Depression – Communication for Teens

Transcript

Being open with your family can be really difficult and it honestly depends a lot on your family. If you have a family that’s warm and open and inviting to sitting down and discussing emotions with you, that it can be a lot easier. If you do but you still feel anxious and nervous and you don’t want to just walk up to them and say Hey mom, I’m feeling terrible at school. I had an awful day. They were bullying me, etc. What I recommend is: you can take it down a notch. Maybe write them a letter and leave it on mom’s bedside table. Or you can send her a big long text and say: I don’t want to say this to your face, but I really want to tell you. I want you to know. Can we just have a conversation like this? Because I really think that once you get the conversation going, hopefully your parent will reciprocate and then they’ll help you out with it. Another suggestion that I’ve heard is talking to your parents in the car might be the best way to go because you don’t need to make eye contact. It sort of takes off the pressure when you’re not looking at each other. On the other hand, if you have parents who are not connected to you at all, they’re not the type of parents you go to for support, then you do need to find support somewhere else. This is really common. A good place to go looking for it is your guidance counselor at school or somebody from your church or even one of your good friend’s parents – they may be open to sitting down and talking with you about what’s going on. But it’s important that you try really hard to help yourself by finding another adult who can help you.