Austin Scholar #15: The Secrets to Communication
Mental Health Awareness Month: Part Two
Hey, y'all!
Welcome to the Austin Scholar newsletter! To all of my new subscribers, I'm so excited and grateful that y'all are here! To all of my returning subscribers, welcome back, and thank you for the continued support.
Please forward this newsletter to other parents who want to learn ways to help make twelve years of school less painful and more fulfilling for their children.
This week from Austin Scholar...
How my parents helped me overcome my mental health struggles
Where parent–teenager communication issues come from
Things you can do to improve communication with your teen
Mental Health Awareness Month continues! In the first newsletter of this series, I began my own story with my mental health and introduced some data from a survey I sent to Alpha High students about why they struggle with talking to their parents about their mental health. Throughout this newsletter, I hope to give y’all some tips for bridging the communication gap between parents and teenagers.
In next week’s newsletter, I am going to be answering FAQs from parents about teenagers and mental health, so make sure to message me if you have any burning questions.
In case you missed last week’s disclaimers: I am not a therapist. I am not saying I am a therapist. I am not diagnosing your children. My hope is to draw from my own experiences and the stories of my friends to give y’all a view into the darker parts of a teenager’s mind.
Austin’s Anecdote
After the silent struggle I wrote about in my last newsletter, my parents finally realized the depth of what was going on in my mind. It was their belief that my refusal to talk to them about my struggles was what was causing my internal suffering.
My parents' solution was to force me to talk to them about my feelings for two hours every single day.
Yeah, that didn't go too well.
Every day, I would wake up dreading the two hours where I would sit on the floor of my parents' bedroom and cry as my parents asked me why I was feeling so horrible. My dad had his iPad out and would take notes as I talked about how depressed and anxious I was; my mom would cry when I mentioned that some of it was because of them.
And I would sit in that room and spiral as I tried to justify and explain my feelings. For two hours. And I couldn't leave.
We did ten days in a row of forced conversation, and we didn't problem solve anything. We didn't come up with new ways to support each other. I just complained and they just felt bad.
It was, excuse my language, a shitshow.
After these ten days, I asked my parents to allow me to take some space and work on myself in a safe environment. Because we were all stressed and frustrated and not improving, they agreed. One month later, after being able to explore different ways to express my anxiety and frustration, I was able to talk to my parents with a clear(er) mind and we were able to actually communicate. Instead of blaming each other, we acknowledged that we could have all done something different.
No longer were the forced two hours of talking. Instead, we started doing family walks down 2nd Street and spending time in the mornings before school talking and watching reality TV.
And if I began to start feeling anxious or unhappy, I would simply text them and explain what was going on, and they would ask how they could support me (more on that later). We learned to work together and communicate without force.
Obviously, a lot of work had to be done in between the 10 Miserable Days and our Great New System, and every family is going to need a different system to motivate conversation, but I hope that my family’s story can give every single parent who reads this hope that communication between themselves and their teenager is possible.
Where parent–teenager communication issues come from
When thinking about how to fix communication between parents and teenagers, many people seem to think it’s a lost cause.
In the survey that I sent to Alpha High students, though, there seemed to be a pretty clear answer.
When asked “What is something you wish you could tell your parents,” over 70% of the students responded that they wished their parents would “listen to what I’m saying” or “try to understand how I’m feeling.”
Also, when asked about a positive experience with their parents and mental health, those who answered (many said they had not had a positive experience) said that their parents listened to them and helped them solve their problems.
It seems as though listening and empathizing with your teenager could go a long way. Who knew?
Before you say, “Austin, I listen to my teenagers just fine. They just don’t want to talk to me,” think for a moment about how you’re listening.
Let me explain.