Once your teen was the soul of confidences. Now it is only a matter of getting a one word response before the bedroom door has to be shut. You remind yourself that this is a normal thing that teens do. Under the reassurance, however, is a more muted concern: What if this isn’t just “teen” behaviour? What if there are some things that are wrong and you don’t know?
That worry isn’t irrational. Adolescents experience a high prevalence of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, which have grown over the last 10 years, and the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey has seen a steady increase in the number of adolescents reporting feeling sad or hopeless for more than two weeks. Parenting teenagers always involves some guess work, but it’s a tough time to do this when teen mental health is in this kind of crisis.
Learn how to distinguish between typical teen behavior and what may be a red flag, how to communicate with the teen who won’t listen, and some healthy ways to support your teen’s mental health without being overbearing or doing too little.
Why Teen Mental Health Looks Different Than It Used To
Adolescence has always been a period of rapid brain development, identity formation, and emotional volatility that part hasn’t changed. What has changed is the environment teens are navigating it in. Mixed with the social media usage, academic pressure, climate anxiety, political polarization and the global pandemic causing years of altered social development, we have stressors that have never been in this form before for past generations.
It takes until the mid-twenties for the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that regulates impulses, judgment and emotions, to fully mature. While this is a normal, expected process of adolescent neurodevelopment, it also involves teens experiencing strong emotional experiences while a still developing brain is still developing the mechanisms to control them. That doesn’t excuse worrying behavior, but it does provide context that can help parents react with patience and less concern about the routine ups and downs of teens’ lives—and still remain vigilant about anything beyond that.
Normal Teenage Moodiness vs. Signs of a Deeper Struggle
One of the hardest parts of parenting a teen is knowing where the line is. Some mood swings, irritability, and desire for privacy are developmentally normal. Others are red flags.
What’s Typically Normal
- Seeking personal space, privacy and autonomy
- Wants to listen more to friends than parents, on many things
- Sometimes irritable or moody, particularly related to sleep, hormones or stress
- Some disengagement from family activities in favor of time with peers
- Trying out identities, styles and interests
What Warrants Closer Attention
- Isolates themselves not only from parents but from friends and activities that they once enjoyed.
- A drop in school performance or loss of interest in school, not explained by a change in circumstances
- More irritability that is more than just from time to time.
- Evidence of self-destructive behavior, such as marks, wearing long sleeves when it’s hot, or acting secretive about injuries
- Discussions of burden, vanishing, or lack of future
- Sudden and dramatic shifts in friends, looks or behavior
If symptoms from the second list are becoming evident, particularly if they are more than a couple of weeks old, or if multiple symptoms are present, it is time to take a second look (not panic, but take action and consider the help of a professional).
How to Talk to a Teen Who’s Shutting You Out
Direct interrogation rarely works with teenagers, and most parents already know this from experience. A few approaches tend to work better than “What’s wrong with you lately?”
Choose the Right Moment, Not the Right Speech
Side by side activities, such as driving somewhere, cooking, walking the dog, etc., are often greater opportunities for teens to open up than are confrontational face-to-face “We need to talk” conversations, which can shut communication down before it even begins. Not seeing the audience directly and not being pressured to make a response will reduce defensiveness.
Lead With Curiosity, Not Correction
Instead of “You’ve been so distant lately, what’s going on?” try something closer to “I’ve noticed you seem more tired than usual how are you actually doing?” The first framing would sound like an accusation and the second would be an observation without a judgment which is more likely to yield an honest answer.
Resist the Urge to Immediately Problem-Solve
The urge to fix things immediately can actually close off the door to a teen’s problem when he or she shares something challenging. Youth frequently need to be listened to before they can listen. When they say something such as “That sounds really hard” and then provide some suggestions, you leave the door open for future discussions, instead of letting them know that opening up automatically means a lecture.
Normalize Talking About Mental Health
The more mental health is talked about matter-of-factly, as you would talk about physical health, the less stigma a teen will feel about opening up about mental health struggles. Random statements such as “everyone has bad weeks sometimes, it’s okay to talk about it” set the stage for more in-depth discussions later on.
The Role of Screens, Social Media, and Academic Pressure
Social Media and Comparison
Research on social media and adolescent mental health has found associations between heavy use particularly platforms centered on image and comparison and increased rates of anxiety, depression, and poor body image in teens, especially girls. This does not mean that all screen time is bad; but, unstructured, unlimited and no conversation about what teens are viewing and how it impacts them is associated with poorer outcomes.
Instead of blanket bans, which often have the opposite effect and lead teens to use screens more covertly, many child psychologists recommend that you work together to set guidelines: Have family times when phones are off and technology is not accessed (time spent at the table, before bed, etc.), discuss what your teen is viewing online and model.
Academic and Extracurricular Pressure
Academic stress, competitive college admissions culture, and overscheduled extracurricular calendars are consistently cited by teens themselves as major sources of chronic stress. Parents can help by paying attention to whether there is any time that grants a teen any unstructured free time, and by making it clear that love is not tied to grades and achievement — teens are very sensitive to conditional love, even if the parent wasn’t aware.
Building a Foundation of Trust Before a Crisis Hits
It’s not just one conversation, it’s a pattern of trust over time that offers the best protection against adolescent mental health problems. Some themes emerge from the literature on teen mental health that are consistently found:
- Availability: consistently available, not pressuring teens to speak about it, so they know it’s there when they’re ready
- Reliable follow through — making and keeping promises, being consistent, which is what teens need to know to trust you when something serious comes up.
- Separating out “your feelings are valid” from “your behavior is acceptable”
- Keeping up family traditions such as going out to dinner, weekend outings or check-ins that provide low-pressure ways to maintain family connections
- Healthy coping is often modeled more by parental example than by verbal instruction and is readily learned by teens.
None of this can guarantee that a teen will never have problems, but a lot more can be accomplished to make it more likely that when a teen does, they will come to you or accept help.
When to Involve a Mental Health Professional
Many parents are concerned that if their teen goes for therapy, something is deeply wrong, or that it is a failing of their parenting. Both of these are usually not the case. Adolescent therapy is now considered to be a proactive and preventative measure by pediatricians and mental health professionals, rather than a measure to be taken in crisis situations.
Seek help from a professional when:
- Anxiety, depression, and/or withdrawal symptoms last longer than 2-3 weeks.
- If a pupil shows signs of self harm or suicidal thoughts, this is dealt with immediately and without delay
- There have been a lot of efforts to communicate with the family and the communication has actually been broken down.
- A teen is experiencing a major life stressor divorce, loss, trauma, bullying that seems to be overwhelming their usual coping ability
- “It just feels like something is not right and you are doing everything the wrong.”
A licensed therapist with experience working with adolescents can provide individual counseling for the adolescent and family counseling that can help enhance the communication in the family, rather than just focusing on making the adolescent “okay..
Supporting Your Teen Without Losing Yourself in the Process
Parenting a teenager today in this mental-health environment is indeed more challenging than a generation ago and there is no recipe that would eliminate all the risk. The most important thing is consistency; being available, not fearing the subject of mental health, and being aware of the normal teenage level of distance, and what might be indicators that something else is going on and also that seeking professional help is a good parent and not a bad one.
At Lovely Day Counseling, we have licensed counselors with experience in working with teens and families experiencing just these challenges. When symptoms are occurring that you are worried about, or you just want a second set of eyes to look at your teen and where they may need some help in this moment, a consultation is a consistent, actionable first step.