Episode Description: How To Help Anxious Teenagers
Teenagers are facing a lot of pressure from academics to sports to social media and hormones.It's no wonder they're feeling more anxious and stressed than ever. As a parent, there are things you can do to help them navigate this difficult time. In this episode, life coach Megan Devito shares her tips for helping teens manage stress and anxiety. She also talks about the importance of taking care of yourself as a parent, so you can better support your kids. You'll learn:
How to create a safe space for your teenager to talk to you
How to help them identify and manage their emotions
The importance of teaching your teenager healthy coping mechanisms
How to find hope and positivity in a stressful world
Resources for getting additional support for yourself and your teenager
This episode is for parents of teenagers, as well as for any teenager who is struggling with anxiety or stress.
Podcast Transcript:
Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I am a life coach for stressed out and anxious women living with anxiety, who want more out of life. I'm here to help you create a life you love to live, where anxiety isn't holding you back. Get ready for a light hearted approach to managing anxiety through actionable steps, a lot of truth talk and inspiration to take action so you walk away feeling confident in your ability to have more of what you want without anxiety holding you back. Let's do this.
Welcome to Episode 37 of the More Than Anxiety podcast.
My name is Megan Devito. I am your host, and I'm recording this at what is this, this is the beginning of May of 2023. I almost said April because time is flying. But thanks for listening. I'm really glad you're here. If you've been here before, welcome back. If you're new, it's great to have you. I hope you really enjoy this podcast, that you go back and check out some old episodes; maybe share it with a friend who's also feeling stressed out and anxious. I've got all kinds of good stuff coming. But today, I'm gonna get right to it because this episode is incredibly important for you if you are a parent, but also for you if you're a teenager. And if you're a parent, you can use this for your teenager.
So this is kind of an all purpose episode, and what I want to talk about is, first of all, how much I absolutely love teenagers. I have two adult kids now and two teenagers and I taught teenagers for years, so they're kind of my jam, and I am really sad about how stressed out and anxious and just kind of heartbroken for the entire group of people. They already get a lot of crap and I think they're fantastic. So teenagers are incredibly important people and they're struggling right now. Since I'm raising them and since I taught them, and since I coacg them, this is really one of my favorite topics, and I think it's one that's going to be just a little bit different than from some of my previous episodes.
So maybe, you know, maybe you don't know, but once upon a time, I was a swim coach. And this lasted for about 10 years, and I absolutely loved it. So while my kids were busy working their butts off in the pool, I was just walking the deck coaching everybody from like little bitty kids up to high schoolers. Not only was I super lucky because I got to be deck side to watch all four of my kids race, but also had the privilege of coaching, but then also teaching and loving on so many kids. Especially teenagers who I still get to watch race every once in a while when my daughter is in the pool. But It's kind of brings me to where I am today, as the mom of teenagers, as that former teacher, as a former swim coach, as a current swim mom, and now as a life coach. And whether your kids are in the pool, or they play a different sport, or they are involved in another activity... maybe they're like super, like neck deep in academics, o just struggling with their friendships, just trying to navigate this world that we live in right now, this insight is going to apply to you as the parent, but also to your kids.
So I raised my babies as a super anxious mom, up until about seven or eight years ago, maybe almost nine years ago now. And of course, I still get anxious because I'm human. But I'm not locked in, in this way that I was in the past, thank God. However, when my kids were little, and when I was pregnant with them, I was in that place. And given what we're learning with all of the research into mental health, and how we pass our experiences onto our kids, I want to offer some hope if you are in the place of thinking that you've wrecked your kids lives by having your own mental health issues. You have not. I have thought about this a lot recently, and the more I recover, and the more I see my kids make their way through their lives, it's really easy for me to fall into that mom guilt or wanting to rescue them... and sometimes I actually go there. But the truth is, we didn't know what we know now and this moment, right now, is the absolute perfect place for you and for me to be to help our kids feel less anxious, and more capable and hopeful, and they need it so badly! Every little piece of hope that we can give them right now is crucial.
Teenagers have an incredible amount of pressure on them, probably more than ever before in history. Academics are so much more rigorous. They're constantly bombarded with information unlike we've ever had access to before, and there is comparison and bullying on social media, all on top of the expectations that we have of them as their parents, and expectations that they have for themselves. And these expectations might come from this stuff that they see other kids do, or they might be what they think they have to do just to survive on this planet right now. This is why anxiety and depression and self harm is through the roof, and as a parent, it is really scary. And It's not something that I can skim over.
