You Think You

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• You Think Youre Stressed!
• Lets talk about teens, stress, and anxiety

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What Stresses Your Teen Out?
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Negative ways teens deal with stress

• Self-medicating
• Using drugs or alcohol
• Self-injury
• Avoidance
• Procrastination
• Over preforming

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Stress is Real and its Here to Stay

• Stress comes from a primitive part of our brain
  that tells us to be afraid. So, some fears are
  worthy and some are not.
• Stress looks forward and backwards to the what
  if's and I should have's.

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Types of Stress

• There are two types of stress
• Eustress (good, motivating)
• Distress (bad, hard to cope with)
• It is important to identify causes of stress and
  manage them with either changes of behavior or
  attitude.
• How do you know when your teen is stressed?

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The Science of Stress
Stress is regulated by the hypothalamus,
pituitary gland, and adrenal gland.
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What About Anxiety?

• Anxiety is a normal part of childhood, and every
  child goes through phases. A phase is temporary
  and usually harmless.
• Warning signs
• Panic attacks
• Avoidance of places or situations
• Obsessions or compulsions
• Re-experiencing of traumatic events and avoidance
  of stimuli
• Persistent and excessive anxiety and worry

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Other Mood Disorders

• Major depression
• Cyclothymia
• Dysthymia
• Bipolar I
• Bipolar II

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Signs and Symptoms

• Disinterest in favorite extracurricular
  activities 
• Problems at school and losing interest in school 
  
• Substance abuse, including alcohol and drug
  (illegal and legal drugs) use
• Behavioral problems 
• Withdrawing from family and friends 
• Sleep changes 
• Changes in eating habits 
• Begins to neglect hygiene and other matters of
  personal appearance 

• Emotional distress brings on physical complaints
  (aches, fatigues, migraines)
• Hard time concentrating and paying attention 
• Declining grades in school
• Loss of interest in schoolwork 
• Risk taking behaviors 
• Complains more frequently of boredom 
• Does not respond as before to praise
• Changing friend groups
• Isolating from friends and family

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How To Deal

• Validation
• I hear you saying you feel really sad.
• That sounds very painful.
• Ask open-ended questions
• Have you ever felt really depressed?
• How long have you felt that way?
• Has this happened before? How long did it last?
• Be in contact with your childs therapist and
  psychiatrist
• Get therapy for yourself
• Sending only the kid gives them the message I
  am broken, and they want this therapist to fix
  me.
• It is hard to watch your kids struggle!

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Stress Management Tools

• Sleep
• Eat right
• Avoid caffeine
• Exercise
• Music
• Relaxation techniques
• Prayer/spirituality
• Set priorities

• Study smarter, not harder
• Planning/organization
• Compartmentalizing

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Coping With Stress

• 1. Identify causes
• What stresses you or your children?
• 2. Change what you can
• Attitudelisten to negative messages, listen
  carefully to your child's negative messages
• Gratitudecount your blessings, but recognize
  some things are just simply hard
• 3. Learn to let go
• 4. Teach your children these lessons as you go by
  talking to them about your process

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• Jesus' instructions from the Sermon on Mount
• Mt 625
• Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
  life, what you will eat or what you will drink,
  or about your body, what you will wear. Is not
  life more than food, and the body more than
  clothing? Look at the birds of the air they
  neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and
  yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not
  of more value than they? And can any of you by
  worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
  And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the
  lilies of the field, how they grow they neither
  toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in
  all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
  But if God so clothes the grass of the field,
  which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into
  the oven, will he not much more clothe youyou of
  little faith?

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The Message?

• Dont worry Thats easy for him to say!

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