Program: How can I help my anxious teen?

Content Warning
Hi there. Just a heads up that this episode deals with a teen in distress, including themes of self-harm and suicide. So if you think it may be tough for you, take it easy. And check out the show notes for some helpful resources.

Sam
Within the first couple of weeks of high school, she would fall apart. She bites her nails to the point where they bleed. And just all of these signs where it's been, okay, this is not right and I don't know how to help you.

Bec
The teen years are tough. High school, puberty, friend dramas, heartbreak. There are so many changes our kids have to deal with. All this stuff can push our kids to the brink. Since the pandemic, there's been a spike in youth mental health disorders with anxiety being the most common, with around 15% of young Australians experiencing an anxiety disorder each year. Now let's be honest, as an adult, managing our own anxiety is tricky enough. But as a young person with adult worries and a still developing brain, anxiety can be crippling.

Sam
She was saying things like, no one likes me, I hate school. And sometimes when she will have like a bit of a meltdown, she'll say everyone would be happy if I was dead, I should just kill myself. The world would be a better place if I wasn't in it, things like that. And I go, well, where did I go wrong? Like, it's very hard to understand.

Bec
I'm Bec Sparrow. And in this Parental Is Anything Teens, what to do when your teen's anxiety is spiralling out of control.

Sam
My daughter was, she was in the popular group. She excelled socially all the way through primary school, made friends easy, communicated with them well and was invited to everyone's birthday parties.

Bec
Sam, which is what we call all our parents, has a smart, creative teen, a kid who used to love school.

Sam
And then it's all of a sudden started high school and it's completely backflipped.

Bec
You know, I think this is something many of us can relate to, moving from the familiarity of primary school to the big, scary world of high school. But it's even tougher when there are friend dramas.

Sam
Her main circle of friends that she had in primary school pretty much dropped her from day one. So doing that transition then on her own and then trying to find her people and the whole adjusting to the new way of life in high school was extremely tough.

Bec
So Sam, how do you know when your daughter's anxious? What does she do?

Sam
She has these overwhelming moments where she gets so anxious she just needs to like grip onto something and it might be like my dress or she's quite sensory and she'll love to play with slime or like Play-Doh and just sort of, you know, knead it and pull it apart like she needs to do something. And she's since been diagnosed with anxiety and even to the point where she's now medicated for it as well. She does see a psychologist and she's given her some tools and things that she can do when she's feeling anxious. I throw her different ideas like she doesn't know what she needs. She just has this overwhelming feeling. That must

Bec
be so hard. What do you struggle with the most?

Sam
The thing for me is I don't know how to help her. I know she's going to get anxious before going back to the school term or to dance or a concert or something like that. But what are some strategies that I can help her put in place to perhaps help her manage the anxiety? Like we still just can't seem to find what works for her.

Bec
So if you could fast forward one year from now, what changes would you want to see in your daughter?

Sam
I just want her to have confidence. I want her to be comfortable in her own skin and proud of who she is and just to have that sense of belonging and to have friends. And I just want her to be herself and realise that people are going to love her for her. And sometimes I just want to shake her and go, if only you could see how amazing you are like I see you.

Bec
Oh, I think there are so many times we just want to shake our teens and help them see what's right in front of them. But that would be weird and it wouldn't work anyway. Here to help us take a deep breath in and out and help manage our kids' anxiety and maybe even our own anxiety is Karen Young. Karen is an anxiety consultant. She's an author and the founder of Haysegment, a website dedicated to the mental health of children and adolescents. Karen, let's start from the beginning. What actually is anxiety and how is that different to being worried about something?

Karen
So anxiety is a brain that doesn't feel safe and a body that's getting ready to come in and protect us. The difference to worry is with worry there's usually a specific thing that we're worried about. There's a beginning and an end. So anxiety is when the whole physiology comes in with it. So you might get racy heart, sick tummies, a bit sweaty, breathing is different, they might feel faint.

Bec
So what you're saying is worry is finite but anxiety has no foreseeable end point. So Karen, we talk about anxiety a lot more than we used to. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Karen
It does feel like we're talking about it so much and it feels like there's so much out there. What really bothers me about the conversation about anxiety is how much we're pathologising it. What does that mean? How much we're talking about anxiety as a disorder, as breakage, as dysfunction. Now for sure there are absolutely some kids, teens, adults who will have anxiety which is at a level it can be diagnosed. But even for those people we really have to acknowledge and understand that this is a really normal human experience. It's not the anxiety that's the problem. It's the response to anxiety that's the problem. That's when it becomes really intrusive.

Bec
So it's not the anxiety that's the problem. It's our response to the anxiety.

