Preventing Mental Health Issues in Teens
Everyone loves a story and from the minute we get up in the morning we all tell ourselves stories – many stories. Most of them are very short and we may not even be aware we are telling ourselves them. Some are positive – ‘I’m looking forward to the party tonight’. Some are neutral and some are negative – ‘I’m not looking forward to school because I’ve got no friends’. Some are sometimes repeated and stick a bit. Others are repeated on a daily basis and become the landscape we live in and we come to believe as the truth about ourselves or our situation. Listening with care to the stories our children are telling themselves and turning the negative landscapes into positive ones turns lives around.
Now I’m going to let you into a secret that not many people realise.
We all have mental health, each and every one of us.
We all have PMA – Positive Mental Attitude for those who tell themselves positive stories and Poorly Mental Attitude for those who tell themselves negative stories about themselves or their situations.
We can all control our mental health with the stories we tell ourselves – some of us just need more help than others. By helping young people develop some simple skills and strategies they can make the shift to a positive mental attitude.
Using metaphor stories we can help children to see things in a different way. We can embed messages into the stories that will work long after the surface of the story has been heard.
I’ve got a friend who doesn’t have much faith in the weathermen and was fed up always getting wet so now he always carries an umbrella to protect him from the rain. To begin with it was one of those walking stick ones that was awkward to carry, good to lean on but he kept hanging it up, forgetting about it and leaving it behind. Now he carries one of those tiny ones that hardly weighs anything and fits in a pocket so he never leaves it behind anymore.
The story above talks about being prepared for bad weather and changes the size of the umbrella to something more manageable. The rain is the negative behaviour we want to change. The umbrella is the new skill for helping protect against the unhelpful behaviour with the big umbrella showing it can be tricky to get used to the new behaviour and forget about it but over time and changing it to a smaller one it becomes easier to remember and always have it with you.
Did you ever suck your thumb as a child? Or maybe you had a bit of silky ribbon you liked to stroke? Or a cuddly toy you hugged? Maybe you still do! These comforters acted as physical anchors (or stimuli) to help you feel more comfortable or safer or soothed you. To help children overcome their negative thoughts or behaviours we can create anchors for them that they will always have with them to be able to use when they need it. Get the child to think about a time when they were feeling very confident, happy or positive. Talk about the thoughts, emotions and the environment when they felt those positive emotions. Whilst they are thinking about these feelings we need to activate the anchor when they are experiencing the desired emotions.
For children who are auditory it could be a song. The song lyrics are often great metaphors and the tune easily hummed. Pharrell’s recent hit single ‘Happy’ is a great one to sing to yourself as the words and melody hit all the right spots to help you reach that happy feeling!
For children who are visual imagining themselves in a place where they feel safe or happy or confident or relaxed with as much detail as possible will give them a place to escape to in their minds when they need to experience positive feelings.
For children who are kinaesthetic a good anchor will be reinforcing a touch on the body somewhere eg putting their thumb and middle finger together or pinching their earlobe whilst thinking about their good feelings.
Put all three of these together and you have a linked anchor.
The process is very simple – think about the state you want, ‘fire the anchor’, when the feeling starts to fade release the anchor, open your eyes, look away, count to 10 and repeat the process to embed the anchor.
By firing the anchor we will activate the positive state of emotions that we want to have anytime we want to have them. By skilfully teaching a child how to do this they can then have the resources to build their own anchors when they need some help getting back to a positive mental attitude.
It might seem crazy what I’m about to say
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care by the way
Because I’m happy
(Lyrics Pharrell Williams)
We all get fedup from time to time and helping your child manage their emotions in different situations will help them in their adult life. If you have concerns about the reasons for their sadness, the frequency or the depth of their sadness and would like additional advice and support contact me at soo@nlp4kids.org or on 07851447612. If your child is happy and you are interested in learning more about the techniques described here contact me anyway!
By Soo Matthews
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Hi Soo,
I think this is a good article.
It has an engaging opening which draws a reader in. It covers a lot of material in quite a short space, nicely linking two therapeutic interventions and talking about them in a way that a non specialist would understand. And I love the positive, upbeat way you round the piece off – acknowledging that some parents do have happy children, and that NLP exercises can be of interest anyway!
