Healthy and Unique Coping Mechanisms of Teens and Tweens

The life of an ordinary teen or tween can be surprisingly hectic and stressful. They go to school everyday and are expected to learn a wide range of subjects-some they enjoy, some they don’t. Regardless, they must focus and perform. Psychologist Dr Lisa D’Amour offers a helpful analogy: high school is like an open buffet. In real life, we walk around, choose what we like, and leave what we don’t. In school, however, teens are presented with a buffet of subjects, but they are expected to consume all of them, whether they like them or not. On top of academic demands, they must navigate complex social dynamics: friendships, peer conflicts, group pressure, strict or sometimes unfair teachers. After school, many attend extracurricular activities where they continue performing and managing social situations. Then they come home to homework, family responsibilities, and finally bed-only to repeat it all the next day. And all of this is happening while they are coping with puberty and suring hormones. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.

To be able to thrive in this demanding environment, teenagers need coping mechanisms, strategies that are effectively managing and lowering daily stress without being harmful. For psychologists, the bar for coping mechanisms is pretty low; we have two criteria: 1. efficiency, 2. harmlessness. The coping startegy they use has to be efficient in lowering the stress and should not be harmful to the teenager or people around them.

What are the most common ways teens and tweens use as a stress buster? Physical activities such as running, taking the family dog for a walk, playing with the family dog; creative outlets like writing poems, drawing, knitting, playing an instrument; taking a long bath and listening to a music. Teens usually have different music compilations for different moods: one for sad days, one for happy days and one for angry times. They are all fine; even the most aggressive or depressive music has been found to be helpful for dealing with daily life. These are the usual suspects…

There are also other ways teens do to decompress and they may seem puzzling to us, to say the least. These can be quirky but adaptive techniques. Have you seen your child re-reading a childhood favourite book? Or watching an old episode of “Barbie and the Friends”? Retreating to an old, childhood favourite for comfort and yearning for times that were much simpler than their current lives is a classic, yet effective and harmless coping strategy. It ticks all the right boxes! So next time, you see your daughter reading Harry Potter book no 4 for the 1000th time (note to myself), instead of being annoyed by the fact that she is not reading an age appropriate classic literature, let her be! Or your son is watching for the 100th time the same episode of his beloved childhood cartoon series, take a deep breath and remind yourself that he is probably blowing off some steam. Another coping mechanism that may seem puzzling to us is to watch short (funny) youtube videos. Many kids watch funny cat or dog videos or short clips of funny situations. That’s also more than fine.

When does it become problematic?

Coping streategies need to be harmless, so any behaviour that is harmful to themselves or to people around them is considered problematic. Obviously, self mutilating behaviours, pulling hair, cutting, scratching oneself require immediate professional help. These behaviours can be scary and incomprehensible to us, but we need to understand that if a child uses these harmful coping mechanisms, it means they are effective! Therefore, telling them to simply stop will not help. If we notice any of these behaviours, we should book an appointment with our pediatrician and ask for help. They will be able to point you towards the right people as these issues require help from people with specialised training.

Furthermore, if you see your child taking their agression on other people such as a younger sibling or other family members, that’s also not acceptable. This is a harmful way of coping with stress and needs to be dealt within the family. You can talk to your child and offer some more adaptive options and ask their opinions about it. Stating that ‘taking on a younger sibling is simply not acceptable in your family’ is always a good start.

There is also, the issue of effectiveness. A coping mechanism should be effective. If your child comes home from a long day at school and opens up his computer and watches funny youtube videos for a while and then switches them off and start working on his homework, it is best to accept it as an effective and harmless coping strategy (as long as the videos he is watching are not inappropriate for his age). If, on the other hand, he comes home and watches these videos to the point where he can’t stop and starts missing deadlines and etc, that means this startegy is no longer effectively lowering his stress and he is now avoiding his responsibilities. This belongs to the problematic coping mechanism category.

What can we do to support?

The best way to decompress and deal with stress is to talk about our emotions. Just by naming what we feel can actually be healing and therapeutic. So, if they are willing to share with us what’s bothering them, we need to sit silently, listen! Simply being there for them, listening to them quietly and occasionally throwing a few empathetic words at them can be useful. However, jumping in and trying to offer solutions is NOT. If I am dying to share my hard earned pearls of wisdom, I remind myself to ask my daughter “Do you want to vent about your problem or would you like me to offer some ideas?” Only, when she asks for my opinion I open my mouth. Otherwise, it is better to just listen to them and let the talking do the job.

What if your child does not want to talk about it? That’s also fine. Many teenagers would not want to talk, and instead head to their bedroom, close the door and listen to music. Considering this is a healthy teenage coping mechanism, we should respect their process. There are other things we can actively do to help them deal with stress. For example, we can offer simple things like ordering their favourite food in, or watching a few episodes from their favourite series… Remember: teens may use coping strategies that seem puzzling - even inexplicable - to us. As long as those strategies are effective and harmless, we need to allow them the space to use them. This is how they practice emotional regulation and build resilience for adulthood.

If you wish to read further on this topic:

D’Amour L., (2023), The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable and Compassionate Adolescents, Random House, NY