Part I – Reasons and Triggers Behind Teen Anxiety
Jack was only 14, still in 9th grade, when his father died. He would often wake up at night crying, dead scared, not knowing who to go to find answers to all the questions that would not let him sleep. The questions of where to get the money for the computer he needed for homework; the questions of how to deal with that big bully in the school who kept harassing him; the questions of who will play with him in the park now.
And now this. Adam, 18 years old, felt ashamed of failing his first Science exam. It shouldn’t have been a big deal elsewhere, but he was at Princeton. He got there on pure merit, yet he didn’t feel like he belonged there. He felt as if he was just lucky to be there. He had stayed up all those nights learning from Khan Academy, from free Udemy courses, that his average-rated high school couldn’t teach, only to pull his family out of a continuous cycle of shut-down notices from the gas company, from the electric company, and from the water company. Now he realized why his father wouldn’t let anyone open the daily mail. But now, at Princeton, he was dead scared of not belonging among the high rollers of talent and their quick witted answers. His anxiety whipped up doubts about his own achievements so far.
Stories like these, the stories of anxiety and stress in children are so pervasive that it’s no wonder we see so many other crises that spring out of teen stress and anxiety. The crisis of parent-child fighting, the crisis of runaway children, the crisis of child smoking, the crisis of opioid, the crisis of underage drinking, the crisis of self-harming, the crisis of complete silence and withdrawal. All these crises spring from the anxiety and stress that keeps festering in our homes.
No wonder, the most common question concerned and stressed out parents ask of me these days is: how to deal with the stress and anxiety of their children. This not only affects the mental health of children, it also impacts the mental health of parents who must face the consequences of agitated, short-tempered, and belligerent children. It doesn’t just stop at temper tantrums or shouting matches between parents and children. It often leads to total withdrawal, abandonment, or even self-harm if left go unchecked.
In this article, I will explore this grave issue of teen and adolescent anxiety in depth. There are two parts to this analysis. In part I, I will explore the most common reasons or triggers that cause anxiety and stress in children. In part II, I will recommend some strategies or solutions to manage these anxious and stressful behaviors. These strategies are directed both at parents as well children.
So, let’s start with Part I: The most common reasons or triggers that cause anxiety and stress in children. We can generally categorize these triggers or causes of teen anxiety into three broad categories, although there are so many other kinds of triggers in addition to these three. The Number One reason for anxiety and stress in teenagers is the Fear of Failure. It’s the fear of not meeting one’s own expectations or the expectations of others around them. This fear could discourage a child from taking even the initial steps towards a task or a goal, lest he should be considered a failure. In fact, it’s not the actual failing, it’s the impression or the perception of failure in front of others that would discourage a child from even trying a basketball throw, or try to balance oneself on skates, or to make a simple speech in front of his classmates. It’s the anxiety of failing to meet the expectations of others that would deter a child from even participating in such activities. This is the fear of not being good enough. This is the debilitating paralysis of not being strong enough, not being rich enough, not being quick enough, not being smart enough to help others, or to help those he or she loves. Trying to do any of this and failing at that could be devastating for self-esteem. Not attempting at all, at least, will provide a safe exit or excuse: ‘I didn’t fail, since I didn’t try.’ And since society is more forgiving of quitters than of failures, it offers relatively generous face saving to quitters rather than to failures. The ones who attempt and fail have challenged the status quo, thus they must be met with rebuke, or censure, or dress down. Quitters, on the other hand, accept the status quo, hence they get a pass. But a pass from a situational embarrassment pushes one into the deep depression hole of self loathing, self hating.
The Number Two reason for anxiety and stress is the Fear of Rejection. It’s the fear of rejection by one’s existing or potential future friends. This fear presents itself due to the feeling of ‘not being able to fit in.’ It’s the ‘inner rivalry to fit in’ with other friends. In this often unspoken rivalry, children end up over-projecting themselves or undercutting their own friends, thus alienating those they are trying to win favors of. Those of us who follow reality TV shows, witness these sorts of rivalries, jealousies, and feuds erupt even in those phony, staged settings.
