The Best Antidote For Anxious, Stressed Out Teenage Girls
The best antidote parents can teach their teenage daughters for dealing with the stresses in their lives is to learn to focus on what they do have control over.
Life raft metaphor: focus on what you have control over 
Your teenage daughter too often focuses on trying to control all of the people and things that are causing her to feel anxious and stressed out. These might include: parents, friends, rumors and gossip about them, what peers post about them on social media, teachers, the amount of homework they receive, coaches, some physical things about their bodies, their parent’s fighting, or the college application process.
In this podcast, Dr. Jordan describes a role play he does with preteen and teenage girls: 1 girl in the middle of the room is surrounded by people representing stressors like her parents, friend drama, rumors about her, homework, a teacher, a coach, aspects of her body she has no control over, and anxious or negative thoughts that pop in her head. When I say go, all of these stressors begin to talk at her at the same time and her job is to attempt to control them. Of course, they ignore her, causing her to work harder and become more frustrated and overwhelmed. This is a great way for the rest of the teenagers to visually see what they experience every day. I take the place of the teen volunteer but keep all of the stressors in play, and when I say go, they restart their clamoring at me. What I do is to sit quietly and just do some deep, slow breathing and I just notice, in a detached and mindful manner, all of the stressors. Eventually they always slow down and get quiet.
What these teenage girls see and learn is that they can learn to focus on what they do have control over, which is themselves, their reactions, and their emotions. The stresses haven’t changed, but their response and relationship with them has.
“You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.” – Timber Hawkeye
“All of man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal
Teach your daughters how to be alone without being lonely, and to cultivate quiet, alone time with practices like journaling, meditation, yoga, or artwork.
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