Teenagers & the current Mental Health Crisis – Is all Lost?

The teen crisis

I know it dates me – but when I was growing up there were no mobile phones. If you were going to lock yourself in your bedroom and sulk then the options were to play packman – I grew out of that by age 12 – read books, draw, write in your diary, daydream, listen to rock music on your tape recorder or watch the neighbours out of the window. That was about it. The going out options were meet your friends in MacDonald’s and hang around some shopping mall or occasionally go to an all-night party somewhere dodgy – but that was not often.

In a way, this made us more socially isolated. We didn’t have friends we could talk to from our rooms or late at night. Except if we hung out at the bus stop. We didn’t have people to share stories with about how much our parents or siblings sucked or how much we wanted to leave home. Or anywhere to complain really. Teen mental health wasn’t a thing that was talked about. If we wanted to talk to someone we had to go out and meet them – and then mostly we would put on a brave face and try to fit in. And yet on the other hand we couldn’t compare ourselves to thousands of idealised strangers all presenting the perfect exciting Instagram profile life. Things were more real and there was less of everything.

Teenage behaviour is meant to be anti-social

Teenagers withdraw from their families and act aggressive partly because of hormonal changes, and partly because they are supposed to and need to find their own identity separate from who their parents would like them to be. Teens are often lost, and they are meant to be. Being lost is better than following someone else’s idea of who you are, until you find your own identity. It’s an internal process, one of rejecting the status quo, of exploration, and creative discovery. You have to try things to find out what fits, and what doesn’t. Many go to extremes before they find a balance. This is all relatively normal, especially in a culture that forces children into routines and rote learning from the age of four or five. Part of that process is often to substitute the family group with a peer group to hang out with who provide your alternative safety net and comfort.

However ideally there would also be some form or adult guidance and communication – from parents, teachers or other older figures that the teen can look up to and respect. Going it totally alone emotionally, and especially in the age of so many advertising and digital influences is not really ideal.

The Effects of Lockdown and the teen mental health crisis

Several unusual things have happened during the extended lockdown. One is that teens have not been able to break away from the family and hang out in their usual groups – they have been stuck at home. Another is that many opportunities for exploring and getting creative, like going outdoors, doing any kind of sport or cultural activity and taking a gap year abroad have been very limited. And thirdly the world of mobile technology and social media means that rather than having the chance to sulk, reject and explore their own inner worlds, teenagers all over the planet have got caught up in comparing themselves to others and very materially/image focused.

Whilst this is understandable in a crisis, the dark side is that social media and Netflix are chemically addictive to the brain, and don’t actually produce any kind of personal growth or emotional maturity.  They certainly don’t help a teen explore and find the inner identity and enthusiasm that they need to drive them forwards to find their own path into adult life. Whilst being on social media may feel like staying in touch with what’s going on, in reality they are more of an escape from engaging with reality, as well as being superficial, unrealistic and fairly depressing. They are alternate reality systems with unrealistic standards and they are fake. Inauthentic. Is it any wonder that so many people engaged in them feel depressed and hopeless?

Why is mental health harder for teens right now?

Teens have far less coping mechanisms than most adults. They haven’t learned that regular exercise lifts your mood and keeps you focused. Or that eating junk food can leave you feeling emotionally down and physically awful. Most teens eat a fair amount of it daily. They haven’t learnt to meditate, to do yoga, they don’t know about melatonin to help them sleep, or how to cope with a panic attack. They don’t know that sometimes talking honestly can help you feel less desperate and alone. They may not even know how to say what they’re actually feeling. They just feel overwhelmed. These are all things that you generally learn as you get older – and to be faced with everything at once during lockdown has to be very hard to handle.

So what supports a teen with mental health issues right now?