Karen
Yes. The story that gets put to anxiety potentially which causes trouble, is there something wrong with me? Or there's something bad that's about to happen? That's when it can drive a response that can really shut down their world. The more we say, yeah, there's something wrong with you or... This is a disorder. This is a disorder. The more it confirms that story which will drive a response which is, well, I need to avoid the things that are driving my anxiety. Right. It's another story that we need to put to it which is, you've been through something big, you're doing something hard, you're doing something new. Of course you have anxiety. And then we look at what we need to do to move with anxiety. We don't need to get rid of anxiety. In fact, if we wait for anxiety to go we're going to be waiting a really long time. And absolutely, there are kids who have so much anxiety it is getting in the way of school, it's getting in the way of friends. They don't leave their room, they don't leave their house.

Bec
Anxiety can make kids' lives really small, can't it? Absolutely. To the point that you've painted yourself into a corner where you're too scared to do anything. Yes. It's that, isn't it?

Karen
And the more that happens, the more the brain will be scared to try anything because this anxiety feeling now is, oh, there's something wrong with me, this shouldn't be happening to me or something bad's about to happen.

Bec
And then some kids, would you agree with this, Karen? Some kids then get anxious about feeling anxious.

Karen
That's exactly the problem. And this is why we need to change the conversation around anxiety.

Bec
Recent stats about young people with anxiety are really confronting. Surely social media is a factor. I mean, it's really hard not to compare yourself and feel like you're coming up short, right?

Karen
Even at my age, I compare I have to stay off social media a lot because it drives anxiety about what I should be doing and what I should be. For our kids, it's going to be bigger. There's less play, there's more structure, there's more screens, there's kids are sleeping less, gut health. 24-hour

Bec
news cycle, all of these little things contribute. All of it.

Karen
But the other thing we're doing, which is a really good thing, we're turning and facing anxiety. What we did a long time ago is we lost a lot of kids because of anxiety. So that'd be the kids in class who weren't saying anything because of anxiety, but we just assume they're okay, but that fly under the radar. So they were never really held accountable to their potential. Or the other thing anxiety does is it drives really big feelings. Before school in the morning, it's big. But there was a time where we would say, I've just got the naughty kid.

Bec
How common do you see that with kids with starting high school where anxiety appears out of nowhere? They'd been happy in primary school. There's a kid, loves school, loves going. High school starts, no friends, feels isolated, and they're anxious. It is so common.

Karen
School, they're going into a new space, sometimes with a lot more kids, new adults there. That environment is full of relational threats. Now when we talk about threats, it doesn't mean it's actually going to hurt them, but our brains are wired to look at new people and be wary of this. People make us feel safe, but they can also judge us, humiliate us, exclude us, shame us. We're going to be asked to do different things we might fail at. We might be ignored. All these are really valid threats.

Bec
I try and remind parents when their kids are saying, I don't want to go to school or I hate school. Remember being 13 and how stressful it was thinking, I don't have any friends who are in science with me. I'm really nervous about getting changed in front of everyone for PE. All of that stuff is really stressful when you're 13 because you feel so vulnerable and you just want to fit in and you don't want to look like a loser and be by yourself. I think sometimes as parents we all brush it off. I think sometimes it's good not to. We don't want to ramp it up for our kids, but just to have a bit of empathy there about how scary all of that stuff was.

Karen
For the brain, physical threats and relational threats, they're pretty much the same.

Bec
A physical threat is I'm worried a boulder's going to fall on my head. That's it. A lion's going to eat me. A relational threat is I'm scared of these people. Is that what you mean?

Karen
I'm scared of being judged, shamed, humiliated, excluded, separated from the pack. I think that's more scary than the lion. We can hide from a lion. Social media's made sure we can't hide from any of this other stuff. That's it.

Bec
Karen, what do we do when our teens are starting to freak out or feel overwhelmed with anxiety?

Karen
Here's where it gets really hard for us as parents. Our job is not to protect them from the distress of anxiety or the distress of any big feelings. Our job is to give them the experiences they need to help them recognise that they can handle the distress of anxiety because they can. The reason this is so important is because there's going to be anxiety every time they do something new, hard, something unfamiliar. Our other job is to make sure they don't feel alone in that distress. We do that. It's through validation. It's through saying, my darling, I know how hard this is. I know this is awful and I know you would rather be doing anything else than this right now. I know it's hard and I know you can handle this. Just to be clear, we're not saying they'll handle it well. What we're saying is they'll handle the distress, the discomfort of anxiety.

Bec
For Sam, she can sometimes predict when her daughter will be overcome with anxiety, and at other times it seemingly comes from nowhere.

