RECIPE OF [SOUP]PORT: How Can You Help Your Anxious Teen?

RECIPE OF [SOUP]PORT: How Can You Help Your Anxious Teen?

By Aquiel-Siemon De Belen

 

            As parents, we can serve different dishes of lessons to our teens. But as the negative recipe of mental health problems are slowly giving them a hard time, we can cook up the (soup)port that can help them.

            During this coronavirus pandemic, mental health problems are becoming more common and worse, affecting people from different age groups including teenagers. Before, the American Psychological Association stated in one of its reports that 91 percent of Generation Z are teenagers that have fallen to the bitterness of physical and emotional symptoms of stress like anxiety and depression.
            

            As the number of these teens continues to rise nowadays, more of them continue to suffer under the dish’s hot temperature. And people around them, especially parents, can cook up the different ways to help them. 

ADOLESC[I]ENCE: Science Behind This Ingredient

            Before talking about how to support them, let us first find out the science behind adolescence. There is a reason why we taste this meal of adolescence. It is for one child to socially and psychologically transform into the next stage – being a young adult. The ingredients of biological and hormonal changes might be the reason for some adolescents to feel self-conscious and anxious, requiring more privacy and becoming occupied with their appearance.

            According to Psychology Today, many of the bitter meals of mental health problems of adults begin to show at the stages of adolescence.

LISTENING: Strong but Under-Appreciated Ingredient

            When we talk to our adolescents, our dish of attempting to guide them might be too bitter or too bland that are both not good for them. But cooking the soup of guidance just right, we might be able to help them.

 

            Based on the same site, listening is a strong and powerful but an under-appreciated ingredient. Setting aside the bitter flavors of close-mindedness and not thinking in a judgmental way surely helps if one wants to convey to their child that they are open to discussing anything like sex and pleasure and can even inform what their choices are with guidance. There are tendencies that parents might give direct solutions when talking, but simply listening to the teen while setting aside those tendencies can make the relationship stronger. 

 

            It increases the instances or chances that the child would open up to their parents more when needed. It helps build and further strengthen trust and intimacy. Also, listening makes the child taste the positive sweetness of savory interest, support, and validation of their parents as it also builds trust and closeness.

Bitter Ingredient of Perfection and Pressure

            Teenagers achieve more when the pressure to be perfect is not weighing on their shoulders. So, the site suggests that parents can avoid giving off expressions that implies a need for perfection. Parents of the family can cook their own dishes of care for their children by showing empathy and support that focuses on understanding and not judging.

            As the pressures and biological changes teenagers are experiencing increases, they might taste the salty dishes of mental health problems like depression and anxiety. Indeed, the meals of guidance and listening that are served on a teenager’s dinner table truly matters. And it would truly help them in the journey of life as they bring another kind of “comfort foods” – those now cooked with the recipe of (soup)port.

Photo Source: Country Living Magazine