Talking Collaboratively with Your Teen About Anxiety

Trying to have collaborative discussions with your teen can be difficult. Initiating a discussion around anxiety, which can bring on stress by its mere mention, can be especially challenging. While some teens are willing and eager to discuss their stress and work on solutions, many avoid the topic or feel there are no worthwhile answers. The following are a few options to help frame the discussion in ways that can increase collaboration around this topic.

Starting the Conversation: Focus on empathic listening and understanding the problem from your teen’s perspective. Try to avoid injecting your perspective or assuming you know your teen’s concerns.

The Invitation: Express your view/concern and desire to work together to address the issue. Work to come to an agreement about your role in providing support or help.

Brainstorm: Generate realistic ways of approaching working on stress. These can include using anxiety workbooks, adjusting schedules, creating a family exercise routine, etc.

Review Agreement: Finally, create a plan to reassess the chosen approach together. Decide on when you will sit down to review what you have tried, and to evaluate how well it has worked so far.