The Teen Trap
We regularly see older teens and young adults who feel anxiety and worry when they think about taking their next steps towards school or career. They tell us they often feel bothered by physical symptoms of stress, like tension, irritability, headaches and anxiety, which makes sense – leaving the comfort of something you know well, like the high school or university you’ve attended for the past four years can feel like a scary thing.
As kids mature into their early adult years, more of their brain comes online, especially those parts that allow them to see the world from a broader perspective. They begin to see how hard the adults in their lives work to succeed and get things done, and they start becoming aware of how some folks do really well, while others struggle.
The ‘teenage’s trap’ is a mental one. It happens when young people put two and two together and realize that they will also have to face the struggles of adult life, but without the benefit of all those extra years of experience that adults rely on to reassure themselves that they’ll be okay because they’ve already made it through so many other challenges before. Young people often make the mistake of believing that they don’t have enough of what it takes to be successful and that’s when they start worrying and feeling the stress.
We work with adolescents in this situation all the time, helping them learn to cope with anxiety and worries and helping them understand that success in life isn’t the one-shot deal they often think it is, but rather the sum total of all the choices a person makes over many years and transcends any single effort that doesn’t go as planned. When young adults can lean in and really get into whatever is they’re doing right then, they’ll find that even the challenges bring their own reward and the anxious worry disappears.
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