So this, this episode is about me addressing this, like just seeing this happen with my kids and with my kids, friends, and just everybody around me. And with this tremendous emphasis on being successful in whatever it is that your kid is doing, whether it's sports, or to be number one in their class, or to have their face look contoured, and their lashes all done up, and have a camera in your face all the time, life is more than I can imagine for these teenagers. And we've seen think back to people like Lindsay Lohan, or Miley Cyrus or anybody else; we've seen how teenage actors and actresses have such hard childhoods from the pressure to be beautiful and seen all the time. And we have an entire world full of cameras! We've never had cameras at our fingertips at all times before this big screen idea of like, 'I'm in a movie' 'I'm on a TV show' has turned into like something that we just carry around in our pocket. and everybody has one! We live in, like this giant episode of The Truman Show, where everybody is recording everything at all, like all the time! Like sometimes you can't even go to the bathroom and there's like people in the bathroom recording stuff. It's insane and not all of this is bad news. Because as a very Gen X mom, trying not to be a very Gen X parent, I probably still have some of those flaws because of who we are, but I don't think we had the opportunity to connect, and to find help when we were running around alone and anxious and scared back in the 70s and 80s, or whatever your Gen X period was. But we were doing crazy stuff, and honestly, thank God, there were no cameras back then, right? Because even though the pressure to perform and to fit in is so much higher now, the amount of help out there is also much higher. Our teenagers are more depressed and more anxious with more information, and they also have more help available to them, and we need to bring that help into our home and that starts with us as parents, or us as neighbors or us as aunts and uncles.
Wherever it is that you interact with those teenagers, they need adults who are willing to help them navigate this insanity that we are all living through, but especially if you're a teenager who doesn't have that fully functioning brain yet, because I'm not saying that because I think teenagers are stupid. I'm saying that because biologically, their brains literally aren't fully functioning yet. So whatever it is that they're doing, whether it's academics, or sports, or they're working, when the pressure starts to take over, you can be the first round of help. But to do that, you have to help yourself first and when you help yourself as the parent, or even as a teenager listening to this episode, you are better able to help someone else who's anxious or stressed out feel better. I also want you to remember how incredibly valuable you are as the parent, doing your best to raise teenagers in this day and age. And as a teenager, why you started doing the activity or the sport that you love, and why you think you have to be perfect, or you have to get a 4.0 GPA, because I'm just going to offer that that thought that I have to do this isn't always necessarily true.
As an anxious parent, there are a few super important things that you can do to give your teenager the space to talk with you about what's going on with them and that will also help you help them when things do get stressful. Or if they happen to be anxious or something comes up in their lives because things always come up whether you're an adult or a teenager. Remember that your kid Isn't the same as anyone else's kid so start by taking your own expectations for who they should be, or what they should like or what they should do and just put those in a box and set them aside. And I know I've done this too. You've been picturing this amazing thing for them that was all in your head about "oh, my little rock star", "my little CEO", my little whatever it is that you're thinking about them. Just take it and put it in the box, because they are going to be amazing, but It's probably going to be differently than you've ever pictured and that's actually a pretty great gift to receive just to know that they have some surprise waiting for them, but also for you when they get to wherever it is they're going. Once you can do that, the rest gets just a little bit easier, so remind yourself that you get to enjoy where you are right now. Even in the hard stuff. You get to enjoy what's coming, because as long as you're there with an ear, and a closed mouth, you can help them get there.
Our job as parents isn't to keep our kids from being stressed or anxious, though. It's to teach them how to manage stress, or manage their emotions and you can start that by listening to them...really listening, not just to hear their voice. So take time every single day, even if it's only five minutes, to check in with how their day was, how they're feeling, and really try to go beyond "good" or "bad" and ask them what that means. It's so.. it's like the canned response I get. "How was school" "Fine." Whad did you learn?" "Nothing" I finally I asked my son; he's 16; I asked him last week, I go, "So in all the years that you've gone to school, like you've never learned anything? And he said, "No, nothing." I'm like, "No, seriously, like, what about algebra?" He's like, "No, I could figure that out myself." So no, they're gonna say good, bad, fine. What does that mean? What does "good" actually mean? Or what does "bad" actually mean? Ask them, "Well, what was good?" "What was bad?" "What does fine mean?" and if they say, "Fine"..., "yeah, we'll tell me something that was fine." And if this is new, it might take time for them to open up or to learn how they're really feeling. They may just try to put a word to it and good seems easier than 'I felt really happy at this one time', or 'bad because I was embarrassed or nervous, or, you know, I was frustrated, or I wanted to, like, I you know, somebody was being mean to me'. Whatever it is, it might take them a while to open up. Just leave time where you can sit there and let them talk, or just sit there and don't talk so that they know you're there. You don't have to fill that quiet space. Sometimes just sitting there and letting them know that like 'It's Okay, you can I'm here if you want to tell me.' and let them know that they can tell you anything without you freaking out. This takes emotional control from your heart, because sometimes they're going to say something and you're going to want to get really emotional. And I've been there and I have more than once lost my mind. I'm certainly not perfect at this, but I am learning right along with you. And when you can take a breath and let them know that they are not in charge of your emotions that you are, and that you're going to listen, that's the learning experience for them and It's also a learning experience for you. And I am in the middle of that with you.