When I recently did a survey amongst the teens I know about what their biggest issue is, most replied that school stops them from doing the things they like and they don’t have time to live their own lives. That’s a stark realisation in itself. And maybe also a reflection of the lockdowns allowing more personal time and creative development. On the bright side at least some of them could identify their own interests and passions. Very sad though that they don’t get to live them because of school obligations – or what the society thinks they should learn. That pressure to choose between being true to yourself or conforming to expectations from your authorities – teachers and parents – who expect you to do well and assume that your efforts will assure your future must be very confusing. And therein lies at least part of the problem, and also the solution.

If you are a parent reading this, you may recall having some time in the evenings or on weekends to just do nothing, tinker in the shed, be outdoors and climb trees, or whatever you got up to. Nowadays its school till 5 and then 2-3 hours of homework. There isn’t really any time to be yourself. And at 8pm the only thing they can be bothered to do is mindlessly scroll through their phone because they are exhausted, and very vulnerable to the feeling of missing out if they don’t keep up on their social media accounts.

If we look at the bigger picture aside from the pandemic, the academic school system already doesn’t suit many teens because they are required to study a wide range of subjects and do well at all of them. Although there is some choice, on the whole practical life skills, physical activities and creativity are side-lined and seen as inferior to “proper” subjects. This creates an inbuilt sense of failure for teens who are naturally more drawn to things outside of the mainstream curriculum.

They key issue I see is that children and teens are not asked and encouraged to focus on the things that interest and motivate them in the first place. They are asked to choose abstract studies that will lead to an equally abstract university degree. The whole “having a job in order to earn an income model” isn’t sitting well for many youngsters. They are seeing that adults aren’t on the whole happy in this system, and that the jobs aren’t actually guaranteed. The missing ingredients here are personal choice, meaningful occupation and freedom to be oneself. The fact that so many teens are choosing to do very little apart from scroll through their phones and watch movies is a symptom. There is a bigger inability to see a meaningful way forward, coupled with a total lack of incentive to do anything. What’s the point?

Change your attitude – do you want your child to conform, or do you want a connection?

If you are a frustrated or worried parent with one of these teens who is glued to their phone and spends the rest of their time gaming, then it’s time to act now. If they’re not 18 yet you are still responsible and you still have a good chance. Don’t give up. If your relationship with them is monosyllabic at best, you may feel like you have lost them and don’t know where to start. The only to start is acceptance. Accept your own frustration and feelings of powerlessness. Put them aside. And then practice accepting your teen. They aren’t behaving as they are to annoy you on purpose – they are simply trying to survive.

Acceptance goes a long way to helping your teenager feel more space to breathe, and eventually to realising that you are emotionally approachable and available should they need help. Or even feel like talking. The most important thing if they do approach you is just to keep breathing, to accept, not to judge, and to listen. Be open. Be curious. Ask broad questions. Acknowledge to yourself that you don’t know the answers, but are willing to support and try. What is their experience? What do they notice? What do they need? The more open you are, the more they will open up. If you don’t push it they will come back for more connection. But you have to shift your attitude first.

Once you have a connection…

The fastest way to healthy change is to encourage your teen at a very basic level to be themselves. Those instincts to skateboard all evening in the street with friends and miss dinner, to walk the dogs and spend hours just wandering, to do dreadful experimental pizza cooking etc. are a very large part of the answer. Even their choice in clothes or music can be a lifeline. Any form of expression is a sign of individual creative life and that all is not lost. The more you can learn to see things this way the faster things will transform.

One place to start is to think about what your child was like as an infant. Were they energetic? Did they run and climb, wear you out? Did they love sport? Did they eat meat? Were they creative? The things that you can remember about your child when they were little are also a good place to start now. These things constitute their essence – the essential building blocks of who they are as a person. These qualities are arguably present from birth and are easily visible in young children. If your boy or girl loved cars and action men – to give a very crass but obvious example – what may help your teenager make some meaningful inner connections is learning to drive, fixing machines and doing stuff outdoors.

