Page 85 - (DK) Help Your Kids with Growing Up: A No-Nonsense Guide to Puberty and Adolescence

POSITIVE MENTAL HEALTH 83

Talking about it
If teens are feeling overwhelmed, and negative thoughts
are hard to escape, checking in with a friend or parent
and talk about how they feel can help. An outside
perspective can help a person to see that they’re actually ▷ Not alone
managing a situation better than they think. Keeping in It can be hard to open up about
mind the positive comments made by friends or parents feeling sad or low, but talking
can make a big difference the next time things are about it with someone else usually
feeling difficult. helps to put things in perspective.

Build positive relationships good about themselves
Supportive friends can give a person
confidence, and push them to
meet their potential. Good friends
Help others
reinforce a person’s positive
thoughts, celebrate each other’s
Helping friends and
achievements, and offer support in
noticing their needs
hard times, which can be invaluable
can help people to feel
to a person’s inner well-being.

Learn new skills and their friendship.
Developing skills outside of
Be kind to yourself
a teen’s comfort zone can
People are often kinder to others than
test and develop their Stay active
resilience, as well as give Exercise releases
they are to themselves. Self-talk is the way
them a chance to meet and endorphins – the body’s
people speak to themselves. While people
become friends with new natural mood elevator –
tend to find it easier to believe negative
things about themselves, it is important
and different people. good for both the body
that teens catch any negative self-talk and
and mind.
replace it instead with more positive and
compassionate thoughts. This will help a
person to feel confident and in control.
Set goals and ambitions important for well-being.
Having goals – big or small –
focuses the mind on a task.
Staying on track and focused
when working towards a goal
Relax
is an important part of building
Meditate
resilience. Hard work and setbacks
are part of the journey and make
Whether it’s watching a new
People have used meditation
film, listening to a favourite
for thousands of years as a
successes even sweeter.
band, or reading a book,
way to manage thoughts
making time for oneself
and feelings, and to relax
to relax and just “be” is
a busy mind. It is similar
to mindfulness, but uses
different methods to
encourage feelings of calm.
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