Why do some teens experience anxiety with change?

Change can be hard on anyone, even when it’s expected, like the back-to-school transition. For some teens, the stress of change can become overwhelming, leading them to racing thoughts, intense worry, trouble sleeping, pounding heartbeat, trouble focusing, hypervigilance, and even panic attacks and an increase in impulsive behaviors, all clear signs of anxiety.

Teens are already dealing with a lot of change

The teen years are ones of tremendous brain development, where your teen’s emotional center of the brain is highly active, and their frontal cortex, where emotional regulation happens, is still developing. Teen brains are especially sensitive to rejection, and they often feel like they’re under intense scrutiny, adding to the weight of any choices they make. They’re also undergoing puberty, so their hormones and their body are rapidly changing, increasing emotional volatility.

Teens’ outer worlds are also rapidly changing; they have more responsibilities and more opportunities than they’ve had before, and they often have little to no experience to draw on as they try to navigate this new world. They don’t always know what to do, and the consequences for a “wrong choice” (even when it’s something small like an outfit, a word choice, or who to sit with at lunch) can feel enormous.

Adding new changes can feel particularly disruptive for teens

With all this change going on already, the uncertainty of a new school year can be hard on a teen. Changes in daily schedules and routines, less downtime, added responsibilities, and new social minefields to navigate can escalate a teen’s anxiety quickly.

When your teen is anxious about returning to school, it can add stress to the home for the whole family. You don’t want to just stand by and watch your teen struggle, so as a parent, what can you do?

What is your role as a parent when your teen is struggling with change?

When your teen is dealing with life-disrupting anxiety stemming from change (like the stress of returning to school after summer break), you may feel at a loss as to how to help them. Part of you wants to remove the obstacles so they’re less stressed, and part of you wants them to rise to the occasion.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can be the answer your whole family is looking for. DBT is a skills-based therapeutic approach that focuses on expanding a person’s ability to face life’s challenges without falling further into the grips of mental health conditions like anxiety.

How can your family use DBT to manage teen anxiety?

By using DBT as a family, your teen can learn life skills that help them manage their anxiety more constructively, without having anyone bulldoze the way forward for them. As a parent, you can use the four pillars of DBT to support your teen as they face their anxiety, encouraging balance while letting your teen learn and grow at the same time.

Mindfulness skills can help your teen stay in the moment when stressed

Anxiety leaves your teen with racing thoughts and a racing heart, anticipating the worst. DBT mindfulness skills help them reconnect to the present moment, noticing what’s happening around and within themselves here and now. They’re encouraged to let go of self-judgment and judgment of others and simply observe and describe the facts of the moment to themselves.

When you notice your teen is spiraling, join them in DBT mindfulness exercises like What or How. By doing the exercises with them, you can help them redirect their attention away from anxiety and stay present with each other, fully engaging with the moment.

Interpersonal effectiveness DBT skills can help your teen gain confidence as they navigate tricky social situations

When your teen doesn’t know how to approach social interactions, it can escalate their anxiety. Practicing interpersonal effectiveness skills like GIVE, FAST, and DEAR MAN with your teen can help them feel more confident in their abilities to talk to others. DBT helps them interact in a way that preserves their self-respect while also showing respect to others, even when the interaction is tense or unpleasant.

Distress tolerance helps your teen make it through their most anxious moments

Anxiety is distressing, and that distress can push your teen into impulsive actions like risk-taking, self-harm, and even suicidal ideation.

Making a hard moment better through DBT skills like IMPROVE or ACCEPTS can bring you together as a family, engaging in activities together to help your teen tolerate distress. You and your teen can also combine mindfulness and body chemistry through skills like TIPP or Self Soothe, using your senses to connect to the moment and de-escalate your teen’s distress.

Emotional regulation keeps your teen’s anxiety from disrupting their day

DBT emotional regulation skills like Cope Ahead and Check the Facts can help your teen sort through their anxious feelings and thoughts, helping them reflect, name what they’re feeling, and consider what they want before they choose to act.

STOP and Opposite Action can help your teen slow down, so their emotions aren’t driving their behavior. When anxiety is pushing them to react, you can remind them that they get to choose their responses, either by observing and then proceeding mindfully or just doing the opposite of what anxiety wants them to do. Your reminders can prove to your teen they’re really in charge of their actions.

Walking the Middle Path as a family can provide balance in moments of change

Anxious teens are prone to all-or-nothing thinking, where only one possibility, point of view, or anticipated outcome is worth considering. This rigid mindset can make it hard for them to see all sides of a situation, adding to their stress. When change is making them anxious, gaining a broader perspective can help them turn down the volume on their anxiety.

The DBT skill of walking the middle path is especially helpful for teens and is a great exercise for the whole family to find balance. Walking the middle path involves using dialectical thinking, where two opposite things can both be true at the same time.

When your teen is getting anxious and can only see one stressful side of a situation, encourage them to consider an opposing point of view that could be true. Here are some examples:

• “I won’t be able to find any of my classes.” and “Teachers will help me figure out where I am going; they want me to succeed.”
• “I’ll just die if I have to sit next to so-and-so; they’re so awful.” and “In class I can focus on class, I don’t have to talk to so-and-so if I don’t want to.”
• “How will I have time to do all this schoolwork and also do a sport? This is impossible!” and “I can ask for help with figuring out how to manage my time; I don’t have to figure out the whole semester today.”

The structure, routine, and support of a DBT program for teens can help you navigate change as a family

DBT skills like those above are at the core of helping your teen handle anxiety, but they’re not the only way DBT therapy can help.

Change, and especially the uncertainty and routine disruption that comes from change, can cause or escalate anxiety for teens, so giving them a routine and structure to lean on can make change seem less intimidating. If only a few things change and some stay reliably the same, your teen can lean on their routine to give them a sense of stability and consistency.

The routine and community support of therapy can help your teen manage their anxiety

A DBT program like those at THIRA Health provides regularly scheduled therapeutic support that can help your teen feel they have something to hold on to when back-to-school changes become overwhelming.

Entering a DBT-based therapy program, whether it’s residential, a partial hospitalization program (PHP), or an intensive outpatient program (IOP), means your teen can rely on attending individual and group therapy multiple times a week. They’ll see their therapists regularly and will consistently interact with both their peers and their family in group settings, reinforcing that they aren’t alone with their anxiety.

Your participation, through making sure they attend therapy and through learning DBT skills to use at home as part of your teen’s DBT program, also reinforces to your teen that they’re not alone and that they have parents they can rely on to help them do what they need to do (through DBT skills use) when anxiety takes over.

If your teen, and your whole family, are ready for a change that helps your teen grow in independence while facing their anxiety, connect with us today at THIRA Health. Our holistic anxiety treatment programs in Washington can help you navigate change as a family.