Fears in teenagers: what are they, and how to help cope with them?

Fears in teenagers: what are they, and how to help cope with them?

Fears in teenagers: what they are and how to help

deal with them?

Adolescence is a transitional period when relationships, interests, hobbies change, and a worldview develops. The self-esteem of the individual, as well as interpersonal relationships in the group, undergoes transformation. It is not surprising that such changes are accompanied by increased anxiety, worries and fears. Among the reasons leading to the formation of fears in adolescents aged 11 to 16 years are:

Biological reasons that are associated with the peculiarity of the nervous system of older schoolchildren, increased emotional sensitivity.

Social reasons, including the fear of not being accepted in the group, the great age of the parents (fear of their death), etc. Psycho-emotional reasons, due to a large number of prohibitions, conflictual relationships with parents and within the peer group, psychological trauma, etc.

Hidden forms of aggression contribute to the emergence of fears; among these forms one can note irritation, guilt, and suspicion. Teenage fear differs from the phobias that overwhelm children in preschool and primary school age. A distinctive feature is an increase in the number of social fears and a decrease in phobias.

Natural phobias: death, darkness, illness

1. Deaths. All psychologists agree that the leading fear that arises in adolescents is the fear of the death of their parents. Moreover, already at primary school age, fears for the life of the mother and father begin to prevail over the fear of one’s own death. It is very difficult for parents to find out about the hidden feelings tormented by a teenager. The fact is that at this age they do not try to get rid of fears, but try to hide them. And attempts to independently overcome the fear of one’s own death often end in failure. Children unnecessarily risk their own lives trying to control this feeling.

2. Diseases. Often fearing the death of both themselves and a loved one, a teenager begins to experience the fear of illness. If this condition takes on the character of a phobia, then it is necessary to seek help from a psychologist, as it can threaten real health problems. Your teen may begin to: experience panic attacks; suffer from rapid heartbeat; faint.

3. Darkness. Natural fears that often arise in adolescence include the fear of the dark. Its reasons lie somewhat deeper than in childhood. These could be: conflicts with parents and peers; unrequited love; passion for computer games or horror films. All these factors provoke stress and the fear of being in a dark room.

4. Night terrors can also plague a teenager. They predominate mainly in early adolescence, that is, before the child reaches 12-13 years of age. Girls are more susceptible to them than boys. These fears find their expression in episodic attacks of horror and screaming when the teenager is overly excited.

Social fears include those that relate to public life and everything connected with it. Often teenagers experience anxiety and fear of public speaking, in particular, answering at the board. In addition to the fact that many glances will be directed at the child, he will also have to demonstrate his knowledge. Fears arise not without reason; many things affect them: a sense of prestige; desire for authority (both in front of classmates and in front of parents); effort spent on preparation. As a result, the fear of answering poorly leads to poor performance. Moreover, tests and homework are completed “excellently,” but the answers given at the board are often only “satisfactory.”

Teenage social anxiety is a fear of communication. In no case should it be ignored, because contact with peers in adolescence is the dominant activity. A shy child finds himself in a very disadvantageous situation, which affects his development. There may be several reasons for this fear: negative experience; diffidence; dissatisfaction with appearance; dissatisfaction with material wealth in the family. But it happens that this fear has no rational basis and is simply a phobia coming from childhood. How to overcome teenage anxiety. In order to overcome the fears that haunt a teenager, you need to recognize them. This will not be difficult for attentive parents and teachers to do.

The following recommendations will help you get rid of social fears::

Eye to eye contact. It is important to teach your child not to be afraid to exchange views. This can be achieved by encouraging conversation with the following phrases: “Look at me,” “Look into my eyes,” “I want to see your eyes.” This will strengthen your teen's ability to make eye contact, which will make communicating with other people easier.

It is necessary to explain to the teenager how to start and end a conversation. It is important to talk through and act out various social situations. Perhaps this will be presented in a humorous way, in the form of a game.

It is necessary to create conditions for establishing friendships between children.

School fears can be overcome, and the following exercises can help with this:

Visualization of fear. This exercise works no worse in teenagers than in childhood. Imagination, realized in the form of drawing the object of one’s fear on paper, makes it possible to overcome fear. Completion of the exercise is the elimination of the drawing by burning, crumpling the sheet, cutting, etc.

