No matter who you are or what your life is like, change can cause strife. It’s no wonder, then, that the teen years are so challenging for nearly everyone. They are a period marked by change — bodily changes, mental shifts, and transitions from grade school to high school and beyond, just to name a few.
Moreover, the teen years and young adulthood are often when the first signs of depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses begin to appear. Teens need help - and they often have no idea how to ask for it. Fortunately, there’s a whole lot you can do as a parent to make this time easier on your teen.
Organizations like REDgen are proud to offer resources for families going through difficult times. Here’s a look at the best steps you can take to help your teen establish and maintain good mental health:
Consider Your Environment
It’s difficult to be mentally well when you’re in an anxiety-ridden environment. Right now, however, nearly every environment is at least a slightly stressful one. The pandemic has sequestered us at home, and we’ve had nearly a year now to build up anxious associations with our own four walls.
This could be a good time to hit the reset button on your home’s energy. There are several ways you can do this, from painting the walls a new color to simply lighting a candle or opening up a window for a while. The important thing is, whatever you do, do it with intention and get your family involved.
You can even make a ceremony out of it — gather with your family, say or write down something that has been stressing you out, share a reading, poem, or prayer, and then release those anxieties together. You can enhance the symbolism by writing your worries on dissolvable paper then dropping them into water, or, if you have a fireplace, firepit, or other safe ways to do so, burning the paper. This type of symbolism can have a cleansing effect, allowing you to move forward from a more neutral emotional state.
Remove the Stigma
Society, as a whole, tends to have some preconceived notions and stigmas attached to mental illness. Even if your family does not intentionally hold these beliefs, most of us have to, on some level, overcome the idea that feeling anxious or depressed is a sign of failure or weakness. Take some time to talk with your kids about mental illness. Let them know that emotional imbalances are common; that they can be short-lived or long-term struggles; and that they don’t suggest anything negative about people who have them.
This is also a good opportunity to remind your kids that depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns don't have to be debilitating to be worth treating. Many people, teens especially, convince themselves their problems aren’t “bad enough” to bring up. Let your kids know that any struggle is enough struggle to care about.
Practice Mental Health Sustenance Skills
One misguided way many people approach mental health is thinking of emotional distress as being like a type of psychological ear infection. You see a doctor, they give you a treatment plan, you follow it, and you’re done. Although this can be the case for some forms of acute mental illness, such as postpartum depression, for the most part, emotional healthcare is more like dental healthcare. Small, everyday maintenance can do wonders to help you avoid needing bigger and more drastic treatments.
Model every day mental health care for your children and teens, and get them involved. For example, you can start doing a daily mindfulness practice as a family — as little as ten minutes can make a huge difference in your mental health. Regular exercise, a varied diet, and spending ten or more minutes outdoors each day are also extremely effective mental health maintenance tools.
Above all, offer your teens an open, loving, and safe space. Give them room to be messy and imperfect. Focus more on growth, and less on grades; more on confidence and less on chores. Your teens are learning how to become themselves: Show them you’re excited to meet them.
Need help finding a mental health professional? Check out our service provider page.
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