The Stressed Out Teenager

When our children reach the age of 13-14 years old, their life changes. Now they become real teenagers with all good and bad stuff this brings. They will have to face enormous amounts of stress, often for the first time in their lives. They will have to pass their first "real" exams - ones that will decide about their whole future. They will fall in love for the first time in their lives and will probably have sex some time after that. Finally, they will be in danger of getting into alcohol and drugs problems and they will have to fight with the urge to just let go on life. And, worst of all, for the first time in their lives parents will not (and should not) solve their problems, but will only advise their children offering limited assistance.

School is the main source of teenagers' stress, and of all school reasons the grades are the most common. Unless you help your children cope with it, you risk with their health or even their lives - there are more than one teenager who committed suicide because of poor school performance. The point is that parents should not punish children for por grades, but offer them all help and assistance that might need to improve their grades, from teaching them by learning with them to hiring a decent tutor. If it is done regularly, not only in emergencies, your children's school stress will vanish in a few months and their overall school performance will become much better than anytime before.

Another major problem for teenagers is the pressure they get from their peers. They may all try to force your children into drugs, leaving school, smoking cigarettes or having sex. However, you must not cut your children's ties with their friends and schoolmates - lack of contacts with other teenagers would result in dire psychological pathologies and underdevelopment of crucial social skills. The thing that you should do is to explain clearly and to the best of your ability what will happen to them if they get in trouble with, say, drugs and what awaits them in future if they stay clear of trouble. Also, it is a good thing to help them find funny activities and interesting pastimes that will be enjoyable by teens and won't cause destruction in their lives.

Having sex for the first time is another moment when they are subjects to terrible amount of stress - for many people it is often the worst stress they will feel in their entire life and the negative effects of such stress may affect all their future and relationships. In order to make it easier and less stressful, teenagers have to be able to talk freely about their problems with their parents without fear of parents getting furious. You have to make sure that your children know that they alone are in charge of their sexuality and the decisions are solely theirs - not their partners. Make sure they know that if they are not ready to have sex, it is perfectly ok to break the relationship, change friends, or never get in a dangerous situation again. However, do not try to interfere with your children relationships. Teenagers enter relationships mostly because they feel they are worth it. If you try to force them to accept your choices instead of theirs, they may (and often will) do just the opposite to preserve their independence. Again, try to persuade them and show them the alternatives rather than order them to do what you think is the best thing.