When Assisting Your Anxious Adolescent, Avoid These 4 Mistakes

Adolescence is a scary period for parents and teenagers alike. Teenagers experience a quick succession of physical and psychological changes, so it seems sense that they occasionally experience anxiety and reflection. However, this anxiety can become crippling and chronic for certain teenagers. You and your teenager are not alone if your adolescent is among the 25% of people who suffer from an anxiety problem. Even while anxiety is difficult to live with, it is controllable.

Combating Adolescent Anxiety: Appropriate (And Inappropriate) Actions

If your adolescent is having difficulty interacting with others, going to school, and performing other daily tasks, you could feel as though her anxiety is gradually taking over your lives. Even worse, you probably think you have no way of relieving your teen's pain. Despite the fact that there isn't a cure for anxiety, there are a lot of things you can do to help your kid manage. Help your teen learn to manage her anxiety instead of trying to "cure" her by avoiding the four frequent parenting blunders listed below:

1. Being too accommodating.

You may be tempted to shield your child from her worries because you are a kind parent. You might think that if you can take your child out of situations that make them anxious, then the worry will go away. This is a mistake that many parents of nervous teenagers make: they opt to homeschool their child if she is nervous about going to school, for example. Unfortunately, this method tends to exacerbate anxiety over time even though it might lessen it temporarily. Why? When a parent acts in this way, they are communicating that these circumstances are scary and should be avoided.

Naturally, this does not imply that you should treat your adolescent with unrelenting "tough love." Your teen will feel alone in her anxieties if you don't make any accommodations for her, which will just make her worries worse. Instead, you'll need to find a middle ground: Help your adolescent learn that it's acceptable to take "breaks" from demanding circumstances so that she may gather her thoughts, but also encourage her to return to such situations as soon as she feels ready. Additionally, you have to collaborate with a mental health specialist to assist your adolescent in creating coping skills that she can apply to handle difficult circumstances.

Lastly, let your adolescent begin by taking little steps to address her anxiety. Gaining confidence via the completion of several little tasks will enable her to take on more difficult obstacles.

2. Making an excessive effort to “cure” your adolescent's anxiety issue.

Some parents tackle their teen's anxiety head-on in a very proactive manner. They attend their child's therapy sessions, read every book available on the subject, and generally give it their best in the hopes of resolving the problem. Regretfully, despite your perception that these actions show concern, your nervous adolescent is most likely feeling pressure to recover quickly. In these circumstances, teens frequently "freeze up" because they start to fear failing. They might try to hide their worry rather than face it, take longer to adopt the necessary coping mechanisms, or give up completely if they feel overwhelmed.

Being a supportive teen's caregiver is one of the best things you can do for them, even though it may not feel "passive" to you. Recall that your teen must go through the stages of adolescence despite her anxiety struggles. You cannot fight her fights for her; she must learn to be more self-reliant and empowered. Being her greatest ally and mentor is all that you can (and should) do.

3. Misinterpreting anxiousness and mistaking it for something else.

If you were fortunate enough to not have anxiety during your teenage years, you might not be understanding of your teen's struggles with it. For example, you might believe that your adolescent is making things worse to avoid having to do things she doesn't love. In actuality, though, this is rarely the case because most teenagers detest acknowledging their vulnerability, making them unlikely to cite fear as a justification. Treat the issue assuming your adolescent is telling the truth. (After all, not many teenagers who are just searching for a "excuse" will go through the difficult process of treating their anxiety.)

4. Seeking out "reasons" for your adolescent's nervousness.

For those of us without anxiety disorders, anxieties are typically causally related. For example, if someone who does not feel anxiety harbors a strong dread of dogs, it is likely a result of a bad childhood encounter with a ferocious dog. Conversely, those with persistent anxiety frequently experience unexplained anxieties. Therefore, you should not assume that your child is the victim of bullying, that they have gone through a trauma that you were unaware of, etc. There might not be any environmental factor contributing to your child's anxiety level. Because the causes of persistent anxiety are frequently solely inherited, your teen's particular brain chemistry is most likely the source of the problem.

How to Help Your Teen Dealing With Anxiety

Apart from averting the four aforementioned errors and obtaining expert assistance for your teenager, there exist other strategies you can employ to assist her in managing her anxiety. You may teach your teen coping mechanisms, give them resources (such self-help books and videos), and, most importantly, be a sympathetic listener at all times. Although you are unable to combat your teen's anxiety on her behalf, you can support her as she navigates its many obstacles. She will learn to recognize her triggers, deal with them in small stages, and eventually gain confidence with your help and direction. Even though she might never completely "outgrow" her anxiety, she will most likely learn how to lessen its negative effects on her life with the correct care. Go here to learn more about the methods used to raise anxious kids.