Teenagers are basically walking hormone soups. Do you remember when they were toddlers and they could barely string a sentence together because their speech wasn’t quite there yet, so they communicated with temper tantrums and anger? Well, you’re about to revisit the whole thing, except this time your teenager knows how to tell you exactly how they feel and they won’t be quiet about it.
The thing is, if you have a teenager in your house, then you may have picked up on issues with insecurity and it’s your job to help them to navigate that. Teenagers are learning and they are not yet adults and they are still not children anymore. They still need guidance and they need to feel confident about their choices. If you are dealing with an anxious team who is battling a lack of confidence. Right now, here are some of the ways that you can help.
1. Validate their feelings. Just because something seems dramatic on the surface to you doesn’t mean that it’s dramatic to your teenager who’s currently having an absolute meltdown. For example, it takes a moment for teenagers to recognise their bodies or even realize what their bodies look like, because for years they’ve just run around eating what they’ve wanted, exercising when they’ve wanted, and having fun. Then there’s a day where they catch a look at themselves in the mirror and they start to scrutinize what they look like because that’s exactly what kids their age are doing. So you can offer to pay for a private rhinoplasty, but that doesn’t mean you have to.Instead, you should work on making sure that their feelings are validated about how they look and talk them through it. You might find that their anxiety is fleeting, so validating their feelings and making them feel heard is the fastest way that you can give them that security they need.
2. Teach them some mindfulness.If a teenager is mindful, then they have the ability to be fully present in the moment. They’re aware of what they are doing or aware of what they are saying, and the concept itself refers to being able to live in the present. It’s very easy for teenagers to kick off exams and worry about the future because the future is terrifying. But there will come a day where they want to step into it and you have to make sure that they are using the right techniques to keep themselves calm when it happens.
3. Consider introducing journaling. They may feel silly at first, but it’s actually a great way for them to practice positive self-talk. Making sure that they journal and write down some positive affirmations for the day and some things of what they feel for the day is important. It can do wonders for their self esteem and it can make them see and look back on the things that they once felt and know that what they felt before was not real.
Teenagers are an enigma sometimes, but they’re not impossible!
