Teen Stress & Parent Talk: Key Role Parents Play in Building their Teen’s Resilience
By Dr. Marina Heifetz, C.Psych
Actress America Ferrera spoke some big truths in the new Barbie movie: “You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people.” It is not just the new Barbie movie that has highlighted the gender imbalance in the psychological functioning of females compared to males. Recent research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that, in 2021, there were approximately 57% of high school girls (and 29% of boys) reporting “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year.” The combination of academic pressures, social stress, changing family dynamics, and ongoing social media access accumulates to filling up teens’ “stress buckets.” While social media can act as a source of connection and support, at the same time it can impact psychological well-being of adolescent girls, who begin to compare themselves to unrealistic standards and expectations seen in social media.
So how does one support teen girls in this complicated world of ours? First step is to acknowledge that not all stress is bad and that, in fact, a little stress can actually be helpful! For example, when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone and take on new challenges, the challenges we experience here contribute to building our resilience. Stress and anxiety can also be helpful in alerting us to something being wrong. For example, if a teen girl is at a party and begins to feel anxious when a stranger offers her a drink, this may be a good anxiety to listen to. Stress and anxiety can be helpful warning signals when something is “off.”
The tipping point of when stress and anxiety are not healthy is really when these feelings impact our overall mental wellbeing on a daily basis. For instance, if our anxiety begins to arise frequently, leading to panic and physiological reactions (e.g., rapid breathing and heart rate, thoughts racing) and it impacts our daily functioning, such as interfering with sleep and concentration, this is when our anxiety is considered to be unhealthy and detrimental to our health.
An important contributor in supporting adolescent girls’ stress and anxiety is how parents choose to handle it. Just as we would typically react calmly and efficiently to a smoke detector going off in the middle of cooking, responding to teens’ stress with patience and validation can be a key factor in helping them to regulate, become mindful of what they are feeling in the moment, and motivate them to develop a practical solution. For example, if your teen daughter is upset about a good friend gossiping about her, instead of going into a reactive mode, a parent may respond by bringing in curiousity while staying calm and validating the teen’s feelings about this. By responding in this way, parents send the message that a) your feelings matter; b) it is normal to experience stress; and c) there are many ways to manage it. And so, instead of seeing stress as a bad thing, we can shift our mindset to viewing stress as something normal and to be curious about. Then, building on some good problem-solving strategies to cope with it.
While the message is simple, the experience is powerful. Research consistently shows that learning to recognize and label all of our different feelings, while feeling validated and supported by families, is an important contributor to building resilience and offsetting stressors. As teens return to school from summer breaks, it is inevitable to experience some academic and social stress. Yet, it is just as important for parents to acknowledge this stress rather than avoid it; avoidance feeds anxiety. As Dr. Lisa Damour, author of the excellent book Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls, puts it: “adolescence is a demanding developmental stage. One of the best gifts you can give a teen is to be a steady presence and lead with curiosity and empathy.”
