Category: Adolescence

Knowing how to talk with your teen isn’t always clear. At times, it can feel like they’ve been tasked with keeping state secrets from you at all costs – and while it’s never that serious, it’s important to point out that this secrecy isn’t unusual. As children develop into adults, they go through staggered stages of self-discovery. 

They are undergoing rapid changes, changes that are difficult to cope with and are often a source of embarrassment and confusion. Furthermore, teens experience a strong drive towards independence – all while still heavily relying on you, the parent, as a source of guidance, comfort, and safety. 

This can be confusing for parents, too, because their child might be attentive and clingy one year and begin to pull away and seek solitude the next. It can be difficult to feel like you’re really doing your job as a parent when your teen isn’t talking to you. 

Not all hope is lost. While long and meaningful conversations with your teen might be harder to come by, you shouldn’t give up on them either. Teens will pull away, but remember that they’re young, confused, and willful. It’s often on you to help rebuild the bridge towards understanding, provide avenues for communication, and make it clear – time and time again – that you’re someone your teen can trust and come to for guidance no matter what. 

In this article, you will discover how to talk with your teen about life.

Take a Deep Breath and Relax

Parents often react in one of two extremes when their teen stops talking to them: they pester, or they ignore. Parents who tend towards the former will want to know everything, one way or the other, even if it means invalidating their teen’s privacy or becoming overbearing. Parents who tend towards the latter will become less involved in their teen’s life, to their teen’s detriment. They might not even realize it when their teen is going through a hard time at school, is starting a new relationship, or is having trouble with their friends. 

If your teen is beginning to pull away from you – or has been for some time – take a deep breath and avoid reacting instinctively. It’s important to approach this as an adult, and to understand what your teen might need, as well as how you can get them to come to you. Let’s start with the most obvious question. 

Why Are Teens Like This?

It’s not really your fault. Nor is it theirs. The teenage brain tends towards independence, and feelings of “leaving the nest”, especially on a social level. They’re neurologically encouraged to focus on peer relationships – to make friends. 

And because of the complexities of adulthood, being a teen comes with a lot of unfamiliar and scary territory. Things they’re too embarrassed to talk about; things that, depending on the culture and social context, might even stir feelings of guilt and shame. 

In addition to independence, these awkward thoughts and volatile emotions can lead to strained dialogue and poor communication, especially with a short-tempered parent. If you’ve reacted negatively in the past (getting into shouting matches, starting every conversation with a judgment, berating your teen too often) talking with you becomes associated with negative experiences, eroding your parent-teen relationship. 

Ease Into Conversation Naturally 

A lot of parents make the mistake of announcing their intentions when they want to go beyond small talk. Teens are smart enough to pick up on your language tells and will inadvertently shut down or prepare to ignore you whenever you give the cue that you want to “talk”. Of course, most parents get ticked off by this – which turns an attempt at dialogue into a one-sided argument. 

Don’t try to force your teen into meaningful conversations. Start with the small talk. Or, just start with hanging out around your teen more often. 

For example, if they’re in the kitchen making themselves a sandwich, ask if you can hang out in the kitchen with them while they’re grabbing a bite to eat. Then, ask innocuous questions about mutual interests, friends, or what they’ve been up to. Once your teen gets into the flow of the conversation, it’s easier to start asking the right questions. 

Ask the Right Questions

It’s not particularly difficult to identify what a teen has been doing wrong lately. It’s also very easy to walk up to your child and tell them off for playing too many video games, for staying up too late, for studying at the last minute again, or for not doing the dishes. 

Generally speaking, teens are also aware that all of these things are things they shouldn’t be doing, and you telling them off doesn’t help you deal with your frustration, nor help them address their priorities, or solve the problem. 

If your teen is lagging behind at school, start off by asking them about school. Ask them how their preparations for the midterms have been going. If they reveal that they haven’t really started on them, ask if they’d like some help – or if they’ve put some thought towards how they’re going to start preparing. Get them to tell you what they know to be the right answer, and encourage them to act on their own agency to do that – instead of just telling them to do it. 

Avoid Judgment

It’s something parents hear time and time again, but it is really important for successful parent-teen communication, no matter how hard it might be sometimes. 

