are feeling and why they think they feel this way.
Remaining Calm
The number one reason the teenagers don’t tell their parents things is because they assume they will freak out. It’s easy for adults to forget the things that they went through when they were a child or an adult. This is why parents tend to react unreasonably when they find out their child has been involved in something unscrupulous. Either that or they do, in fact, remember and want their child to have no part of that life. Whatever the case may be, a teenager knows when they have made a mistake and doesn’t want to be told what an awful person they are. This only promotes depression and anxiety in teens. Instead of flying off the handle when you find out something that you don’t approve of, try to remain calm and let the teenager finish talking. It may end in an apology and there is no need for you to continue telling them how wrong they were. If you can do that, it will probably surprise your teenager who is preparing for the worst and will encourage a bond that the two of you have never had before.
Building Trust
You may not trust your teenager because of things that have happened in the past. That is okay but don’t let that stand in the way of a good relationship between the two of you. Sometimes you just have to decide that you were going to trust your teenager and your actions and your emotions will follow eventually. It may take a while for you to actually start trusting your child but if you can save face and make choices as if you did trust them, it will go along way with your teenager. If they can see that you were trying to trust them (and this does not mean that you constantly tell them, “I want to trust you but?”) then they may start trying to act in a manner that is worthy of being trusted.
Parenting teenagers is hard, it’s true. But be patient and it will be worth it.
