Helping Our Teens Manage Their Anxieties

Anxiety is rising among teens. If you are a parent of a preteen or teenager, it’s quite possible that you are, or will, walk with your son or daughter through a season of fretful fear and unease. There are reasons why anxiety is rising among teens; in his book “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt points convincingly to widespread usage of smartphones and social media as a major cause of anxiousness among teens. The loneliness brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has only magnified the effects of society performance. And, adolescence, with all of its changes in new schools, new friendships, dating relationships, and hormones, has many factors to consider.

As a parent, you no doubt feel burdened for your son and daughter. Perhaps you feel helpless as you try to help them overcome their anxiety. What can you do, as a parent? Consulting your healthcare provider or a mental health professional is usually a good place to start, especially if the symptoms (rapid heart rate, lack of sleep, panic attacks) are interfering with their daily life. Counseling and medication can go a long ways in helping your teen to function well on a daily basis.

But spiritual realities are also involved, and if your son or daughter struggles with anxiety, you have an opportunity to help them integrate biblical truth with the challenges they face. Here are three biblical assurances that can help our teens as they learn to manage their anxieties.

We Are Not In Control – God Is!

One of the illusions that anxiety feeds on is our desire to be in control. We want to be in control of our circumstances, knowing what will happen to us, when, and how. We want to be in control of our future – whether we will make the team, get into college, find a job, or get a date. There is a part in all of us that wants to manage all of the events of our lives, down to the smallest detail. Of course, we are unable to control these things because there are so many factors outside of our control. This inner tension is a reason why many people experience some degree of anxiety.

Jesus speaks to this, saying: “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about what you will eat, or drink, or what you will wear. Your heavenly father knows that you need them all” (Matthew 6:25). Here, Jesus reassures us that God knows our needs and our weaknesses even better than we do. Another way to put this is that we are far more vulnerable than we would like to admit–and God recognizes this weakness (even when this is hard for us to face!). Learning to acknowledge our helplessness and our limitations is actually liberating for us because it names a root cause of our anxiousness: We are not in control! 

Learning to rest in God’s care is actually a powerful release of responsibility because it reminds us to trust in a God who is gracious and good, one who orders and arranges each millisecond of our life according to his good plan. So, whether we are worried about getting accepted into a college, worried about the auditions next week, or anxious about staying healthy, remember, we are not in control, but we are in the care of a God who is in control. God loves us so deeply and profoundly that he promises to care for us exactly as we need.

We are not what we do – We are what Jesus has done

Teens face immense pressure to do and do and do. It’s not just that they experience pressure to be busy – though that is certainly true as well – it’s that the subtle message of our culture is that it is our busyness that defines us. Our identity and our worth are built on what we accomplish and achieve. So, a sophomore in high school feels pressure to get good grades, not just because they want to keep their GPA up, but because failing that test (or being cut from the team, or being relegated to third chair in the band, or…) sends a message: “You are not good enough.” This shame, or the fear of shame, can motivate a young person to practice hard, or study long hours, or be a good person, but these efforts are overshadowed by a daunting sense that it’s never enough. When we define ourselves by what we do, “our success will go to our head, and our failures will go to our heart” (to paraphrase the late Tim Keller).

The heart of the Christian message is that we find our worth and our identity not in what we do, but in what Jesus has done in our place. In Philippians 3, Paul lists his extensive resume – including his own accomplishments, and his own ethnic and cultural distinctions. But rather than conclude that he is worth something because of these, he labels these “accomplishments” as dung when “compared to the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:8). In other words, what we need to massage into our hearts is the promise that our worth and value aren’t connected to what we succeed or fail at, but in how God sees us because of Jesus. It’s what Jesus has done that defines who we are, and where our worth comes from. God doesn’t look at us and see the sum total of a GPA, a moral track record, a performance review, a sports championship, or volunteer hours; he sees his son or daughter, credited with living the perfect life that Jesus lived in our place.

No FOMO – We belong!

Most of us can recall a time when we didn’t fit in, and we know the pain that comes along with being excluded. Social media has greatly intensified these experiences. Chances are, your son or daughter has their phone with them nearly all the time, at school, at work, and even during nighttime hours; that phone remains tethered to them. That means that your teen literally feels every notification, every “like”, every comment, every tag alerts them to social activity by their peers. One problem, however, is that these notifications create an online world in which teens are desperate to fit into. The anxieties of the school hallway are now carried home in their pockets, demanding constant attention and performance. The images posted by their peers stir a “FOMO” (a Fear of Missing Out). After all, if everyone is tagged in the pictures from last Friday’s party (that you weren’t invited to!), or if classmates or posting and sharing images of their wardrobe (that is way out of your teen’s price range), there is sure to be an anxiousness about being left out.

Jesus’ story of the welcoming father (often titled “The Prodigal Son”) in Luke 15 paints a picture of a God who welcomes and embraces even the most wayward children by throwing a party to celebrate their return home. Among many other things, this story shows us that in Christ, we belong! We have a Father who joyfully takes us in, a Father who will spare no expense to show his joy over us. God is not a god who grudgingly takes his children into his home against his better judgment; He is a God who lavishes his love on us, and gives us an undeserved – but honored – place in his home. Teens, children, and adults too can find great peace knowing and remembering that whether or not we find acceptance in the world, in Jesus, we already belong, we are already accepted, and we fit into the one family that matters more than anything else.

No magic fix, but…

Living with anxiety may be a temporary hardship that your teen will eventually grow out of, or it may be a thorn that they live with their whole life long. However, they are not alone! Not only is there good mental health care available, and not only can medication offer some help, but God’s word carries with it promises that we can take to heart – and help our teens mediate on – that will assure them that they rest in the care of a loving Father, who sees them as righteous in Christ, and who welcomes them with open arms into a place they belong.