Boosting Teen Mental Health: 3 Parenting Power Moves

Boosting Teen Mental Health:

3 Parenting Power Moves

Let’s talk teen mental health. Teenage brains are wired to seek new experiences, master skills, and create relationships. Developmentally, this is what is needed for teenagers to grow into independence and adulthood. But when teens struggle with anxiety, depression or other mental health struggles, it can negatively impact their ability to seek out these needed experiences.

Your pre-teen or teen may be experiencing these mental health struggles for the first time. Or your child may have been struggling with their mental wellness for a while, but now it is becoming a more severe or frequent occurrence. So let’s dive into how you can boost your teen’s mental health.

How do you know when to worry as a parent?

When your teenager’s daily life is affected by their mental health strugges, such as anxiety or depression, its time to start paying attention. Everyone experiences big ups and downs sometimes. And it is normal for your teen to pull back from life for a short period of time while they process their feelings or regroup.

But when your teen is withdrawing for more than a couple of days it is a red flag. It is also a red flag if they are no longer able to function in their daily life the way they used to. An example is when your teen refuses to go to school or begins to miss more and more school. These red flags let you know it is time to intervene with help to improve your teen’s mental health.

What does ‘no longer being able to function’ look like?

Think of functioning as the everyday things you do to navigate life. Like sleeping, eating, taking care of your body, attending school, maintaining relationships, finding enjoyment in activities, etc. If your teenager has stopped doing these things it’s time to check in with them to see what’s up.

Let’s talk about sleep

Sleep affects a teenager’s ability to learn, make good decisions and develop emotionally. Too little sleep will negatively impact your teen’s mental health and functioning. When a teen is struggling with their mental health, sleep is one of the first places to look.

Having said that, it is normal for teenagers to change their sleep habits during the pre-teen and teen years.

Most will turn into night owls, due to changes affecting their circadian rhythm. These changes are due to development, which produce a slower building sleep drive. These changes also cause their bodies to delay making melatonin (the body’s natural sleeping aid).

So naturally, teenagers stay up later and want to sleep in later.

It is also normal for teenagers to catch up on their sleep during the weekend. This is usually due to them sleeping too little during the week and their body trying to capture the lost hours.

If your teen is struggling with their mental health, help them keep track of how much sleep they are getting. If your teen is not getting 8-10 hours of sleep per night, work with them to make their sleep health a priority.

If your teenager is sleeping too much, where they are missing out on life, it is usually a sign they are out of balance. Helping your teenager re-engage in life and finding professional help can help.

More red flags

Your teenager has a theme of anxious or depressive thoughts in all they do.
Your teenager has increased their negative self-talk (i.e. this is never going to end, what’s the point, I hate myself).
Your teenager indicates they are powerless in how they feel or in creating change for how they feel.

If your child mentions self-harm or taking their life, always treat it seriously. Try talking with them to let them know you are there for connection and help. If they don’t want to talk with you, see my Teen Resources for numbers and resources so they can talk with someone else.

What can you do as a parent to help your teen’s mental health?

Let’s face it, sometimes it is hard to get your teenager to address their mental wellness. Sometimes it is hard to find help because waitlists are long and the ‘right fit’ can take a long time to find. But there are ways you can help at home.

1. Practice your own self-care.

Your teens are watching everything you do, even if they pretend to ignore you. If you model getting up, showered and dressed everyday it does plant seeds in your teenager’s mind.

Invite your teenager to join you in your self-care. Ask them to go for a walk with you, take deep breaths with you or do mindfulness with you.

Your teen may deny your request depending on how stuck they are, but don’t give up. Keep asking them and if you can, do your self-care around them so they can always join in.

Gratitude is an easy way to invite your teen to start practicing self-care. At a meal ask everyone to say what they are grateful for. Even if they say they are grateful for going back to their room after dinner, it is a start.

Consistency is key so keep trying even if it does not seem to be working. At the very least you will feel better, which will help you when interacting with your teenager.

2. Teach your teen self-compassion

This may be a hard one for your teenager at first, but again modeling it can have a huge impact. Ask them to talk to themselves as though they were their best friend.

Take it in little steps. In the beginning, act as their regulator. When you hear them say something harsh to themselves, go over and give them a hug if they will let you. Then say ‘I’m sorry that was so harsh, that must have been hard to hear’. Even if they don’t want the hug, say the words so they can hear your compassion.