The missing teen mental health part is on the inside

If your teen seems lost it’s because they are lost. Social media and other people probably won’t be much use in helping them find themselves because they are external focuses. Who your teen is, is already present inside them. The task is to help them get access. That’s what teen mental health depends on. As their parent you know them better than anyone else (in theory) – at least you have had a lot more time to observe them. Can you get a piece of paper and write down what they are like? Everything that makes them essentially who they are – their likes, dislikes, habits, characteristics, passions and defining features? Part of what goes wrong for many children is that they aren’t fully seen or recognised by their parents, teachers or anyone.

Unless they are seen and acknowledged they don’t really understand who they are themselves. And they get lost following and excelling at paths that don’t really correspond to them. The world pushed people into so many directions that aren’t really theirs, and that’s exactly why people often have a mid-life crisis where they reassess who they really are. This is where things get deep – life doesn’t really have any meaning other than what you give it. But having meaning all begins with being yourself, and accepting who you innately are.

Things will only begin to make sense once you acknowledge and start to express your own innate attributes. That’s why life gave them to you in the first place. This is the spiritual concept of alignment – and it basically means being yourself and authentically responding to life around you. But that’s not so easy in the modern world… as it’s generally not valued. That’s partly why teen mental health is up the creek without a paddle (if only it were that outdoors and not so virutal!)The next step is to define what your own successful life would look like rather than have it defined for you by the external world. There are many many versions of success and some of them involve working ten rather than forty hours a week, and it’s fun!

How do you give your child confidence and self-esteem?

It’s not hard. You start by accepting. And seeing. And listening a lot without interrupting. Think about your list about your infant child and see those qualities and characteristics in your child. When you are with them be 100% present with them. Look, listen, feel, notice. How are they? Their emotion, their body language. What’s going on for them? This is the beginning of relationship. If your child is Highly Sensitive then acknowledging and accepting their emotional state no matter what that is, will be fundamental for their sense of worth and confidence.

If you have been judging and correcting your child for a decade already, you will have some catching up to do. And some self-forgiveness. Just as school conditions your child to do and be many things they don’t want to, our culture also has expectations of parents and how they should discipline and correct their children which are not actually helpful for raising confident kids. It’s not your fault.  But armed with new information, now is always the right and only moment to begin. You will likely be amazed at how fast you can change your relationship and watch them begin to get a stronger sense of self.

Self-esteem comes from knowing and experiencing that being yourself is enough. That you don’t have to do things to be loved. That you simply are enough. And a lot of that can be conveyed to you by parents, other adults or a therapist who accept your emotions, see your essence and encourage you to follow your interests and impulses.

Breaking out of a negative cycle

The other aspect that may help you get a struggling teen into a more positive mode is to offer them a non-mainstream path. To get out of formal education and into something more vocational that involves learning real life skills that actually interest them. This can be anything from a part-time job cooking to learning camping and outdoor skills, foraging, survival, or leading adventure sports expeditions. Again, clues to what may work can often be found in early life. A bike fanatic can become a happy bike mechanic or even a bike salesman. Or a bike designer. But the route may need to be more hands on and less school-academic, especially for a child who has a real drive, passion and spirit.

Many so called ODD children actually just don’t want to do what they are being forced to do. For many children and teens who seem beyond reach, simply being in nature and looking after animals like horses, with basic responsibilities of feeding, mucking out and grooming can create a life-changing connection. They can spark an inner connection that then opens other doors within the young adult to how they want to apply their energy and focus to something that they can make their own.

Conclusion

The current world events have brought issues about the way that the school system feeds the job world with willing participants, but leaves out the individual drives and passions of the children who are supposed to do those jobs into stark relief. The crisis in teen mental health has brought this into stark relief. I feel we need to go right back to first principles and allow and support children and teen’s individual essence to inform their preferences, their emotions and their interests, and to encourage these. The alternative is to have to deal with a hoard of moronic phone addicts who have no essential real-life skills but think they are entitled to free money. If we accept that it is our current world and social systems that are contributing to the distress teens are experiencing, then we also have the means to create change. Fortunately a lot of the power to alleviate this suffering is within reach of individual parents because of the influence they have on their children’s development. And we arguably need to act now.