According to a recent Gallup poll, teens today are struggling with big emotions — and their parents are struggling to have difficult conversations with them. Teen psychologist Lisa Damour explains how parents can better support their kids as the new school year begins.
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For many teens and pre-teens, the new school year brings big changes: new routines, different classes, and changing friendships (both in real life and online).
Parents can help children through these transitions by understanding their emotions and finding ways to better support them. A new survey published in July offers fresh insight into the emotional landscape of today’s Generation Z youth.
Conducted by the Walton Family Foundation (an NPR funder) and Gallup, in collaboration with teen psychologist Lisa DamourThe team surveyed 1,675 children aged 10 to 18 and one of their guardians. The team found that Generation Z children feel pressure to be perfect and experience increased negative emotions like anxiety, especially among girls and teens.
Being a teenager and pre-teen is always difficult, Damour says. But this generation of kids faces unique challenges. “We ask a lot of them academically. They’re trying to navigate a social media environment that can be very challenging for them.”
“And young people are worried about big things, like their future,” she added. According to the survey, about two-thirds of Gen Z teens are worried about what the world will be like when they grow up.
Damour, author of Troubleshooting, Under pressure And Teenage love lifetalked to NPR about what parents can learn from the Gallup study’s findings.
😇 Remind your kids that they don’t have to be perfect
About one in three Gen Zers struggle with perfectionism, according to survey — especially girls, adolescents and older children.
That can affect kids’ self-esteem, Damour says. Research has found that people who say they need to be perfect “are more likely to say they felt anxious, sad, and stressed the day before than people who don’t feel that pressure.”
So help your child get comfortable with making mistakes, she says. “Let them own up to their mistakes while still having an overall sense of positive self-esteem.”
“When we are working on our shortcomings, we can still feel good, worthy, and kind,” she says.
And make sure they hear from you that they don’t have to be perfect — this can reportedly help alleviate the negative emotions that come with striving for perfection.
🗣️ Talk to your kids. They want to hear from you.
About one in six parents have difficulty comforting their children or communicating with them when they are upset, find surveyThey think their child doesn’t want to talk to them or maybe doesn’t want to talk.
“But what we hear from teens is how helpful these conversations are and how much they care about what adults have to say,” Damour says. “So my advice to anyone caring for a teen is to go ahead and have a conversation about whatever it is that you’re concerned about.”
If you’re not sure what to do, just listen, she says. That was the No. 1 answer when Damour asked teens: What can adults do to help when you’re sad? “Second: ‘Take our feelings seriously.’ Very low on the list was ‘give advice.'”
Find natural opening lines in everyday conversation to bring up your concerns, she says. “When your child brings it up, that’s a great time to say, ‘It sounds like your friend is having a hard time at school. How are things going for you?’ ”
🎢 Accept your child’s chaotic emotions
The emotional lives of adolescents and young adults are complex, according to the findings. Almost all children surveyed said they “felt happy most of the day before,” but 45% also felt stressed, 38% anxious and 23% sad.
“The takeaway here is that children have a wide range of moods, both good and bad,” says Damour.
In general, teens have more intense emotions, says Damour. “But that’s not a sign that something is wrong. In fact, it’s a sign of moving forward.”
Parents can better navigate major mood swings, she says, by “thinking about it the way psychologists think: having emotions that are appropriate to what’s happening — and controlling those emotions.”
“If your child doesn’t get invited to a party where all their friends seem to be going, they’ll be upset. That’s an expected emotion. It would be strange if they didn’t feel that,” says Damour.
Children reportedly already have excellent coping skills that they use to comfort themselves. “They might cry a lot, hug their dog, go for a run,” Damour says. Parents should only worry “if they’re using harmful coping strategies.”
In other words, having negative emotions is normal. What matters is how we deal with them, she says.
Digital story written by Malaka Gharib and edited by Andee Tagle and Meghan Keane. Photo editor is Beck Harlan.
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