A frustrated Mum sad in my office this week,  describing her 10 year old daughter: “Jess has always been very capable at school but she is constantly anxious about getting things wrong.  If she can’t do it perfectly, she won’t do it at all.  She digs in her heels and it doesn’t seem to matter what I say to her.  Getting homework done in a reasonable time is a daily battle.”

I very often see students who struggle with perfectionism.  Here are some typical behaviours of perfectionistic young people:

• Unwilling to put up their hand to answer questions in case they get them get wrong
• Reluctant to start tasks until they are 110% sure they know what to do
• Unwilling to start homework tasks because they feel they are not going to do it “right”
• Being dissatisfied with a standard of work which others see as acceptable
• Get very upset if they get work wrong/receive low grades/make mistakes
• Work very slowly in order to be excessively neat or to not make mistakes
• Starting over repeatedly in order to make work perfect

Teens get down just like adults do.  They feel sad, miserable and depressed.  For some teens these times pass fairly quickly.  For others, they last a long time.   In either case, parents are crucial in helping sad teens cope.  Here are six ideas to consider.

1. Sympathise and don’t try to “talk them out of” being sad

It is hard to see teens feeling sad.  We feel upset to see them suffering.  And because they often act irritably when they are feeling sad, we get frustrated.  For both of these reasons, we often try to “jolly them out of feeling bad” or minimise their sadness.  We say things like “you'll be okay” or “don’t be upset”, “it's not that bad” or similar.  

Unfortunately while meant well, these kind of statements can make teens feel worse.  It can suggest to the teen that it's not okay that they are upset, which makes teens feel like no-one understands or cares.

Teenagers are often worried about their friends being depressed, in fact in some surveys teenagers rate “teenage depression” as one of their top 3 concerns.  This doesn’t surprise me:  Teenagers quite frequently talk with me about not just about their own depression, but about the struggles of their friends.

Sarah, 16, had been working with me for a while on coping with her Mum being really sick and the stress of Year 12.  One session she wanted to talk about her friend, Eva.  She said that Eva broke up with her boyfriend a few weeks ago and since then had been acting really depressed.  Eva had told Sarah that she had been cutting herself and she didn’t want to talk to anyone at recess or lunch.  She was often crying and wrote things on Facebook like “I hate my life”.  Sarah was worried about her, and said she was thinking about her all the time.  She said that sometimes she felt frustrated with Eva, and sometimes she felt hopeless.  She really wanted to know what to do to help her. 

1. Empathise

See the anger as distress.  Be present with them for a minute and care about them, without immediately trying to "fix it" and without trying to insist they calm down.  You might say things like: 

• I’m really sorry you are feeling ………..
• Oh, I really wish we could change it so that you COULD have/do/be……
• It really sucks that ………..
• I think I would probably feel …………. too in that situation
• Oh no, how disappointing and frustrating….
• This is obviously easier to do if the child is angry at something/someone other than yourself.  It is harder when they are angry at you: but still possible.  Sentences which might work include:
• I wish I could decide differently about that…
• It would be great if I could just let you….
• I’m so sorry you are feeling like this…
• I can see how upset you are, I wish it was different…

In the heat of a full on tantrum….

Getting scared is a normal and important part of child development.  When children get scared they learn to understand risk, evaluate threat and manage emotions.  They learn these skills regardless of what they are scared about.  In other words: Children being scared about the dark are in training for managing fear as an adult.  Here are 8 ideas to keep in mind about fear in children.

1. We should explain (many times) to children that fear is a normal part of being a person.  From time to time, tell children that all adults (including their mum and dad) get scared sometimes.  In a matter of fact way, talk about what happens when people get scared – their hearts beat fast and they breathe quickly and sometimes their hands shake a little bit.