The Number Three category of reasons for anxiety and stress is the category of stigmas. Stigmas that teens face come in all forms and severities. The stigma of looks, the stigma of body shapes, the stigma of financial or ethnic classes, the stigma of cultures, the stigma of the types of food, the stigma of personal disabilities. All sorts of stigmas when exploited externally can lead to internalizing of anxiety, shame, helplessness, and resentment. Since there is little that children can do about these social and biological differences, they feel wronged by the society or their parents to have them put in these situations. Their anger pivots towards them being born in the wrong place, to the wrong parents. Notwithstanding the fact that all such stigmas are highly relative to each community. The stigma in one community is an honor in another. Fair-skinned in one place cherish the tanned-skinned in another. Being skinny in one place is a sign of poverty or being underfed, while in another it’s a desirable body shape. Now this is the story of a stigma and a dilemma of a child who was born transgender. Her stubbornly denying parents sent her to a church-affiliated private school to give her the ‘right nurturing fit for a man’, where all the boys were supposed to grow up macho men, although she felt herself like a girl. You can well imagine her mental condition for all those years she had to endure the “right nurturing” to fix her by those macho boys. Stigmas, like these can have a stunting effect on a child’s mental and physical growth.
So, in a nutshell, we have covered three major categories of triggers or sources of anxiety in teens: The Fear of Failure, The Fear of Rejection, and Stigmas.
This ends Part I of this article. In part II, I will go over some of the strategies and solutions to counter or manage the effects of these debilitating sources of teen anxiety.
Part II – Solutions & Strategies to Manage Teen Anxiety
In part II of this article on teen anxiety and stress, I will go over some of the strategies that parents can use with their children in helping them overcome the paralyzing effects of chronic anxiety and stress. But before I start, let me start with these words from the famous psychologist, Steven Hayes. He says, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
The first step in overcoming stubborn anxiety is the knowledge of what emotions are and how they work. Now the ‘quick-to-conclusion’ types among us will jump and say, “We all know about emotions. We know when we are sad, mad, angry, or disgusted.” But the question is: does your child have the ability to differentiate between being mad and being betrayed? Can your child differentiate between being angry and being judgmental? Does your child have the ability to differentiate between being sad and being abandoned. Knowing emotions to this level of specificity can help pinpoint a specific cause and a trigger that initiated a particular phase of anxiety in your child. This level of awareness alone can provide a sense of empowerment from a vague ‘I am mad, sad, or upset’ to ‘Sam embarrassed me for wearing worn-out shoes in front of Julie, whom I was supposed to go out on a hike with this weekend. And I didn’t have money to buy new shoes.” With this level of specificity, we can inch towards an action step–either to raise money from some source for the new shoes, or be straightforward with Julie and let her know you can’t have new shoes until some time.
Walter Anderson, a renowned painter and writer said it succinctly: “Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.”
The knowledge of specific emotions or Emotional Literacy provides a path to action steps towards the source or sources of anxiety. And Action is the antidote of anxiety. The speaking of action brings me to my next recommendation or advice in combating teen anxiety. This is an advice on physical activity, especially if it’s done together with your child. And by physical activity, I mean intense, fast, cardio-type activity, meaning biking, running, dancing, wall or mountain climbing, soccer, or basketball playing. These types of intense physical exercises release endorphin hormones in the body. The euphoric excitement you feel after a run is due to the surge of endorphins. This feeling of excitement is also called runner’s high. Regular intense exercise can easily overcome mild to moderate level of anxiety and depression without any medication with the release of endorphins. At this point, I must note that medication, like Prozac and Xanax do have a role in mental health, but they should only be considered for severe conditions where urgent intervention is necessary, since they also have their addictive side-effects, leading to possible permanent dependency. We will go over the full list of emotions and their categories in a separate article on Emotional Literacy. At this point, we will go over only a few examples here. You can practice teaching of emotions with your children without being an expert psychologist. One way of teaching about emotions and the ways of expressing them is through engaging your children in ‘How would you react?’ type of questions in real-life scenarios. Pick up examples of contentious emotional issues from the neighborhood, from the relatives, from the newspapers and ask your child what they would do in such situations. Explore different options. This gives them practice on exploring more than one reaction to any given situation. They would understand the difference between knee-jerk reactions to emotional conflicts and their alternatives. It’s an effective way of empowering your children and making them understand that surrendering to emotions without being mindful of their causes is only for the untrained in the science of emotions.
