There’s been a lot of talk about self-care in recent years — in particular, self-care for women and for parents. That’s important, because when parents practice self-care, they have a better chance of caring for their children with patience and compassion, and thus forging healthy relationships with their kids.
But too often, adults turn to self-care as a last resort, when they realize they’re burning out and have to make a change. Instead, we need to start building self-care habits early in life, so that when we hit difficulties and roadblocks, we’re able to navigate them skillfully and stay strong and steady.
There’s no time when that’s more essential than in adolescence. The teen years offer many hills and valleys — challenges that come with this stage of life. These include challenges presented by the outer world, such as academic pressure, college applications, jobs, sports, family problems or issues with peers. And teens also deal with all the inner ups and downs that naturally come with growth and development — hormonal changes, which catalyze mood shifts; struggles with self-image and self-esteem; and the ongoing, often confusing process of forging their independence and unique identity. In addition, the adolescent brain is still under construction, so to speak, with the centers of executive function not fully matured, which can lead to impulsivity and poor choices.
[See: 10 Ways to Break a Bad Mood.]
Establishing regular, ongoing self-care routines can help with all of these challenges. Self-care doesn’t offer solutions to problems; rather, it provides teens with a solid foundation so they can address life’s inevitable disappointments and difficulties with resilience and creativity.
What does self-care look like for teens? It can be just about anything they enjoy doing, as long as it makes them happy and supports their physical, mental or emotional health. To encourage adolescents to start a self-care practice, parents would do well to frame self-care not as yet another thing teens have to do, but as a gift to themselves, a way to honor all their efforts (whether successful or not).
Teens who already have a physical exercise routine might be encouraged to think of self-care as another form of working out — but for the mind and spirit rather than the body. Just as a physical workout keeps our muscles in shape, self-care exercises equally essential “emotional muscles”: self-compassion, the ability to savor positive experiences and the capacity to simply be in the moment.
Here are some powerful self-care approaches for teens, and ways you can help your teen get started.
Your teen might not respond favorably at first to suggestions about self-care. But keep finding ways to gently offer opportunities and information, and you’ll find that they gradually come around. Once they get started with a habit and begin to notice how it changes their mindset and mood, they’ll be inspired to continue on their own.
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How to Encourage Your Teen to Spend Time on Self-Care originally appeared on usnews.com
