Adolescence is a time of extreme emotions, and it's easy to get caught up in the whirlwind your child is going through.
Matt Richtel, the Pullizer prize-winning journalist and author of How We Grow Up, explains that one of the key reasons GenZ is having mental health problems is they've become what he calls Generation Rumination.
With a geographical world that's now been mapped out, their biological drive to explore is sending them on an internal journey that can have unfortunate consequences.
In addition, kids are going through puberty far earlier than ever before, switching on their 'mentalising' and hyper-vigilance to external cues long before the rest of their brain is able to process the information effectively.
He goes on to suggest that we're part of the problem because we could be inadevertently trying to get them to think too much about how they feel, instead of teaching them coping skills. If you listen to my podcast regularly you'll know how much I agree with Matt.
He says our job is to encourage our kids to blow through those emotions with options like exercise, noticing they're hungry, taking a cold shower to reset their nervous system, getting a good sleep and CBT skills. Good routine and structure at home are also vitally important.
He explains that blaming phones misses the point. It's not necessarily the device that's the problem, it's what it's being allowed to displace out of the healthy coping options that should gain as much attention.
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