Parents who want to help their children practice everything from spelling to subtraction have long had a plethora of workbooks to choose from at bookstores and other retailers. But a local Barnes & Noble recently featured a more unusual display of workbooks designed to help young people practice not academic basics, but critical coping skills like stress reduction and anger management techniques.
The offerings, from New Harbinger Publications, include titles like The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens and The Anxiety Survival Guide for Teens. Clinical psychologist and New Harbinger author Lucie Hemmen says it’s important that teens practice life skills just as they rehearsed reading and writing in their early years, in part, because they face far more stress than teens in previous generations.
“The academic pressure to succeed is through the roof with a leading anxiety for teens being the fear surrounding entrance to college. When the parents of teens were in high school, we thought about college starting about junior year,” says Hemmen, author of Parenting a Teen Girl and the forthcoming book, The Teen Girl’s Survival Guide. “Now preteens talk about academic anxiety and fear that they will not get into a good college. A lot of this fear is overblown and sadly many parents are sucked into the culture of fear surrounding college entrance, which means teens can't even get a reality check at home.”
And social media sometimes offers too much reality, even when it’s not realistic. It seems every sexy selfie and relationship woe, whether it’s between celebrities or that cute couple in math class, is prodigiously publicized.
“There is nothing that they don't find out about. There is no break up that is private. And they are put in the position to constantly think about marketing who they are in order to feel good enough in their team culture,” says Hemmen, a parent to two teen girls. “Rarely does a teenager spend time on social media and feel better afterwards. Social comparison haunts them.”
While social stress existed long before social media, Hemmen says today’s teens face problems and pressures most of their parents didn’t, even just a few decades ago. In her Santa Cruz, Calif., psychology practice she’s observed:
- Increase in pressure to look good at all costs.
“Girls get triggered looking at Instagram photos of peers who seem prettier, more stylish, thinner. Eating disorders continue to rise and be seen in girls at a younger and younger age.”
- Increase in academic pressure.
“4.0 doesn't cut it for many teens today who pressure themselves with Advanced Placement classes and suffer unbearable amounts of homework to attain GPAs UPWARD of 4.0.”
- Family pressures -- the pressure to do everything and do it extremely well or be left behind.
“Family well being often suffers when multiple kids have hectic schedules so life contains more quantity than quality. Sports did not use to demand as much as they do now. School sports often practice every day for hours, which creates pressure on teens and the entire family system. Extracurriculars are often very demanding of time also. Teens get the message they have to GO GO GO and have no time to develop a connection to who they truly are on the inside. They are busy jumping through hoops. Hence, more depression, anxiety, self-harm.”
Hemmen says it’s important for parents to put aside those hoops on a regular basis and make time to try to connect with teens while they are disconnected from their own technological tools.
“Have quality time, without media or interruptions. Ask them what they think about things and really listen. Not enough people are asking teens how they feel about things. What they think...what they care about....how life affects them. They need this kind of interaction to develop and refine their self-knowledge,” Hemmen says. “Really listen, without an agenda, without a teaching moment, and without your cell phone on. Make it a habit.”
Charlene Oldham is a writer and teacher. She lives in Crestwood.