Next, encourage them to refrain from saying the negative talk to themselves. Ask them if they would say that to their friend and remind them to treat themselves the same.

And finally, teach them to practice compassion with themselves. Teach them to say, ‘this is hard, it’s okay to feel bad because it is so hard, everyone has hard times from time to time’.

Kristin Neff, a leader in self-compassion research, has many short compassion exercises on her website. Share them with your teenager so they can do them when they want. Or better yet, do them together!

3. Validate your Teen’s Feelings

Anxiety and depression can feel very isolating, like no one else understands or feels like we do. But a parent has the power to break through these feelings by listening and reflecting.

Give your teenager lots of chances to talk. Teenagers don’t always want a face to face talk, so a car ride, walk or dark room can provide the safe space for them to open up.

Next, let them say anything. This means they should be doing 90% of the talking. Your job is to sit there and listen. Every once in a while repeat back what you heard. For example, ‘it feels like this is never going to end’ or ‘it feels like there is no point in getting up’.

Don’t judge what they say, try to make things better, or problem solve.

Just listen and repeat.

If you feel like you are getting upset listening to them, ask them to take a break. Model what to do when you start to get upset. Say you want to hear more, but you are feeling upset and you don’t want to say the wrong thing. Then say you need to take a break and you will come back to finish the talk in a few minutes.

Make sure you let your teenager know you are coming back and commit to it by scheduling a time. This will keep you accountable and will build their trust in you.

If you can, invite them to take a walk with you or do a short activity with you during the break. That way you are keeping the connection and modeling how to cope. As an added bonus, you are getting both of you to focus on something other than their anxiety or depression.

Final thoughts on teen mental health

Navigating the teenage years can be difficult even without added mental health challenges. But your teenager does not need to suffer, and you can help. Sometimes these strategies are enough and sometimes your child will need more help. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help for your child or yourself so each of you have support while you work your way back to mental wellness and balance.

If you need parenting support, you may reach out and schedule a free 30 minute consultation and we can discuss additional strategies and other sources for support.

Phone: 612-440-1477
Email: connect@HappyParentingAndFamilies.com
Address: 2700 Louisiana Ave, #26614, Minneapolis, MN 55426

Privacy, Cookie & Terms of Service Policies
FAQs
Follow us:
Join Our Facebook Group:

A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Child and Teen Vaping

Ask a child if cigarettes are dangerous and almost all kids will say yes. Ask a child if vaping is dangerous and you might be surprised by their answer….

Kids often believe vaping is safer than cigarettes. And with the fun, fruity flavors and clever packaging, child and teen vaping is now more common than cigarettes.

But the truth is, vaping can actually be more dangerous to a child’s health than cigarettes. This is why talking with your child or teenager about vaping should be a conversation you have early and often. It’s a good idea to begin having conversations about the dangers of vaping in the elementary school years because studies show students begin self-reporting vaping and exposure to vaping during the middle school years.

The Dangers of Vaping

Health Concerns

Vaping flavors create lung irritation and compromise the body’s immune response. Irritation of the lungs and other organs is especially prevalent in the popular mint and cinnamon flavors.

In addition to nicotine, which is highly addictive and can lead to behavior and learning problems in addition to various health problems, e-cigarettes also contain heavy metals and small particle chemicals which also negatively affect the brain and vital organs. As you can imagine this can be especially impactful during the adolescent years when the brain is going through a lot of changes.

The belief vaping is not as dangerous as cigarettes

Ask and you will find out that most kids think vaping is safer than cigarettes. In fact some kids don’t even realize vapes contains nicotine. They think it’s just vaping flavored water. But the truth is almost all e-cigarettes sold contain nicotine.

And not only does vaping contain nicotine, it greatly increases the amount of nicotine you are exposed to. Smoking a cigarette you inhale about 1.1 to 1.8 mg of nicotine per cigarette, meaning you have to smoke an entire pack (all 20 cigarettes) to inhale about 22-36 mg of nicotine. For e-cigarettes, the amount of nicotine per device can vary, but generally they range from 20 – 60 mg, so the potential nicotine exposure from one device can be the equivalent of 2 ½ packs of cigarettes.

The belief fruity flavors are no longer available

While a ban on all flavors was an original policy proposal, the policy that ultimately passed only banned flavored e-cigarettes in closed e-cigarette cartridges, such as those produced by JUUL. All flavors are still available for refillable or disposable vaping devices, including the very popular Puff Bar.

