Since the past few decades, there has been an alarming increase in the anxiety levels, stress, etc. in teenagers. This may be because of the fact that teens are facing increased pressure from a number of sources. Due to teen anxiety, the mental as well as physical health of these young people is affected. Especially, when these teens face unbearable pressure, their anxiety levels shoot up. Therefore, when they encounter a lot of problems on their emotional side, their physical health too gets a beating.
Is Anxiety Hereditary?
To this question, experts answer in the affirmative because if the parents, ancestors or close relatives of a person had been experiencing anxiety issues, the person may also be affected by it. Extensive researches have been conducted on this and it has been categorically proved that anxiety can be hereditary.
Teen Anxiety and Environmental Factors
Secondly, environmental factors contribute significantly to the anxiety of people. If a person grows up in surroundings where fear, anxiety and worries rule the roost, the person may have this problem. This means in families where anxious moments are constantly prevalent, teens of the families may also start worrying even about trivial things.
Life Experiences
If a person has experienced anxious situations in life, he or she tends to be over-cautious or may always have anxiety. Not only that, when these people become parents, they may involuntarily teach anxiety to their children also. This is because children consider their parents as their role models and they may try to emulate them. Likewise, when parents have high expectations from their teens, those teens may start developing a tendency to worry about everything. Further, if children grow up in an abusive environment, they may constantly worry that something terrible may happen to them.
Events Or Factors That May Trigger Teen Anxiety
If parents split or if unforeseen events take place in the family, those children may be affected by anxiety. For children who are studying, unmanageable homework, performances in studies, peer pressures, etc. may be a problem. But, a number of adolescents are concerned about their looks and due to this, they develop teen anxiety. Even peer pressure in activities other than studies may also trigger anxiety.
Parents’ Role
The fact is that there are a number of parents who may not be aware that their teens are having anxiety problem. They may not even know the pressures faced by their children. Even those parents who realize that their teens keep worrying about something may commit the mistake of wrongly concluding that the pressures and anxiety faced by their children are general teen problems. But, if teen anxiety is ignored, there may be serious consequences. Therefore, parents should take immediate and quick action and consult a competent professional for treating their teens.
Teen anxiety may affect many things in the lives of the affected teens. They may not be able to have consistent friendship, may not perform well in their studies and may keep away from their close relatives, friends and others. They may have sleep-related problems also. While some teens may over-eat, there may be teens who may not eat properly. This may spoil their health. There are many teens who try alcohol, drugs, etc. These habits may make things worse for them and they may have other issues like mood swings, memory loss, depression, etc.
This may affect their confidence level and so, their performances will further dip. This will again trigger more anxiety and thus, it becomes a vicious cycle. Since most of these teens may try to avoid talking to others, it is the duty of the parents to keep a close watch on the activities and behavior of their teenagers. Only then, they will be able to take suitable and timely action to treat their young ones of the problem of teen anxiety.