Ways to Help Your Lonely Teen (eBook)

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Model Healthy Social Connection

The Advisory’s second recommendation for parents and caregivers is:

“Model healthy social connection, including constructive conflict resolution, spending time together, staying in regular contact with extended family, friends, and neighbors, setting time aside for socializing away from technology or social media, and participating in community events.”

Our young people learn from watching us. Let’s consider the practical implementation of these recommendations in our effort to maintain healthy social connections.

Engage in Constructive Conflict Resolution

As noted in developing a strong attachment relationship, inevitably there will be empathic failures and misunderstandings requiring correction. This means there will be a need for conversations that require attuned listening, validating a child or parent’s perspective, and use of apology to acknowledge the disconnect in understanding another’s position. In short, a key factor in solidifying attachment is our continual mending of relationships when either the parent or child “gets it wrong.” This enhances closeness. We succeed in our relationships (and learn the most in life) through our failures – more than through our successes.

Beyond correcting empathic failures in modeling healthy social connections is the resolution of conflict (Beresin, 2021). In all relationships, with parents, friends, teachers, coaches, and caregivers conflict is inevitable. Some conflict is hidden or denied, while at other times it is overt. Although conflict is not pleasant, and specific skills are required for its resolution, one thing is abundantly clear: There is a positive value to conflict resolution as it strengthens healthy relationships. While we all need not agree on everything, we can agree to disagree.

The first step is to identify the conflict and then appreciate difference in opinions, accept and tolerate our differences, and love, respect and trust each other despite our opposing views.

Then we need to continue engagement in the following ways: attempting not to be judgmental; having frequent conversations; keeping our emotions under control; and being prepared to apologize if you sense that you offend your opponent. If the conflict is between a parent and child or between friends, identify the problem area and make a plan for mitigating the conflict in the future. A good example is a parent/child conflict over bedtime or curfew. Such conflicts can be resolved through “getting to yes,” by collaborative problem solving, so that everyone wins, though each may need to sacrifice something (Beresin, 2016).

Another important skill in conflict resolution is to focus on the process of seeking a middle ground, versus winning. It’s all about compromise. Verbal or physical violence should never be involved. And finally, if you cannot do this alone, professional help may be highly valuable in facilitating the needed resolution.

If all goes well, healthy connections become stronger, and each individual has a greater sense of pride, enhanced self-esteem, and satisfaction.

Spend Time Together, Staying in Regular Contact with Extended Family, Friends, and Neighbors

Despite the unprecedented experience of the pandemic with almost two years of lockdown, we learned the importance of regular contact with family, extended family, and friends. Social isolation was intolerable for most of us and contributed to profound loneliness. For many of us, enduring the pandemic required dealing with loss and grief, either through the death of loved ones, the losses of time with friends, missing major events, holidays together, or just hanging out (Beresin, 2020).

While digital media has its downsides, it was a godsend for many of us in a time of necessity to maintain regular contact.

The value of using FaceTime, Google Meet, and other video applications allowed for interpersonal and group interaction, thus multiple friends or family members could stay connected.

Adolescents in particular need social-emotional time with each other, and significant periods of time for this was lost during lockdown. Regular social gatherings for sports, watching movies, engaging in activities like music, games or just taking walks are fundamentally important (Office of Population Affairs, 2023). As noted earlier, we humans are pack animals and our brains are wired for interpersonal connection. Our time together may allow for emotional support during hard times, processing experiences together, such as engaging in academics or navigating the intricacies of our other relationships. There is a wealth of research on the positive value of social interactions on the solidity of identity, self-esteem, emotional regulation, and an overall achievement of wellbeing.

Let’s not forget the critical connection we have the opportunity for with our family members. One routine time that could be made special are family meals. Research has shown that cooking and eating together fundamentally lowers rates of depression, anxiety, substance misuse, eating disorders, and stress and provides the kind of closeness we all need. Meals (without the interruption of digital media) foster conversations, and through this communication boosts everyone’s self-esteem, validation, and being understood (Fishel, 2014). Family dinners can be a regular means of setting the outside world aside and simply focusing on those we love and cherish (DeRosa, 2014).

There are many other activities families can do together. What we do will depend on the interests of each family member. Parents will know what they like, and you can learn about the interests of your children by short conversations over time. Consider a wide range of social, emotional, and physical activities that both bind us together and promote health. Some examples include activities that promote fitness, meditation, yoga, engaging in creative arts (which may be music, graphic art, writing and reading stories), and more (Braaten, 2014; Beresin, 2022; Clay Center, 2019). Even more passive activities, like watching movies, build connection when done together.

These activities are sound ways to thwart loneliness, while helping to build skills that may have far reaching impact on what we engage in for our own pleasure, stimulation, and connection with and understanding of others. They also foster resilience and mindfulness, and stimulate our ability to see ourselves and the world with fresh eyes (Beresin & Schlozman, 2013).

Set Time Aside for Socializing Away from Technology and Social Media

There is some evidence, though not substantiated by extensive research, that social media may contribute to loneliness. However, social media and digital technologies continue to evolve and are here to stay, and we do need to consider both their risks and potential benefits (Beresin, 2018). Possible risks of social media include fostering loneliness when it is used as a substitute for real face-to-face contact. It is therefore important to set time aside for socializing without the use of technology.

An important role for parents in modeling healthy social connections for children – and especially teens – is by putting down their own devices. In a Pew Research Center report published in 2020 (for which parents were surveyed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic), more than half of parents surveyed said they spent too much time on their smartphones, and two-thirds reported being distracted by their phones while they were spending time with their kids (Auxier et al. 2020). It is hard to expect our teens to spend time without their phones if we regularly model the opposite for them.

If you are putting effort into spending time together as a family – through family meals, or some of the other activities suggested above – consider making some of these times free of digital devices for everyone involved. Teens, parents, invited family or friends. Intentionally setting aside time to engage with each other, and only each other, might even surprise you in how good it feels.

Participate in Community Events

Remember, humans are by their very nature social. We need connection with each other. Proximity to others stimulates release of oxytocin in the brain – the neurochemical that underlies our feelings of closeness and attachment. Engagement in community may take many forms: in places of worship; in athletics; in community agencies (Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, 4H, and more); in community service such as participating in town cleanup activities; and in activism (Schlozman 2018).

Young people are increasingly aware of the world they are being handed. They are disturbed by climate change, by racial, ethnic and LGBTQIA+ disparities, by mass shootings and lack of gun control, by ongoing exposure of sexual assaults. It is not a pretty picture. One way they can feel connected with others and feel empowered to change the world is through non-violent activism. This activity has great personal and collective satisfaction. We can do something about life on this earth that we want and need to change (Beresin, 2018).

And finally, let’s not forget that giving is better than receiving for all of us (Braaten, 2013). It’s a potent releaser...