Has your teenager been feeling left out? This feeling might weigh on them heavily during the holidays, a traditional time of togetherness and connection. Your teenager might feel excluded around friends or family, despite your best intentions and efforts to include them. .
How can you be there for your teen?
For many teenagers, the holidays are one of the highlights of the year, getting a break from school, celebrating a religious event, participating in a family gathering or anticipating the beginning of a new year. But when someone feels left out, the expectation of enjoying the holidays can sharpen feelings of isolation.
If your teen is showing signs of feeling left out, here are four steps you can take to be there for them:
Ask where the feeling of exclusion is coming from.
The first step to helping your teenager with this problem may be finding out where it came from. It may have one clear source or multiple factors. Try to ask open-ended questions about it and listen to their answers nonjudgmentally.
They may be feeling left out after a disagreement with friends, bullying, a school change or other situation. Their feelings may stem from a mental health condition, such as depression or social anxiety. They may feel that they are different from their family or friends — and that their differences are negative, not positive.
Discuss how they would like to be included.
Your teenager who feels like an outsider right now might want to be in the center of every holiday … or not. They may want to be as involved as they were before, involved to a limited degree or only included in the things that matter most to them. A teenager who is shy or introverted may want to take baby steps toward more inclusion, not a giant leap. An extrovert might want to jump in.
Talk to them about what would help them feel more connected. Which family members would they like to spend more time with? What would they like to do? Are there any old family traditions that they miss, or any new ideas that they want to try?
Support healthy relationships with family and friends.
If your teenager is feeling disconnected, you might be able to help them reconnect. You can encourage them to make their own efforts, too. Reforging connections with their family members and friends might help them enjoy this time more fully.
However, your teen may not have as many people to connect with outside of the family as you might expect. They may need to make new friends if they have moved to a new school, their friend group has split up or there has been a bullying issue at school. For now, focus on their family relationships. You can help them make friends when school begins again.
Give them coping skills for difficult moments.
Rebuilding or reengaging in relationships can be tough. So can working through disagreements or differences. In these times, your teenager might need healthy coping skills.
You can share coping skills that work for you with your teen. You might also pick up a few skills from these articles on self-help strategies, seven coping skills for teens and coping skills for social anxiety.
Thinking about professional support for your teenager?
Your teenager may benefit from professional care if they’re experiencing extreme emotional lows or isolating themselves. Behavior difficulties and relationship breakdowns may also mean that your teenager might need mental health care.
Some of these issues may arise from depression, social anxiety, trauma-related conditions or personality disorders. Also, some teenagers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or those on the autism spectrum may be left out by their peers or feel that they don’t belong.
At Lightfully Teen, we offer an Intensive Outpatient Program and a Partial Hospitalization Program. We provide therapy, psychiatric medication management if needed, clinician-facilitated group sessions and family therapy. Our staff includes licensed clinical therapists and psychiatric care providers.
You can connect with us to learn more. Change is possible. When you’re ready to take the first step, reach out to our Admissions Concierge Team. We’ll take the next steps together.