Sam
Over the summer, we were sitting at an airport about to get on a plane and she loves travel and loves flying, but she just sat next to me and grabbed my arm and she's just like all tense and kind of shaky. And I said, what's going on, sweetie? And she's like, I don't know. I don't know. I just, I just need to like bite something.

Bec
Karen, Sam's teen usually loves to travel. So this is what I don't get. Why is her anxiety coming out at this point?

Karen
We don't know what our brain registers as threat. Right. We can't know because it doesn't share it with us. Once the brain has a really emotional experience that ends up not being OK, it will grab onto that and any little thing connected, any sensory part of that, so how my body feels, my heart's racing, my tummy feels sick, my head, any little thing, it'll grab it. And then it will- Like it recognizes it. It recognizes it. And it goes, wait, wait, wait. I've had this feeling before and that didn't end well. And then what the brain does is it surges us with fight or flight fuel and there's your anxiety. It's full blown. It's my amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for protecting me. Hasn't had enough experience of, OK, this feeling I get, I can handle this. It will end up OK. When actually the experience has been the opposite, which is this thing I'm feeling now. This means danger. And the amygdala in the brain is very primal. It's not a rational part of the brain. It's an instinctive, impulsive part of the brain. Can't tell time. It can't tell context. It might be that she's in the airport. There's all these new people. It might be that feeling in her tummy. And even if she's not consciously remembering it, the brain remembers everything, right? So her brain's going, wait, that feeling you had, you had that at school. That was a disaster and it was terrible. Oh, that must mean that's going to happen again. So I'm going to get you ready to run out of this place.

Bec
So how should we respond as parents in these big moments?

Karen
Kids will look to their adults for signs of safety. Do you think I'm OK? Are you OK that I'm not OK? Can you handle me not being OK? And everything in us, even though, and I want to say as a parent, everything in you is going, what's happening here? This doesn't feel OK and I don't know what to do now. On the outside, our job right now is to anchor this and anchor her and just be that solid, safe, steady presence.

Bec
This is how flight attendants look at me when we're going through turbulence on a flight and I start getting stressed and I look at a flight attendant and they're like, it's all fine. That's exactly... We're good. We're good. And I look at them. They're not worried. OK, I'm not going to worry.

Karen
If I can give you a little mantra, it's I believe you and I believe in you. I believe you that this is hard. I'm not even going to try and talk you out of this. And I believe in you. We're going to get to the other end of this and we're going to be so fine. Yeah.

Bec
Oh, can I just say that's beautiful. And I think the other real takeaway there is when our kids are panicking or anxious about something, as tempting as it is, the answer is not to allow them to not do the thing, because then what you're saying is we're reinforcing it. So every time my child says, I'm anxious about camp, I don't want to go on camp. And we're like, you don't have to go on camp. Then the next year, well, I've never done camp before. I'm anxious. Don't have to do it. And so then we're reinforcing it's something to be scared of and we're making it bigger.

Karen
The single worst thing for anxiety is avoidance. The more we avoid or support their avoidance, the more the brain will go, okay, this feeling, I've got to avoid this feeling. Now, I do need to say, if you have supported avoidance in your child, you have not broken them. Yeah. And it is never too late. We can shift that. Now, even though we don't want to support avoidance, we don't necessarily have to drop them in the deep end of the pool. We can do this in little bits, little bits, little bits. So it might be that they're doing something big, but they start with 10 minutes of it. Or if they haven't been to camp, we might go for one night. Is this anxiety around doing something new, hard, brave, meaningful? Or is it about a danger? We want to support avoidance of a danger. Of course we do. Let anxiety do its job. We hold them back from that. We don't want to hold them back from the things that are growthful.

Bec
So... That's a really important distinction, actually. I'm really glad that you said that. What we want to think about is cut ourselves a bit of slack, that if you're listening to Karen and you're thinking, oh my God, for the last three years, I've let them get out of this and this. Well, there's that saying from the late poet Maya Angelou, once you know better, you do better. So even just hearing this and thinking, I know this now, next time we're going to take a baby step towards something rather than necessarily saying you don't have to do this or you don't have to do that, or... I think that's really useful. There are just so many challenges and curveballs which come with raising teens and tweens, and that includes anxiety. And I think as parents, we should never underestimate the power of connection and communication with our kids.

Sam
We're very close. We always have been. And I would like to think that she has always been really open and come to me. But I've found over the past 12 months, through all of this anxiety and everything else she's going through, she's really closed up a lot. So I'm struggling now to try and support her and get things out of her because she doesn't want to really talk about anything at all.