But before you can explore such options together, you would need to overcome barriers in communicating with children. One major barrier to effective treatment of anxiety and stress in children is the lack of trust or communication between parents and children. Children find it difficult to open up to their parents for fear of being blamed for their own troubles, even when it’s true. I am stressing on parents as the first line of defence against child anxiety, because it’s the parents’ life too which gets affected when their children are distressed. Now, in my experience, there are two things that I have found highly effective in building trust and communication with your child. I am saying on the authority of a parent, who has recently raised three teenage boys with varying levels of success, but overall, I am pretty happy with the outcome. I must admit I had a great help in the form of their mother who was onboard with most of the recommendations I am making here. We often worked in tandem with each other in making sure there is consistency and continuity in the methods. Now, this mention of teamwork brings me back to the one factor that contributes immensely to teen anxiety and depression. And that is the factor of broken families in today’s society. The absence of a father or a mother figure from the family CAN and WILL affect the sense of security and protection in children. Let me be clear here. Just the presence of a father and a mother around without an active positive engagement in children’s life is like there being no father or mother. Forced bonding by asking your child to sit with you or spend time with you, without piquing his or her curiosity to how they will benefit from spending time with you is of no consequence. Bonding with children comes in two ways. First, give them a judgement-free environment. They must be sure their parents will not judge them when they fail or falter. Their parents will come to their support even when they are wrong, especially in front of someone else. An unconditional judgement-free home does not mean a free-for-all absence of any accountability. It just means failure is accepted as an acceptable option when an effort is proven made towards a goal. Second chance, a third chance, even a fourth chance should always be an option as long informed decisions are made towards the tasks set before a child. Realignment, redirection, or even abandoning of certain goals should be clear options agreed upon ahead of time for every goal in life. That’s bringing down the walls of judgement only parents can assist with. Another way, authentic bonding with children can develop is by engaging them in authentic new learning. Empowering your child with new knowledge, new skills, or new learning provides a relationship of respect and curiosity. Curious children when they know they can gain valuable knowledge and skills from you would always come around to spend time with you. That means a constant zeal for parents’ own learning of new things. We are fortunate to be living in a day and age when new learning is so easily accessible. For starters, Khan Academy, YouTube, Udemy offer a wealth of free resources on almost any topic. Learn something new and share it with your child. They may not display any interest in the beginning I must caution you. But a consistent regular sharing of whatever you learn on a variety of topics will develop into an atmosphere of meaningful and purposeful engagement with each other. Symbolic times together, like meal time or game time, or even browsing time when combined with conversations revolving around new learning become the instances of cherished ‘quality time’ spent together. If you want to up the notch for high-performing children, there are now formal and totally FREE courses available on any topic imaginable by some of the top universities in the world, like Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, and so many more. Just Google search for Massive Online Open Courses, also called MOOCs and you will be surprised by the abundance of options available to gain that respect from your child that you had always wanted.
Now, here are some of the behaviors that as a parent you can model and your children will pick up these behaviors over time. First up, model stress and emotional management through your own behavior. If you get louder during an argument, children will pick up and mimic that behavior. Being louder often means you are out of argument, patience, or respect with the other person. Displaying, or even initially faking an active listening composure in agitating situations or conversations, will lead to a lasting culture of listening to others’ perspectives before countering them. We often hear things like, “I gave her enough time before I got loud.” This is mere evasion. There is no such thing as a limit of time or trials before getting louder. If necessary, you can put a contentious topic to rest with your child for some time before taking it up again, without losing your calm composure. This particular advice also goes along with ‘checking your ego’ in heated conversations. Many a time, in the heat of asserting your authority as a parent, you end up asserting your ego. Your goal is to gain their respect and have an influence on their decision making, not to inflict fear in them through your physical or financial authority. To check your ego, try saying ‘sorry’ once in a while and notice a change in their behaviors. Expressing remorse or humility for a mistake made is a powerful trait of emotionally intelligent people. It’s no weakness. In fact, It’s the indirect influencing of permanent changes in stubborn behaviors. It produces softness in attitudes towards others. It brings down the rigid walls of defiance and insult. It fluffs the cushions of care from the very same people who were bent on pushing you in the first place.
One of the best supports a parent can provide to his or her child is to make sure they get respected and accepted by their peers and their teachers. Empower your child to gain influence among his or her peers. Invite his friends to your house and make them feel welcome. This will bring down many of the cultural and social stigmas your child faces at school. It will also help with the Fear of Rejection by your child’s peers. This will also help your child gain respect out in school. Make frequent respectful contacts with your child’s teachers and keep him in the loop with all such communications. Remember you are advocating for your child, and not for his or her teacher. It’s okay to offer alternatives that are acceptable to the teacher and your child, instead of blindly accepting the teacher’s perspective. Teachers are human beings. They will listen to suggestions if offered with due respect.
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