Passing judgment is very easy, yet it’s never helpful. We need to remind ourselves that teenagers don’t think the way adults do, and they have a harder time envisioning long-term consequences, or caring about risk. 

They know what they should be doing, but that doesn’t help that they don’t want to do it. Your job isn’t to point out the obvious, but to help them figure out ways to cope with their responsibilities, develop systems and schedules that might help them juggle what they must do with what they want to do, and reward their discipline. 

Teens Still Need Their Parents

Another mistake parents make is thinking that they’re just not that important anymore. While it might feel that way, it’s not the truth. 

Research shows that parental influence does not wane until a teen leaves the family home, and even if teens are naturally inclined to spend more time with their peers, parental influence is still stronger than peer influence for most of a teen’s decisions. 

This goes both ways – a poor parent-teen relationship correlates strongly with worse outcomes in life, including a higher risk of mental health problems and substance use. 

While your teen might not want to admit it, you’re an important part of their life, and they continue to look up to you or refer to your past actions and behaviors as a moral compass. While it’s impossible to keep being a superhero in your child’s eyes, this does highlight the importance of continuing to model the kind of behavior you want to see in your teen – in other words, it’s not enough to want your child to be better than you. You have to be better for them, too. 

There are several common problems among senior high school students.

Growing up is a pain in more ways than one. It comes with its own set of privileges and subtle perks. But the process to reaching adulthood is lengthy, and no two paths are the same. There is no helpful guidebook, no actual blueprint. We all find our way, one way or another, through a maelstrom of emotional turmoil – especially in the tender high school years. 

Many adults might look back on their senior years and laugh about some of their old problems and worries. Oh, to be back in a day and age when their biggest fear was an F in trigonometry or being rejected by a crush. But it’s important to remember that the problems and fears senior high school students have are legitimate to them and can play a significant role in their transition into early adulthood, whether in college or the workforce.

Recognizing, understanding, and supporting your teen through these problems can help prepare them for the future, mold them to be more comfortable and confident in their skin, and provide them with the tools they need to combat other stressors later in adulthood. 

In this article, you will discover the most common problems among senior high school students.

Will I Even Need This Knowledge?

Whether it’s geography, advanced algebra, or biochemistry, high school will always include at least one field your teen might have no interest in, yet may be forced to learn. And the retort is always the same: when will I need to recall this information? 

The truth is, for many teens, the answer is never. You likely won’t need to understand the intricacies of covalent bonds, and might not be able to concisely explain how and why hydrogen ions affect the acidity of a substance in your late 30s. 

But in addition to mastering basic sciences, which serve as a basis for a lot of higher education, learning to absorb and recall information is a crucial life skill. The education system is far from perfect, often promoting rote memorization and recall over mastery and understanding. 

But it also asks teens to learn to manage their time, prioritize their education, and make grown-up decisions to sacrifice time spent doing things they might want to do for an investment in their future – lessons that will continue to carry over in adulthood. 

Balance is important. Some teens spend too much time studying and not enough time socializing. Others have the reverse problem. High school, or any education involving more advanced topics that require a longer, more arduous commitment to memorizing and understanding the presented information, will challenge teens to balance different aspects of life. 

It’s All Just Too Much

Many teens don’t get the support or the leeway they need to truly balance their home and school lives, whether it’s due to excess in extracurricular activities, setting their sights on an expensive and hard-to-qualify-for college, or dealing with the simultaneous pressures of growing up and satisfying the expectations of their loved ones, real or imagined. 

If you feel your teen is starting to struggle with the pressure, check in with them. Help them take a load off. Encourage them to relax. Help them manage their priorities so they don’t suffer from procrastination. Hold them accountable when they’re not committing to their promises, but reward them when they are. 

I Don’t Want to Be an Adult Yet

Some trends in today’s youth point towards a slower, more gradual path toward adulthood. Whether due to cultural or economic reasons, today’s teens get their first job later, move out of the home at a later age, and engage in sex and alcohol much later than their parents did. There may be a hesitancy toward adulthood. 

Is this good or bad? Researchers are split. Ultimately, there is nothing inherently good or bad about delaying some of the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood. 

