Emotionally Healthy Teen Boys and Anxiety

By Grant Schafer, LCSW

The word anxious is frequently used to describe teenage boys, but what is anxiety anyway?

The Storm

Having to deal with multiple classes, time management, lockers, multiple teaching styles and personalities, extracurricular activities, and socializing with boys much older, it’s no wonder some sixth and ninth grade boys shut down emotionally, have trouble with organization, homework, and feel overwhelmed by the end of September.

Teen boys are developmentally two to three years younger than their age. It is natural for a ten-year-old to have difficulty starting the sixth grade and a twelve-year old entering ninth grade. Add to this storm, the parental and societal expectations as perceived by your son. How do they process it all?

The Teen Brain

Worrying is natural. It means you actually care. The worry center of the brain is the amygdala.There is a good chance that grades, socializing, completing homework, and going with the flow of rules has been quite easy for your son up to this point. Now they face a flood of thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The brain’s amygdala reacts in two ways scared or confused.

Scared is the widely known fight or flight response, without the fight. The confused reaction is closer to the fight response, where the teen brain stops, analyzes, and considers options. Anxiety is when the amygdala takes over with worry, sending signals of “I can’t do this” and “give up now.”

Emotional Resilience

This is a teachable skill of responding to an emotional flood with thinking rather than panic. The teenage boy’s brain is a circuit board growing daily. Add this formula to that board First, pause and acknowledge your feelings, then brainstorm the options and make the best choice for you in that moment.

Embrace positive self-talk and practice those phrases daily. It is an essential self-dialogue used to push through the times when the amygdala wants the brain and body to freeze with fear. The imagination can be used to personify, name, and label this battle over anxiety in the brain.Use this strength in your son to help him decide how he will choose to react to his feelings. Here is a word to give you a start Courage. Courage means being scared but facing that fear anyway.