POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY: Parenting teenagers in these testing times

AS part of our work we regularly give talks to students and their parents on how to apply the principles of mindfulness, self- compassion and positive psychology to everyday life.
Students, adolescents in particular, face many challenges. There are the obvious hormonal changes that begin and continue throughout this stage of development.
Coupled with this are the changes and maturation that are happening in the brain. There are more social and academic and educational changes and demands than ever before.
All this means that the teenage brain is particularly vulnerable to stress.
Parents are often really challenged when it comes to knowing how best to help their teens navigate these changes. While adults have managed to negotiate and navigate this stage themselves, as a parent it was obviously in an earlier generation and while many stressors are the same, the world often looks quite different with each generation going forward.
For example, the digital age which our young people have grown up in, would have been the stuff of fantasy 30 years ago. Our youngsters are always 'on'. Much of their lives is lived through the medium of a variety of social media platforms.
This translates into pressure; pressure to look a certain way, pressure to present yourself in a certain way to the virtual world. This can have knock on effects on perceived body image.
Research tells us that widespread use of social media in teenagers and young adults could increase body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness, and this in turn puts them at risk for eating disorders. The more time spent on social media, the higher the risk of body image issues.
So how can parents best support and advise their youngsters? In the field of positive psychology we talk about building resilience and focusing on individual strengths to optimise well-being.
The American Psychological Association has defined resilience as “successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands...” The key points here are adaptation and adjustment.
Life is full of stressors, and not all stress is bad for us. For example, moving to a new job, a new school, college, getting married, we think of all these as positive life events.
However, they require the flexibility to be able to adapt and adjust to the change. If our internal resources and our supports are outweighed by external demands, that is often when we report feeling stressed. We are not looking for zero stress though. The Yerkes-Dodson law is a psychological model of the relationship between stress and task performance; too little or too much impairs performance, an intermediate level helps us perform best.
We usually advise parents to remind their youngsters to get the basics right first. Cover what Abraham Maslow (the psychologist best known for creating the hierarchy of needs humans need to prioritise for well-being) referred to as some of the basic needs: sleep and diet and also exercise.
Teens have different sleep patterns to adults and younger children. They do need in the region of nine to ten hours, however fluctuation in melatonin (the sleepy hormone) level means that they tend to feel tired later in the evening and later into the morning than adults.
The blue light that is emitted from our electronics can suppress the secretion of melatonin. Without good sleep their attention and concentration struggle, memory and decision-making is compromised, they are more irritable and reactive and they are at a higher risk of anxiety and depression.
Encourage your teens to follow good sleep hygiene, that is, to get into a regular winddown bedtime routine, to try to go to bed and rise at similar times and to have a digital sundown, in other words, try to withdraw from the electronic devices a couple of hours before they want to fall asleep. Yes, this is an ongoing challenge, particularly when homework often requires tablets and laptops and may drag on well into the evening.
Regarding diet, as noted above, adolescence is a time of huge change and neural development. The teenage brain is in particular need of nourishment and it consumes about 300 calories every day and about the same again at night.
Encourage your teen to see food as fuel and to eat as far as possible a Mediterranean diet and increase their portions of fruit and vegetables. Encourage them to slow down at mealtimes, to eat regularly and avoid skipping meals.
When students get busier with homework and exams, they often drop out of sports. There just isn’t the time to commit to training sessions during the week and matches at the weekend. However, even if this is the case, encourage them to exercise for their mental fitness.
When we exercise we produce endorphins and these chemicals make us feel better and more emotionally regulated. Furthermore, exercise reduces muscular tension and actually increases energy.
Invite them to go with you for a short brisk walk or a short run to clear the head. This can have the added advantage of providing some time away from a busy house and may even result in some conversation. Physical exercise is the best kind of exercise for the brain. It has an antidepressant and anxiolytic effect; even five minutes of exercise is enough to stimulate the anti-anxiety effect.
In terms of the more psychological needs, try to find opportunities to build communication with your teen. Often car journeys can provide time to catch up and talk, side by side (no eye contact needed!)
Try to listen when they approach, even when the time is not necessarily the most convenient. Reassure them that it is okay not to be okay. Let them know it is your job to share the burden. Help them to recognise that asking yourself 'What if?' for example, 'What if I don't get enough points?' is not very helpful and the same goes for the 'If onlys'. Encourage them to keep it simple, to slow down, to focus on one thing at a time and to try to stay in the present moment especially when they feel stressed and overwhelmed.
Many young people put a lot of pressure on themselves, especially academically or when playing sports. Encourage them to let go of the idea of 'perfection'. Being a perfectionist can be a lose lose situation; even when you achieve your goal you often find the goalposts change. Help them to cultivate acceptance – what they can and cannot or need not do.
Self-compassion is so important for our mental health and the sooner we learn this in life the happier we will be. Research evidence indicates that if we are more self-compassionate, we manage stress better, we are less prone to anxiety and depression, we have better immune system functioning, we are more satisfied with life and happier. We can cultivate self-compassion in our behaviour and our thoughts.
Encourage your teens to do kind things for themselves, for example, to have a nice bubble bath, watch a movie, spend time with someone they love. Encourage them to engage in an activity that soothes them – reading, art, exercise, sport, a walk in nature, to light a candle, cuddle their pet, sing, listen to music.
Remind them that self-care is not selfish. Encourage them to be warm and kind in how they treat themselves (for example, treat themselves the same way they would a friend). Encourage them to talk to themselves compassionately and to turn down the volume of the inner critic, the judge, the perfectionist.
And most important, remind them that they are enough.

Julie O'Flaherty and Imelda Ferguson are chartered clinical psychologists, both based in private practice in Tullamore. Through Mind Your Self Midlands, they run courses on Positive Psychology and Mindfulness through the year. They can be contacted through the Psychological Society of Ireland www.psihq.ie (Find a Psychologist section) or on their Facebook page, Mind Your Self Midlands.