If I had to make some comments for improvement they would be:
1) Make sure your language and definitions flow well for an average English reader. Although I can see a good NLP reason why you might not want to juxtapose “Positive Mental Attitude” with “Poor Mental Attitude” ( and hence seem judgemental to those who are struggling with negative feelings ) generally speaking balancing an adjective, “Positive” with an adverb, “Poorly” jars, and should be avoided if possible.
2) Try to avoid sentences which nearly collapse under the weight of everything in them: “The umbrella is the new skill for helping protect against the unhelpful behaviour with the big umbrella showing it can be tricky to get used to the new behaviour and forget about it but over time and changing it to a smaller one it becomes easier to remember and always have it with you.” Phew! That was a lot to bite off all in one go, without even the aid of a few commas. Although it’s clear what you mean, sentences like that can lead to mental indigestion!
All in all though, a thoroughly good piece.
I love the depth of NLP suggestions you’ve managed to weave into this article Soo, and all of the suggestions are valid and simple for readers to begin putting into practise.
What would make this stronger for me, is making your article more specific to teenagers. If someone had searched for help in this area, for teenagers specifically, I’m sure your article would rank well on google and land in front of them, but your language in the body of the article is focused more around children (in fact you do not use the word teen or teenager in the body of the article at all.)
Your suggestions for techniques to help are still valid for teens and I think it would be worth having a paragraph or two about why mental health in teenage years is so important. And why many mental health challenges arise at this time. This would help tie the title of your article with the body of work you have written.
If the point is that mental health problems in teens can be avoided by having good mental health in early years, it would be worthwhile saying it.
I think it is so important to talk about mental health.
Mental health is a sensitive subject for all. The more we talk about it the more the stigma will be removed and suffers will be more accepted and accepting of themselves.
From a non specialist’s point of view, I found the article enlightening and extremely interesting.
Whilst I am able to understand the finer points highlighted by the previous reviewers, I do feel that someone struggling to work with, and make sense of teenage, mental health issues, would be enabled by this article to have a clearer view of the issues.
These,.and practical ways to address them are clearly signposted
Enjoyed reading this and it chimed with a number of ocassions whereby I’ve counselled young people that were in a rut or personal difficulties (at school or elsewhere). Your comment that we all have a mental state / health is of course true – at that point I likened this to “there is always weather” – it might be sunny it might be bleak – but it’s always there; then you later used the umbrella story that again chimed. I too reacted to ‘poorly’ (MA) as I instinctively expected ‘negative’ as the natural antonym to ‘positive’ (MA). I don’t think you should shy from the use of the word negative in this article. Great article Soo and an invitiing read that made me rethink some ideas.
I enjoyed your article Soo! Thank you for sharing!
A good article giving insight into this issue and engaging your audience at the same time.
You have now embedded the ‘happy’ ear worm into my thoughts for the morning. But I’ll anchor my positive emotions onto my children by singing this tune to them every time it revisits during the day.
Appreciate the time you have taken to write this article. Liked the reference to music and the lyrics to the familiar song ‘Happy’. Music is a great tool and does not always need lyrics as the listener can then seek their own words/meaning or just use their imagination to visualise a place to best be – classical music can really be quite powerful at allowing this positive approach. 🙂
Soo … Appreciate the time you have taken to write this article. I particularly related to the musical link to songs such as ‘Happy’. Also like to consider using music without lyrics and classical music can be very powerful (and positive) and enables the listener to create their own lyrics or visualise positive images. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this very interesting and mind opening article. I am going to share it with some friends who are going through tricky times.
Its always good to have anchors and helping hands guidance – this article provides these and/or how to achieve them.
We all go through negative times in our lives and it is often the simple things we can do that are the most effective.
Here’s to wishing we can all be happier more often.
Hi
This is shraddha
I liked your post about NLP
I am yoga instructor and child yoga instructor also..
And yesterday only i finished
My nlp course and want to apply nlp with kids so…..i need your help
If you don’t mind can you share your ideas and experience with me
Thanks a lot