This will help your anxious teen...

If you have an anxious teen, you are not alone. In our one-to-one sessions with teens, we work on a framework we have developed through our training and through raising teens of our own. Fundamentally as adults we lack an understanding of how emotions work and how an emotion like anxiety effects not just our minds but our bodies as well. We have found that once children and their parents understand this, they can start to understand how to shift their anxious states.

Our approach incorporates a variety of methods, including IFS (Internal Family Systems) and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), among others. No single strategy works for everyone, so we tailor our techniques to the individual, encouraging flexibility and creativity.

One of the first concepts we introduce is from IFS:  the idea that you are not your anxiety. This is key as many teens arrive having been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder which they feel now defines them. Instead, we encourage them to understand that anxiety is just one part of who we are. We also have joyful, clever, and resilient parts. We help our teens and younger children recognize their anxious part and get to know it. We help them learn to look after and befriend it. Becoming familiar with their anxious part and learning when it shows up, how it feels, and how it behaves—can be a powerful step. This perspective allows us to create a bit of distance, to observe it rather than feel controlled by it. Children can get very imaginative in visualizing their anxious parts—everything from purple monsters to blue balls of wool. 

If you have a teen struggling with anxiety, you might be able to open a discussion with them around this. Just reassuring them that they have a part of them that feels anxious sometimes rather then being an anxious person can be a good start.

If you have an anxious teen and would like to speak to us you can contact us on [email protected]