Coping with Family Stress Helps with Teen Depression

Surviving

Family stress and coping is important and can be a big help in fighting teen depression. What causes emotional tensions varies from person to person. But families often experience stress pretty much as a unit. As a matter of fact, sometimes they even share stressors sympathetically or empathetically.   

Family Stress

Again, what that means is reducing stress in one person can be good for the entire family. For example, a teenager in high school with no responsibility doesn’t have the same stress of a demanding boss who refuses to listen to reason. Likewise, a parent who is gainfully employed does not have to worry about deciding which subjects to take and keeping their grades up.

Family Stress

In other words, these individual stressors, though, can have a surprising effect on family dynamics. After all, too much pressure  can affect how someone interacts with those around them, and some of these interactions may just cause more tension in everyone involved.

Family Stress

As a result, there are stressors that pretty much the whole family shares, too, of course. Such as living situations, financial difficulties, and a whole host of other things. For this reason, it’s important to create a home environment that’s as healthy as possible. Apart from the basics like cleanliness and shelter, communication and understanding are essential for a healthy family.

Family De-Stress

Considering all this, you might be wondering how to reduce stress in your teens. After all, you have your own parenting stress to deal with. Actually, this is a good place to start: Learn coping mechanisms and be open with how you deal with stress. Take care of yourself, sleep well, exercise, make time for fun and quiet moments.

Family Stress

All of these are healthy practices that you can model for your teen.
You should also pay attention to negative talk or thinking and combat it. When your child says, “I’m ugly,” or “I’m no good at biology,” don’t just tell them they’re wrong, though. Engage with them. Ask them why, if they really think so or remind them of the times when the reality succeeded.

Another important parental skill is allowing your teen to solve problems for themselves. As parents, it’s often tempting to fix every issue our children face. Healthy parental support, though, sometimes means stepping back and letting them learn the techniques and gain the confidence to fix things for themselves. This will help them find ways out of stressful situations on their own.

Coping

As you have most likely figured out, a common theme in coping with family stress is healthy communication. A home in which a teen feels free to share their thoughts and feelings is a home where the teen is given the tools to deal with stress. And, since stress is one factor that can lead to depression, this is one way to reduce the risk of depression, too.