You may not be capable of making your teen’s stress magically vanish, but there are things you can do to make it more manageable.
Holidays are awesome when you’re a kid: think Santa, sleigh rides, snowmen and tons of hot chocolate while sitting in front of the TV watching Home Alone for the umpteenth time. But for a teenager, they can be anything but, as final exams, college essays and anxiety about keeping it all together in front of a zillion relatives at holiday dinners threaten to overwhelm the most even-keeled adolescent.
You may not be capable of making your teen’s stress magically vanish, but there are things you can do to make it more manageable — and make December a month they can actually even enjoy. Here’s how: Give your teens some time-outsThis time of year, everyone is overscheduled — between sports games, school concerts, recitals, finishing up extracurricular projects and trying to cram for final exams, something has to give, says Soren. “I tell parents it’s really, really important that they allow their kids a time-out, whether it’s missing a practice here or there or even temporarily dropping out of an activity entirely,” she explains.
Encourage them to read for pleasure each dayYour teen may turn to their iPad or phone when they have some downtime, but encourage them to read, even for only a bit, instead. Just six minutes of sustained reading each day can reduce a person's stress level by 68 percent, according to a 2009 University of Sussex study.
Encourage healthy eating and sleep habits“When I work with students, I tell them to stick to whole foods — anything that comes from the ground or has a mom,” says Nicholas Pomante, RD, a student wellness coordinator at Eastern Michigan University. If it’s in a bag or a box, avoid it. “These types of foods tend to be processed, which can really gunk up the body and decrease focus and clarity,” he explains.
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