The teenage years can be a challenging time. While school, relationship, friend, and family issues occupy a great deal of their thoughts, many teens have not yet developed the coping skills needed to deal with certain situations. At times, life is difficult enough for adults who aren't experiencing all new challenges or trying to find themselves for the first time. Any stressor that a teen experiences can alter the balance in their life. Plus, tension, depression, and even suicidal behavior can result in teens who do not find an outlet for their stress.
One of the biggest stressors for a teen or a person of any age is the loss of a loved one. The death of a parent, sibling, or friend can have a huge impact on a teen's psychological well being. Often, they need counseling of a professional nature, or family counseling, in order to express their emotions and adopt healthy methods of coping.
Additionally, family issues often weigh heavily on a teen as they are just beginning to understand the severity of certain scenarios. Knowing how to parent a teen, and what issues to discuss or include them in can be difficult. If a teen's father or mother lose employment, struggle financially, argue with one another, or get divorced, it may cause them a significant amount of stress. Often, family issues aren't discussed with teens. However, more than likely they would benefit from expressing their feeling about the situation to a close family member.
Normal, every day type of stress can have an large impact on teens. Keeping up with grades, attending a new school, getting a drivers license, starting to date, experiencing a break up, losing a part time job, or having trouble with a teacher, principal, or boss can all be taxing situations. Many times an assortment of smaller stressors can add up, causing excessive tension or depression. Even positive occurrences in a teens life,such as winning an award can increase the sense of pressure they feel to succeed and add additional stress.
Teens should be taught to talk through their problems and find healthy ways to relieve stress. Violent behavior, suicidal tenancies, and feelings of hopelessness may result, if healthy coping mechanisms are not learned. Encouraging teens to exercise, participate in recreational activities that they enjoy, stay organized, and take time for themselves will ultimately help them adopt good stress relief and prevention skills.
