For more than 25 years, psychologist Lisa Damour has
been helping teenagers and their families navigate adolescence in her clinical
practice, in her research and in bestselling books such as “Untangled: Guiding
Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood.”
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This moment, she says, is like no other.
According to a report released this month by the US Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of US high schoolers experienced
persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021, while 22 percent
seriously considered attempting suicide. Adolescent girls are struggling the
most, but boys and teenagers in every racial and ethnic group also reported
worsening symptoms.
“I am deeply concerned about the suffering teens experienced
during the pandemic and the current crisis in adolescent mental health,” Damour
said.
In her new book, “The Emotional Lives of Teenagers”, Damour
aims to demystify adolescence and to reset the very definition of mental
health: “Too often, ‘mental health’ is equated with feeling good, happy, calm,
or relaxed,” she said. But it is “about having feelings that fit the moment —
even if those feelings are unwanted or painful — and managing them in effective
ways.” She thinks this characterization is “far more accurate”, and, she hopes,
reassuring.
“Too often, ‘mental health’ is equated with feeling good, happy, calm, or relaxed,” she said. But it is “about having feelings that fit the moment… and managing them in effective ways”.
Here is what Damour had to say about communicating with
teenagers, distinguishing healthy emotions from mental illness, and when to
step in to help.
How can parents tell the difference between healthy
teenage angst and signs of anxiety or depression?Teenagers feel their emotions more intensely than children
do and more intensely than adults do. So there will be plenty of days where
they experience distress, maybe multiple times a day, Damour said.
Most of that distress will probably be appropriate to their
circumstances. If a teenager failed a test, we expect they will be upset about
that. If somebody breaks up with them, we expect they will be very sad. What we
are interested in is how the teenager then goes on to manage their feelings.
What we want to see is that they use strategies that bring relief and do no
harm, such as talking to people who care about them, finding brief distractions
or solving the problem, Damour noted.
There is excellent scientific evidence that the mere act of putting an unwanted feeling into words reduces the sting of that emotion.
What we do not want to see — and where we become alert to the
possibility of a mental health concern — is one of two things. One, teenagers
are using strategies to bring relief that actually come at a cost: So a
teenager who is very distressed and then smokes a lot, or a teenager who is
having a hard time with a friend and then goes after that peer on social media.
The other thing we do not want to see is feelings “running
the show” — when they get in the way of a young person’s ability to do the
things they need to do, such as go to school or spend time with peers.
If a teenager comes home from school and seems sad or
angry, what is the best way for an adult to respond?Usually, the psychologist explained, all they need from us
are two things. One is curiosity — to take an interest in what they are
sharing, to ask questions. The other is empathy — letting them know that we are
sorry that they feel that way.
There is excellent scientific evidence that the mere act of
putting an unwanted feeling into words reduces the sting of that emotion. So
when it is 9pm and your teenager is standing in front of you suddenly
describing that they are feeling very anxious, or unhappy or frustrated, the
most essential thing to remember is that they are already on their way to
feeling better because they put those emotions into words.
What if your teenager says something cruel to you?It is perfectly fine for kids to be angry. We should expect
that. What we do put parameters around is the expression of that anger, Damour
said.
When teenagers use hurtful language, it can be useful to
respond in a way that uncouples the feeling from how it was expressed. We can
say things along the lines of: “You may be very angry with me. And you probably
have a point. But we don’t speak to each other that way, so take a minute and
bring it back to me in a more civil way.” Even if a teenager rolls her eyes,
she will get the message and, hopefully, try again when she has cooled off.
Teenagers are organized around the drive toward autonomy. They would rather not be subjected to an adult’s agenda. When we ask them questions at times that work well for us, we are asking them to cooperate with our agenda
What does it mean to allow kids to talk to parents on
their own terms?
Many parents find that they ask brilliant questions over
dinner and come up empty-handed — they get one-word answers if they are lucky.
Later in the evening, their teenager is as chatty as can be.
Teenagers are organized around the drive toward autonomy.
They would rather not be subjected to an adult’s agenda. When we ask them
questions at times that work well for us, we are asking them to cooperate with
our agenda, Damour explained. We need to be open to the possibility that a
teenager may be most forthcoming when they are the ones who initiate the conversation.
That may mean they want to talk to us at times that we are
not expecting or even find inconvenient. And they want to talk about things
that may not be at the center of our attention. But if we want to cultivate and
protect our connections with our teenagers, an important element of that is
being willing to work with their terms of engagement.
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