Things Are Getting Worse Out There

Teens care more about societal issues than some adults might be aware of. Today’s teens are quite politically active, and politically aware. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter make it easier than ever to engage and organize, and learn more about current issues. But this comes with its fair share of challenges for teens. 

Many of them are frustrated by procedural politics and moderate stances, especially with regards to climate change. They feel that current governance is weak or ineffectual and gravitate towards radical change. In some cases, they’re justified in those feelings. 

I Can’t Sleep

Teens need sleep, and many aren’t getting enough of it. Lack of sleep or insufficient sleep can affect cognition, memory, and mood and increase stress, reducing the immune system’s strength and leaving teens more vulnerable to acute and chronic illnesses. 

Night-time screens are one big issue feeding the problem. Also included are varying study times and heightened expectations at school. Help your teen prioritize rest and recovery to improve their physical and mental well-being. 

I’m Not Comfortable in My Own Skin

Eating disorders are more common among teens and young adults than older populations. One factor that may correlate with the increase in rates for cases of body dysmorphia and related eating disorders (including anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder) may be the youth’s higher usage of social media, and targeted advertising. 

While previous generations were just as much at the whims of an advertising culture that promoted unrealistic standards and unhealthy practices through TV and magazines – from yoyo diets to unregulated weight loss aids – studies show that social media trends might be even more effective at influencing teenage ideals, and causing a negative mental impact, for example through overedited and filtered pictures of celebrities and influencers with unrealistic proportions. 

In addition to body dysmorphia, more and more teens are learning about the signs and symptoms of gender dysphoria and are realizing that they might not feel like the gender they were assigned at birth. Current estimates suggest that about 1.3 to 1.4 percent of teens and young adults experience gender dysphoria or identify as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth.

Despite a growing tolerance for trans teens in popular media, transphobia has seen a stark increase in recent years. Violence against LGBTQ+ teens spiked in the years after 2016, and suicide rates among trans teens remain disproportionately high versus their peers, including homosexual teens.

In one way, an increased spotlight on the topic of transgender people has led to both greater acceptance and more targeted bigotry. 

Many teens who feel like they are experiencing gender dysphoria may have difficulty functioning in school or at home, especially after puberty. Some children begin to develop a gender identity different to the one they were born with as early as ages 3 to 5. 

For trans teens in high school, this can mean spending up to a decade openly or secretly identifying as something they cannot outwardly express. This feeling may be exacerbated by the onset of secondary male or female characteristics, such as deepening voices or growing breasts. 

The topic of transgender youth is still sensitive and challenging for many families to explore. However, more and more research is highlighting the importance of mental health support; trans teens have a disproportionately higher risk for anxiety and depression and ADHD, bipolar disorder, and eating disorders. 

Today’s teens face many problems, some new and some the same as ever. Helping your teen navigate a complex world is part of growing up. 

However, at least one in 20 teens may experience episodes of severe anxiety, and about one in 30 may develop a diagnosis of depression – mental health issues are on a rise and require additional support and compassion. Help your teens seek treatment, develop healthier coping habits, and become more resilient as they become independent.  

Millions of teens struggle with their mental health in any given year. Those rates have been on the rise lately, and experts indicate that it isn’t just because of better screening measures or testing tools. We are seeing an increase in factors contributing to the mental and social struggles of our teens, affecting their health and wellbeing into adulthood. Teens are being pressured more than ever to get into the best colleges, outperform their parents, and find success in an increasingly difficult marketplace. 

Parents always want the best for their children. It is often frustrating, then, when they’re told they can’t take away their child’s pain. But they can help, even substantially. A parent’s role in the mental wellbeing of their child can never be overstated, and even professional therapists will agree that immediate family plays the greatest part in the treatment process, especially for young teens. 

But a willingness to help does little without the right tools. If your teen has been struggling as of late – whether it’s at school, with their relationships, with friends, with their growing responsibilities, or with their mental health – here are a few things that can help. 

Does Your Teen Trust You?

