How to Help Teens Become More Self-Compassionate
When children grow up and become teens, they begin to encounter numerous challenges, ranging from cyberbullying to friendship difficulties . As a result, teens can sometimes become depressed. In the past we used self-esteem boosting mechanisms to tackle the usual teenage issues; performing well in school, dating and having safe sex. The present day approach, however, mostly uses techniques to encourage self-compassion. Self-compassion is made up of three different parts: common humanity, self-kindness and mindfulness. A combination of these three aspects is useful in fostering self-compassion, which can help teens when problems arise . Teens can also use their free time to read and reinforce their knowledge in various areas, such as love, administration, art and music. El Rincon del Vago Magazine can provide the necessary reading material for this topic. Teens can be taught to be more self-compassionate using the following tips.
- Normalizing the various challenges of adolescence
Teens often experience loneliness when they are faced with the problems such as fitting in, getting on well with their family and tolerating their changing body. Self-compassion is crucial in reminding them that adolescence is a difficult period for everybody, and the challenges that come with it are entirely normal. This period of consistent change can be due to a number of events. This could be changing schools, friendship groups or even the changes in the body. These make the life of a teenager tough; the changes are hard for anybody. Self-compassion makes the teens understand that they are not the only ones going through challenges.
- Refute the myths
As with adults, teens may not tolerate the idea of self-compassion, fearing that they might become too kind to themselves. This implies that they will just laze around for the entire day without doing their class assignments, leading to failure. However, in reality, this has never been true. Research shows that anybody who is kind to themselves is motivated to get things done. The chances of them delaying taking action are minimal and are more likely to attempt new things . This is because they are not faced with the concerns of failure .
- Define self-compassion
Self-compassion means, even during tough moments, that you treat yourself as you would treat a good friend. Self-compassion may sound simple in theory, but it can be quite challenging to put into practice. It usually requires some patience and the will to try new things. This will then have a positive impact on the lives of teens, helping them to perform well in class and making them feel better about themselves.
- Show them how to be mindful
When teens are conscious of their surroundings, they will react less severely to whatever thoughts are running through their heads. They will view such thoughts as passing mental events rather than difficult facts. Mindfulness is a requirement to effectively practice self-compassion, as it enables you to identify the harsh thoughts when they appear and then be able to think in primarily kind ways . If one lacks these everyday mindfulness skills, it is harder to identify the times when self-compassion is required.