Bec
You know, quite a few years ago, I was working with somebody who founded a mental health charity, and he said to me that he likes to ask kids to give him a number between one and ten. Yeah, I love that. Sometimes kids find it really difficult to articulate how they're feeling, whereas it could be easier for them to say to you, I'm a five out of ten. Yeah. And then he said, so if they tell you on a Monday they're a five out of ten, and then you ask them again on Friday and they say, I'm a four or I'm a seven. Yeah, I love that. That's another way of monitoring where your child's at.

Karen
I love that. The other thing I want to say is they're going to have bad days and they might have bad weeks sometimes. But if it's going on for a few weeks or longer, you might start with a conversation when it's really safe for them to talk, when you're not in a hurry, when they're not in a hurry. And you talk to them and you say, you know, I've noticed that lately you've been doing this. I'm just wondering, have you noticed that? Do you want to talk to me about anything? And it's okay if you don't, but I'm here. So the first one is a really gentle, I've noticed this. What that's done is they've gone, okay, I'm not alone in this. Someone's seeing me. Or they might say, oh my goodness, I need to get better at hiding this because mum's about to get on my case. Dad's about to get on my case. So we stay with that. Then you might leave it for a little bit. And then you say, I just want to know how you're doing. And leave it. Problem is if we're talking, they're not. So just leave it. Even if they say I'm fine, just stay silent with that.

Bec
Oh, that's what I've got to practise. So hard. I think my kids feel like they live in a TED Talk with me. Oh, it's so hard. So hard. But that's good. Okay, so yes, we need to shut up a bit more and give the space for them to be speaking.

Karen
Okay, I really love that. No one will be able to support your child and get them through this the way you can. And I can almost hear parents going, yeah, but my kid won't even talk to me. That doesn't mean anything. They still need you. They still want you around. They're just dealing with some stuff right now.

Bec
Thanks to anxiety consultant, Karen Young, who's also the founder of HeySigmund for joining us on Parental As Anything Teens. And of course, thanks to Sam for sharing what's been going on with her daughter. Now, here are some things I want you to keep in mind. Firstly, you can't help your kid avoid triggers or take away their anxiety. But you can sit with them, validate them and anchor them when they're feeling it. Show them that you understand they're not feeling okay right now, but they will be okay. Now, the second point is, don't automatically avoid triggers. Avoid things that cause anxiety. That just reinforces that this is something they can't do. Don't push them too hard though. It's all about baby steps. Give them a taste of whatever they're anxious about to show them incrementally that they can do this. As parents, we've got to guide them through the tough stuff, even when it's really hard. And finally, shut up. If you feel those silences, your kids never will. If you need help with your teen, send us an email to teens at abc.net.au. This podcast was recorded on the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Yaggara peoples. Parental Is Anything Teens is mixed by Anne-Marie de Bettencourt. It's produced by Hannah Rees and Josie Sargent. The supervising producer is Tamar Cranswick and Alex Lollback is the executive producer. Make sure you follow us on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. There's nothing quite like getting deeply engrossed in a juicy story to escape your own life. And if you're like me and parenting teens right now, escaping the chaos and having some me time is the only way I can get through my day without losing it at everyone. One of my favourite ways to tune out to the drama at home is listening to a podcast, maybe while I'm cooking dinner or, you know, taking the dog for a walk. And I especially love listening to true stories, which remind me how magical, unbelievable or downright weird life can be. And I want to tell you about a podcast I'm really loving right now. It's called Days Like These and it's hosted by the wonderful Farz Edraqi. Hi, Farz. Hey, Beth. So before we talk about Days Like These, Farz, can you remember your cringiest teen moment?

Farz
Oh, how much time do you have? I've got a lot. But the one that stands out to me the most is the time I wrote Alan Alda, the actor Alan Alda from MASH, a fan letter when I was 14, full of really, really awkward things. And I never actually sent it.

Bec
Oh, but look at you now, Farz. You're the host of an award-winning ABC podcast. Days Like These is about people's best days, their worst days and the day when everything changed. So what are some of your favourite episodes, Farz?

Farz
Oh, that's like choosing who your favourite kid is. We have got so many great episodes, but the one I really love and still think back to, speaking of awkward teen moments, is reporter Alice Matthews has this incredible story where she talks about her friend who read out all these letters and diary extracts of Alice at her 30th birthday and kind of, I want to say, cancelled her in front of all of her friends.

Farz
I think I was in shock. Fat-shaming. Joking about eating disorders. It's just not only wrong, it's so cruel. I was an a**hole. And I just remember putting my finger, my fingertips to my temples, my eyes just so wide. I was just so mortified and I was so embarrassed and, to be honest, ashamed.

Bec
So if you need some alone time or even just to block out the background noise while your teens are fighting, catch Days Like These on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Farz
Thanks, Bec, and don't forget to hit follow so you don't miss an episode.