Let me start with an anxiety analogy.
I think of a pair of fraternal twin sisters. One of these sisters is named Conscientious, and the other is named Anxiety. Anxiety’s given name at birth was Fear, but she decided it was too common, and Anxiety sounded sassier.
These two sisters are adults, and they are parents of teenagers.
Now here is the particular scenario.
These sisters, who live together, enter their living room, where each of their teens is sitting on the couch. The teens were supposed to be setting the table for dinner.
The sisters have been calling the teens from the kitchen to come and help them to no avail.
When the two sisters get to the living room, a decision has to be made. Will Conscientious handle the situation, or will Anxiety?
Conscientious is gifted in being able to see situations from many perspectives and clever in being able to think through different scenarios before acting.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is singularly focused — laser-like. Anxiety approaches situations reflexively.
The question these two sisters must decide at that doorway is who will step over the line into the room and attend to this situation with the teens, Consciousness or Anxiety?
When Anxiety takes the lead, this can be a real problem. First of all, she is contagious, so others absorb her negativity. Another issue is she is not very effective. She gets the job done in the short run but rarely has made real progress toward lasting change.
How to prevent Anxiety from monopolizing the interaction:
Writing a list is therapeutic in itself (because it takes the abstract and makes it a bit organized), and it can help a person get into a calmer mental state, promoting better problem-solving. In Screenagers NEXT CHAPTER, relationship researchers John and Julie Gottman help explain why this is the case from a biological perspective.
Questions to get the conversations started:
Here is a video from the Screenagers YouTube Channel that talks more about this subject
Let me start with an anxiety analogy.
I think of a pair of fraternal twin sisters. One of these sisters is named Conscientious, and the other is named Anxiety. Anxiety’s given name at birth was Fear, but she decided it was too common, and Anxiety sounded sassier.
These two sisters are adults, and they are parents of teenagers.
Now here is the particular scenario.
These sisters, who live together, enter their living room, where each of their teens is sitting on the couch. The teens were supposed to be setting the table for dinner.
In the New York Times this last week, there was an article about social media and teens. The article's brilliant graphic captured our young people's digital and emotional reality. The image is all the notifications on their phones, laptops, tablets, etc. like texts from “mom” reminding them to be safe, a new grade posted, a Snapchat arrival, a missed Facetime, a troubling news headline, etc. Stress flies at them in so many ways. Today, I suggest a way to have a notification intervention.
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So often, we talk about “pushy parents” — those putting too much pressure on their kids to straight As, take all AP classes, etc. The fact is there is an incredibly high percentage of kids who are primarily putting this pressure on themselves. All kids and teens experience anxiety at times. It is our bodies’ reaction to fear and stress — it is a part of being human.And then there is anxiety that has gone astray — clinical anxiety. This kind of anxiety is often missed or ignored in youth who are extremely preoccupied with their academic performance — an obsession with getting straight As and the like.
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I have developed a technique I call “Check My Landing,” where I follow up on a conversation with someone when I wonder if my words got misinterpreted. Learn about how to help our youth use this to improve communication.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