We also want to teach them how to handle the hard stuff. Remember, I said it's not our job to make sure that they're never stressed and never anxious? We want them to understand that they can handle it when they are stressed out or when they are anxious. There are going to be hard things in their lives, just like they've been hard things in your life. Don't shelter them from that they are watching you even when you think they aren't paying attention just the same way they were when they were two years old. Being a teenager is hard and it always has been. There are just so many more expectations, and let's just call them shiny objects now than there were in the past. Being the parent of a teenager can be hard, but it can be so much fun too. As somebody who still has two teenagers, but also two adult kids, sometimes I get sad because they're not those little sweet snuggly babies anymore. But then I remember how much fun it is to have kids that you can like joke around with and like hang out with, it can be really fun. It's always been challenging to parent teenagers. We know all the jokes, we know all of the cliches, but we have this incredible job of keeping these kids safe and healthy. And the incredible job of providing the support and the love and the resources that they need to be successful, and to know that they can be successful. And to know that they can be different and to do whatever it is they want to do, because I have this total belief that everybody was put on this planet to do something that no one else on the planet can do. And when we don't allow them to have that place where they can grow, and to learn who they are, the entire world misses out on that. So whether they're aiming for college, or trade school, or whether they're an athlete or a scholar, and whether they're anxious before a big event, or anxious every single day, we are the people that they need to help them know how to treat themselves, how to calm down their bodies and their brains and we can't do that when we don't know how to manage our own emotions. We know that as adults, life can get really stressful, and you can get anxious, and we have to know how to handle those big feelings so that we can teach it to them, because they need to know.
So what do you do when you're stressed out? Do you freak out? Do you grab a drink? Do you go for a run? Do you cruss ..., like do cuss and stuff, or cry, or go in headfirst to fix it? How do you want your teenager to respond? You can't teach them to respond by never allowing them to feel stressed out or anxious. That is a total disservice to your kids, because It's going to be impossible for them to breeze through life without any bumps. And if I've said it, once, I've said it 10,000 times, life is 50 parts amazing, and 50, parts garbage. Let them feel stressed out or anxious, or guilty, or whatever else they feel, and then teach them how to feel it. Teach them how to recenter and move through it. And again, you have to know how to do this first. This is what I teach you and help you develop in yourself in a coaching relationship. You get to develop the skills that help you feel better and when you feel better, you see more clearly. You find hope and positivity, and that feels pretty scarce when you're anxious and stressed. Or if you're only seeing the stuff that you don't want to see. Negativity brings more negativity. and the same is true for feeling hopeful and positive. Show them that you've been stressed out or anxious, and that there's an end to it. That, "Yeah, I was really stressed and anxious and now, I get to feel hopeful, because I figured out how to move through that." Show them what happens when they work hard and they succeed, that they get to feel accomplished and proud of themselves and relieved and strong and smart and all the good things. The same goes true for you though. Show them that even if they need more support than you can provide as their parent, like therapy or coaching, that they have tons of hope and tons of resources, and lots of great things are coming their way. Even if they're in a season that's really heavy in that it sucks. I recently subscribed to some daily emails from Optimist Daily, and then I added the Good News app just to balance out the regular news on TV, or to get away from the like grouchy, yucky stuff that's going on in the US right now. Not just for myself, but for my kids. I can send them hopeful links like positive news, and it kind of counteracts all the stuff that they're bombarded with at school. Because we do learn all the stuff that we we do need to know; we need to know about climate change, we do need to know about gun violence, we need to know about all that stuff. But when that's the only thing you're hearing, it can feel really heavy. Find some good news, share that with them. Tell them something cool that you heard, that was uplifting. They need that balance. They need to see that there is as much light in the world as there is dark, and you can provide that to them. But you've got to see it yourself and you can do that by hiring a coach. And no, I don't mean another sports coach, even though I was one and I love it. I mean a life coach, and not only can life coaching benefit your mental health and help you manage your emotions, but it can also support you as you support your kids. You get to feel better, they get to feel better, everybody wins. And you can do that right now by going to the show notes and clicking the link to schedule a consultation call with me, or you can just go to my website. That is www.megandevito.com/workwithme. My friend. I hope this episode helped you feel confident that you can help your teenager and that you can help yourself. You're doing a great job and It's only going to get better. I've got you. So I'll be next back next week with another episode. and in the meantime, schedule your consultation, hang out with your awesome kids, and I will talk to you soon. Take care.
I hope you enjoyed this episode of The More Than Anxiety podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And of course when you're ready to explore coaching with me, jump to the show notes. Click the link and schedule a time for us to talk. See you soon.
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