The belief that vapes are hard to get

The truth is teenagers can easily buy vaping products off of the internet. And those vapes will be delivered to your house with a text message notification to your teen that it is coming. And since most sellers do not include markings on the packaging to indicate what is inside, it makes it easy for your teen to hide the contents from you.

Additionally, products like Puff Bars, which give the same number of puffs as 20 cigarettes, can be purchased for as little as $4. And that low price point makes it much more accessible.

And just because you don’t think your teen can or will buy vapes does not mean you are home free. Teenagers often share devices at social events, where it is common for there to be social vaping activities, such as who can make the biggest cloud.

It can be just the beginning

Studies show vaping can be a gateway product, with users sometimes continuing on to cigarette use and THC (cannabis) use.

Vaping THC, also known as dabbing or using a dab pen, is also more likely. Vaping THC is especially dangerous because the concentration of THC is higher than smoking it any other way. And just as nicotine has significant negative effects on the developing teenage brain, so does vaping THC.

Vaping warning signs

How can you tell if your child is vaping?

Vaping is a lot harder to spot because it does not smell like cigarettes and the devices are cleverly made to resemble things like highlighters, flash drives, pens, etc.

Here are a few warning signs to be on the look out for:

Behavior changes
Weight loss
Sweet fragrances on clothing or backpack
Change in grades
Secretive behavior

What you can do to help keep your child safe

Start having conversations early and often

If you watch a movie together, read an article or see someone on the street vaping or smoking use it as a way to start a conversation. Kids are more receptive to a conversation where they haven’t sparked the reason for the conversation. You can start with this short 6 minute video provided by Allina Health and their Change to Chill initiative if you need a jumping off point.

Allow your child space to talk and ask questions

Some kids really do not know that vaping is dangerous. They need to be educated and given information. Be honest about the statistics and your fears, letting them know you care about them. Most kids readily accept that cigarettes are bad so give them the facts to learn vaping is just as bad.

Talk to your child about why you don’t want them to smoke or vape

If you don’t want your child to vape it is important to bring up the topic and discuss why with your child. Remember this needs to be more than you simply saying ‘don’t do that’. You need to explain to your child the why. This helps them understand there is a reason behind your rules. And when it is safety based, they can be more likely to accept your stance.

Talk about ways your child can say no to peer pressure

Let’s face it, even if you and your child do all the right things your child may still end up in a situation where they are offered vapes, cigarettes or marijuana. So although prevention is important, it is just as important to talk about what your teenager can do when faced with peer pressure.

Give your child an out

Agree on a single letter your child can text you when they are in a situation they do not want to be in. When you get a text with that letter the deal is you will give your child a call right away. Then they can use the call as an excuse to exit the situation they are in.

Teach your child what they can say

Your child or teenager may feel awkward about not knowing what they can say when a friend or peer invites them to smoke. So practice with them because then it becomes more familiar so that when they get into the situation, they know what to do. Here are some phrasing you can share with your child:

No, vaping is just as bad as cigarettes
I’m not into that
If I got busted, my parents would kill me.
If my coach found out, I’d get kicked off the team
I don’t want to get into trouble with police/school, etc.
I’m allergic – the great thing about this one is due to our current culture where we are all allergen aware, most kids will accept this blindly without questioning a child if it is true or not.

Humor can also be a good way to defuse an uncomfortable situation

If you have a kid that thinks their friends won’t stop with the above phrases, or if your child tends to like to use humor with others, here are other phrases you can teach them.

No thanks, I prefer to eat gummy bears instead of vaping them!
Nah, I don’t like how Altoids taste!

Making a joke can help take the focus off them and provide for a natural transition.

Final Thoughts on Vaping

It is important to not judge or punish your child for reaching out for help or informing you they are in a tough situation. Keep the trust and build a relationship where your child knows they can come to you when they are in trouble. Over time they will get better at not getting into those situations in the first place if they have your unconditional support.

If you are worried your child is vaping or has become addicted, check out the below resources on how to help your child quit.

Resources:

Smoke Free – build a quit plan, deal with triggers and troubleshoot withdrawal struggles

Truth Initiative – an anonymous text messaging program to support quitting

Tips for Parents – Simple tips for how parents can help support their teens in quitting