How to Help Teens with Anxiety
Many people ask how to help teens with anxiety. In this blog post, I explain why anxious teens need support in learning how to handle their anxiety if they are to develop into thriving adults. I then discuss the usefulness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for helping anxious teens learn to live courageously.
Anxious Teens Need to Learn to Face Their Fears
Teens with higher levels of anxiety need support in learning how to face their fears. Why? For two reasons:
More things will scare them than the average person. Some of these things will be important to their developing into thriving adults, such as taking exams, applying to colleges, choosing a career, going on job interviews, and so on.
If they don’t know how to face their fears, they will avoid what scares them. But, if what they’re avoiding is important to their development, then they’re avoiding the very thing that they need to grow.
Put the two together and you get a teen who avoids most things in their life because they’re afraid.
Two Clinical Examples
Imagine two teens - Kevin and Kendra. Both have high anxiety in a variety of areas.
Kevin is afraid of going to school and embarrassing himself socially. Because Kevin doesn’t know how to face his fears, he misses school regularly and doesn’t spend much time with his friends. His grades are dropping and his social skills aren’t developing. Kevin isn’t building the skills and experiences to succeed as an adult.
Kendra is also afraid of going to school and embarrassing herself socially. But she knows how to face her fears.When she wakes up worrying about embarrassing herself at school, she tells herself that she’s going to take a chance and go to school anyway. When her anxiety tries to scare her into staying home, she tells her anxiety that it doesn’t get to control her life. When her friends invite her to hang out, she says yes, even if she feels afraid.
Kendra is on track to developing into a thriving adult. Kevin, on the other hand, is at risk for falling behind.
Again, both Kevin and Kendra have anxiety. What matters is how they handle it.
How to Help Teenagers with Anxiety using ACT
We deliver Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to anxious teens because the research shows that it works. ACT isn’t about getting rid of anxiety - it’s about helping teens learn to face their fears and live big lives, regardless of whether or not they feel anxious.
To use a metaphor, if you want to be a good sailor, it’s not enough to know how to sail in easy waters. You need to know how to sail in bad weather, when things get really difficult.
ACT is about helping teens learn to sail in bad weather, when things feel really difficult. It’s about helping teens learn to live courageously and pursue what matters to them, even if they feel anxious.
Therapy for Teens
Anxious teens need to learn how to live big lives even when anxiety tells them to shrink. Adults can help. If you’re a parent or caregiver of an anxious teen, talk with your child about these ideas. Share examples of when you’ve faced your fears and done things that scared you.
If you don’t feel up to having these conversations, consider reaching out to a therapist who specializes in therapy for teens.
Our team of Oakland therapists have helped many teenagers shift from running from fear to pursuing what matters to them. It is one of my (Cameron’s) favorite issues in therapy, because I get to see teens rediscover their courage, or discover it for the very first time.