You cannot address your teen’s issues without being privy to them. Trust, here, is key. While any parent can get their child to tell them the truth, being confrontational and aggressively demanding with your teen can backfire. They’re more likely to lie, edit the truth, or keep things from you because they fear your judgment, your verbal retaliation, or even just your disappointment. 

When teens grow up knowing that their parents expect the best, they’re afraid of mistakes. But mistakes are an inevitability, especially in adolescence. Growing up is all about making mistakes, and it becomes impossible to learn from those mistakes if each one becomes an opportunity for self-loathing and chastising rather than a teaching moment between a parent and their child. 

If you have been to hard on your teen, back off and allow them to see that your love and affection are unconditional, and that mistakes are a part of life – even when they’re serious. 

Privacy matters as well. To build trust, you must trust that your teen can make certain decisions for themselves, including what they choose to do behind closed doors. Trust in your child’s upbringing, and the ethics you have bestowed upon them through example. 

When your child trusts you, and knows that you will still love and help them when they’ve made mistakes, they will be honest with you about their problems. Encourage them to talk about those problems. 

Listen To Them and Their Problems

Listening is important, sometimes even more so than talking. The worst thing a parent can do is simplify a situation into an “easy” solution, especially when there isn’t one. Avoid words and phrases like “simply”, or “just do”, or “I would’ve done it like this instead”. 

Put yourself in your teen’s shoes and remember what it was like to be a teenager. It might have been tough for you to ask your parents for advice, especially if you felt like they were going to trivialize your problems or offer canned responses to a complicated situation. 

Yes, adults have greater responsibilities and a different perspective on life. But for teens, even “trivial” situations can have significant and far-reaching (in their eyes) consequences. It helps to take their concerns seriously and acknowledge how they feel in the moment. 

Look Out for the Warning Signs

Encouraging your teen to talk to you whenever they feel troubled or worried is important.

But there may be situations wherein your teen doesn’t feel comfortable discussing how they feel. Sometimes, that feeling of shame or confusion is part of the “problem”. 

Symptoms of conditions like depression and anxiety can include the kind of lowered self-esteem and heightened sense of self-critique that keep teens from getting the help they need. Instead, parents need to keep an eye out for “warning signs”. These might include: 

• A sudden and drastic change in the crowd of people your teen hangs out with. 
• A loss of interest in most hobbies, and no or few new ones. 
• A shift in mood, particularly more frequent isolation and general sadness. 
• Fatigue, both physical and mental. 
• Sudden and extreme irritability.
• Changes in weight, especially drastic weight loss or weight gain. 
• Struggling socially, loss of friendships, frequent relationship troubles. 
• Dropping grades. 
• Obvious signs of drug use, from physical symptoms to external signs (smell, paraphernalia, leftover substances). 

Not all teens who need help are struggling with an identifiable mental health issue. Sometimes, the warning signs can precede any chance of a formal diagnosis. 

But it’s still a good idea to discuss your teen’s symptoms and behavior with a professional and talk to your teen about making an appointment together if you worry about how they’ve been feeling lately. 

Help Them Set Realistic Goals

Adolescence is a time of self-discovery and personal growth, more so than nearly any other point in a person’s life. With that comes a lot of experimentation, and change. Encourage your teen’s interests, their changing habits, and their new hobbies, even if you don’t necessarily like them. Furthermore, help your teen set and achieve realistic goals. 

Goal setting can be a helpful endeavor for teens who are currently struggling, whether mentally or otherwise. Working on something aimlessly, whether it’s an academic goal or something personal, can be demotivating. Small, realistic goals can keep your teen motivated and turn hobbies into passions. 

Talk To a Professional Together

If your teen’s mental health is deteriorating past the point where helping them with their schoolwork or encouraging them to talk to you about their worries is enough, it might be time to seek outside help. Make sure your teen understands that going to see a counselor or a therapist does not mean you’re trying to “unload the problem” on someone else. 

You’re there for them, will continue to help them every day, and will be involved in whatever a “treatment plan” might look like, if one needs to exist. Many therapists encourage parents and immediate family members to contribute to a teen’s ongoing mental health treatments, through family therapy, psychoeducation, and continued long-term care. 