Implosion. It is based on the fact that fear is artificially intensified, but at the same time the teenager is provided with additional protection. For example, if a child is afraid of publicly demonstrating his knowledge, let him answer at the board, but in the presence of his parents. Talk about your worries. At the same time, it is important to get to the essence of fear, to find out the most seemingly insignificant details. Perhaps, after talking with an adult, the fear will turn into a joke.

ADVIСE:

Switching to another activity. You need to try to distract the teenager from his fear, to occupy him with something new, exciting and interesting. Has the process of falling asleep become torture? Find out how to get rid of the fear of not falling asleep.

Fears in a teenager are a phenomenon that you can and should be able to cope with. The following advice from psychologists can help parents and their children overcome fears:

1. reconsidering values ​​and priorities;
2. observation of surrounding people;
3. relaxation, both mental and physical; thorough study of the object of fear;
4. adequate assessment of one's own personality;
5. recognition of the rights of a teenager, in particular: to personal opinion, to a position in the family, to private life.

The problems of adolescence are multifaceted, including fears. It is important for parents to be able to recognize the anxieties and fears that plague their grown children. This will make it possible to jointly overcome existing fears, and personalities to develop harmoniously.

Teacher - psychologist Osipova G.I.

Recommendations for parents to prevent anxiety in adolescents (Ismailova M.K. educational psychologist)

Recommendations for parents to prevent anxiety in adolescents.

educational psychologist Ismailova M.K.

The most correct approach to preventing anxiety in adolescents is to work in two directions: with the child himself and with his environment.

Recommendations for parents.

If the parent communicates with the child incorrectly, the parent may even contribute to the development of anxiety. Often parents tend to make demands on their child that they cannot cope with. Having failed, the teenager begins to feel that he is worse than others and loses confidence in his abilities.

First of all, parents need to celebrate their child’s successes every day and tell other family members about them. In addition, it is necessary not to use words that degrade the child. In other words, you should not demand an apology from the child for his action, but rather ask him to explain why he did what he did.

Reducing the number of comments is helpful. To understand that some comments are unnecessary, you can write them down during the day and re-read them in the evening. It will become obvious that many of them could not have been done: they did not bring any benefit or even harmed the child. For prevention purposes, it is important to talk more with your child, help him express his emotions, feelings and thoughts in words. Parents whose children have increased anxiety often experience muscle tension themselves. In this regard, relaxation exercises are also beneficial for them.

A favorable psychological climate in the family contributes to the harmonious development of the child’s personality and reduces the level of anxiety.

The main goal when working with a teenager is not to relieve him of anxiety, but to teach him to understand the reasons for his experiences, not to fall into despair in difficult situations, and to find ways to solve the problems that life will pose for him.

Recommendations for a teenager.

1. “Tuning into a specific emotional state.” The student needs to mentally establish a connection between an anxious emotional state and some melody, color, etc.; on the contrary, associate a calm, relaxed state with another melody, color or landscape, and in the same way a confident, “winning” mood. When experiencing excitement, you need to remember the first, after that, then move on to the third, repeating the last several times.
2. "A pleasant memory." The teenager imagines a situation in which he felt calm and relaxed, trying to remember all his feelings as detailed and vividly as possible.
3. "Application of the role." Finding himself in a difficult situation, the student is asked to vividly and accurately imagine a role model, then try on this role and act in this image. (This technique is more effective for young men).
4. “Voice and gesture control.” A confident voice and calm gestures can have the opposite effect - reassure, increase confidence. Training in front of a mirror and “spectators” is necessary.
5. "Breath". Proper breathing helps relieve tension, for example, you can exhale twice as long as you inhale; when experiencing strong tension, take a deep exhale twice as long or take a deep breath and hold your breath for 20-30 seconds.

These techniques are most effective for students experiencing so-called “situational anxiety.”

Why do children experience anxiety?

Children are constantly exposed to new things, and this can make them anxious. This process is completely normal until the anxiety becomes constant. If children react with fear to everything new and are prone to all sorts of experiences, this may indicate chronic anxiety.

Often, anxious children have trouble noticing the thoughts that are bothering them. To do this, they need the help and support of their parents - children learn to overcome anxious moments thanks to the way you train them. And in the future, when faced with difficult situations, they will feel more confident.