For most people, making friends in childhood is easy. Sometimes, it’s as simple as sharing or spending time together on the same swing. But as we get older, making and keeping friends can become harder.

For many teens, the jump into adolescence comes with a growing list of challenges, including new and frightening social dynamics, problems with self-acceptance, and insecurity. Other teens struggle to find the right friends and might be more likely to fall into the “wrong crowd”. If your teen has trouble opening up to people socially or personally or has been habitually shy from a young age, you might be tempted to try and help them make friends. 

The truth is that while you can help, your teen plays the most crucial role in finding the right people to hang out with. Changing what kind of people your teen hangs out with is difficult. Some research shows that teens tend to pick their peers based on their relationships with their parents – even in their “rebellious” phase, teens make friends based on who is around them, and environments are completely within a parent’s control.  

Suppose your teen enjoys playing video games and is more interested in the latest expansion of their favorite series but doesn’t care about music. In that case, it may be true that they’re less likely to hang out with anyone committed to band practice and theater. 

But don’t sell your teen short, either. Like adults, teens can like several things at once. And while they might be more inclined to assimilate into cliques and groups, teens nowadays are becoming more honest about what they enjoy outside their “core identities.” Sporty teens can discuss this year’s best manga or their love for tokusatsu shows. The popular influencer at your teen’s high school might listen to obscure music and blast a Soft Machine album from 1979. 

Encourage Their Interests and Hobbies

Interests are everything, especially in today’s modern subculture-based super culture. Cliques and communities are forming online and being reflected in real life. People communicate through “memes” and references and inside jokes fostered by content creators they collectively enjoy. 

While teens still pick their real-life friends based on who they’re growing up around, they’re getting to know people from around the world, exploring interests, and trying out new things all the time. 

While it might be tiresome to see your teen hop from one interest to the next, know that that is normal and part of growing up. You might have started trying to learn an instrument at one point, only to give up and get into gymnastics, then skating, or cross-country. Whatever your teen might be interested in, encourage their interests, and support them in local meetups for their hobbies. 

Allow Them to Hang Out with Others

The best way to make friends is to spend more time with people, not just at school or in controlled environments where you can watch what your teen is doing, but out and about. 

If your teen is worried about going out to spend time with others, encouraging them to give it a try can help. Not everyone is indeed a social butterfly, but there are gradients to introversion and extroversion, and most people fall somewhere in the middle.

Suppose your teen leans much harder into introversion, perhaps even to the degree of social anxiety. In that case, encouragement can be one step towards helping them overcome the initial hurdle of spending time around others. 

But if it’s a recurring problem that they struggle with every time they’re faced with the prospect of going out, you might need to consider an alternative approach, such as professional help. 

Ask Them to Go to Groups

If your teen is invited to a party, ask them if they can invite another friend to come with them. Parties are a great place to meet new people and hang out with peers – but they can also be dangerous occasionally in addition to being stressful for some teens. 

Parents know and accept this risk as part of growing up – we have to allow our teens some freedom as they grow up, so they can continue to mature as individuals – but proper safeguards are essential. Sending your teen out with a known, trusted friend can give both of you greater comfort and security. 

Encourage Them to Be True to Themselves

Sometimes, teens will gravitate towards popular trends to become more popular. This is fine and normal, but it might become a bit more of an issue when there’s a lot of money or long-term consequences at stake. For example, trying out a new fashion style for a week is one thing, but tattoos are rarely well thought-out. 

Talk to your teen if you see them reinvent themselves every two weeks. Sometimes, we need to experiment to figure out who we are. But sometimes, we know who we are and feel ashamed of it. If your teen is being bullied for their interests, knowing you’re in their corner and helping them find others with similar likes can help them feel more confident in their skin and style. 

Ask Them About Talking to a Therapist Together

Teenage shyness is a personality quality millions of people share. Some people develop better social skills as they grow older, more confident, and more secure. Others struggle with their identity for years to come. Others yet suffer not just from usual shyness but from serious anxiety. 

If your teen displays signs of anxiety disorders, such as agoraphobia or social anxiety disorder, then encouragement and support might not be enough. Talk to them about booking an appointment with a professional to help them discuss their worries, and find ways to cope.