It happens that parents, anticipating the child’s fears, try to protect him from them. When children suffer from chronic anxiety, parents can get caught in a negative cycle and only make the problem worse. Therefore, in this case you should behave very carefully and carefully.

How to help your child cope with anxiety?

The goal is not to get rid of anxiety, but to help the child cope with it

Of course, no one wants a child to be unhappy, but the best way to help children overcome anxiety is not to try to remove the stressors that cause it, but to learn how to cope with them. This will help children learn to tolerate the feeling of anxiety and act regardless of it, so that anxiety will decrease over time or disappear altogether.

Don't avoid things just because they make your child anxious.

Helping children avoid things that worry them may help them feel better, but only in the short term. In the long term, anxiety will only increase. If a child gets upset in an uncomfortable situation and starts crying - not in order to manipulate, but simply because he feels this way - you need not to save him from stressful situations, but to help him cope with them in order to avoid recurrence.

Express positive but realistic expectations

It is important to explain to your child that his expectations are quite realistic - for example, to fail a test, be the object of ridicule, or not like school. At the same time, it is worth expressing confidence that everything will be fine with him, he will be able to cope with this. This way the child will be ready for any situation, and, moreover, he will understand that his parents’ expectations are not related to what he definitely cannot cope with.

Respect his feelings, but do not give them decisive power

If a child is afraid to go to the doctor and get an injection, it is very important not to minimize his fears, but also not to intensify them even more. If you want to get involved, help him understand what exactly he's worried about and encourage him to confront his fears. For many children, it is very important to know that a parent is there to help them through the scary moments in their lives.

Don't ask leading questions

Encourage your child to talk about his feelings, but try not to ask leading questions. To avoid feeding the cycle of worry, simply ask open-ended questions, otherwise your head will be filled with even more thoughts and worries.

Don't reinforce your child's fears

If a child has had a negative experience with a dog or a bad trip to the skating rink, it is very important that parents do not interfere and do not force children to interact with something scary again or push them to a certain decision.

Encourage your child to get used to their anxiety

Let your child know that you appreciate the work it takes to cope with anxiety. Over time, this feeling will decrease as children continue to be exposed to the source of stress. Anxiety may never go away completely, but this is how fears are overcome.

Try to keep the stressful waiting period short

When we are afraid of something, it is the period of waiting that precedes the actual act that is most difficult to feel. It is important for parents to ensure that such periods are as short as possible - for example, if a child is nervous about going to the doctor, do not discuss it long before the visit.

Think it over with your child

Sometimes it is useful to talk about what would happen if the child's fear came true - how would he cope with it? This way the child will be able to talk through things that worry him and explain what he is really afraid of. And the parent, in turn, can suggest ways to solve the problem. For some children, having a plan can reduce uncertainty in the most effective way.

Try to demonstrate healthy ways for children to cope with anxiety.

There is a way to help children deal with anxiety by letting them see you do it. This will be useful for both the child and the parents, because living with a constant feeling of anxiety is not at all easy. Let your children hear or see how you deal with challenges.

Bonus: one of the working lifehacks for combating anxiety.

It is important to realize that anxiety is a kind of “voice in your head” and separate it from your own thoughts. You can imagine that an upset TV is playing in your head, which includes disturbing and unpleasant programs. If you regularly catch it and tell yourself that it’s just a background, and it has nothing to do with reality and your own thoughts, over time it will become easier and easier to “drown out” it, or even “turn it off.” Stay mentally healthy!

And subscribe to our Yandex.Zen channel, where you will find even more useful materials for the whole family.

Diagnosis of anxiety

In order to begin to overcome anxiety in children, it is important to correctly and timely recognize the problem. Most children do not tell their parents about problems, and teenagers completely deny any troubles. Therefore, along with changes in mood and behavior, it is important to note external symptoms in the child: chills or hot flashes, sweating, trembling hands, increased heart rate, difficulty breathing, muscle tension. Children may complain of chest pain, numbness in the limbs, headache, dizziness, or lightheadedness.

To diagnose anxiety, you can use the Lavrenteva and Titarenko scale, as well as the CMAS criteria. They involve a series of questions. Each affirmative answer is worth 1 point. The questions concern the child’s behavior, his emotions, communication with peers, and statements. If, after completing the survey, almost the maximum points are scored (up to 15-20), the child has increased anxiety. With an average score (up to 7-14), the degree of severity is average, up to 6 points – the risks are low.