{"id":1313785,"date":"2019-08-20T20:30:19","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T02:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=986305"},"modified":"2019-08-20T20:30:19","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T02:30:19","slug":"youthzone-therapist-teen-parent-coping-mechanisms-not-substantially-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/youthzone-therapist-teen-parent-coping-mechanisms-not-substantially-different\/","title":{"rendered":"YouthZone therapist: Teen, parent coping mechanisms not substantially different"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tina Olson sees a lot of teenagers who are dealing with stress and trying to find ways to deal with typical teen pressures. Likewise, their parents are often stressed about how to deal with that stress, she said.<\/p>\n

As senior therapist with YouthZone, the youth advocacy and crisis management organization serving Garfield County and the Roaring Fork Valley, she has three pieces of advice.<\/p>\n

And they apply to both the teens and the adults involved in the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I give them three things to think about, they\u2019re more apt to remember it and use it,\u201d Olson said.<\/p>\n

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Stressed teenager<\/strong>
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1. Talk to someone<\/h4>\n

\u201cIf you keep something to yourself, you tend to create stories that aren\u2019t true and start a belief system that\u2019s false,\u201d Olson said.<\/p>\n

For the teen, that \u201csomeone\u201d should not be a best friend but more appropriately an adult figure. For the parents, it should be other parents or a family therapist, she suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumber one for parents and kids is, don\u2019t be afraid to talk to someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Breathe<\/h4>\n

\u201cWhen we feel stressed, the first thing we do is tense up, and our breathing changes,\u201d Olson advised.<\/p>\n

\u201cI use this a lot with the kids, where I try to get them to take deep breaths and do some relaxing things with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whenever a person is trying to cope with stress, it\u2019s easy to let it take over your body.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sort of like a body check-in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

3. Keep a sense of humor<\/h4>\n

\u201cYou have to find some humor around these things, because adolescence is not a permanent condition,\u201d Olson said.<\/p>\n

Teens have a tendency to dip into what she called \u201ccatastrophic thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re so in the moment, and consumed by all that\u2019s happening right here and now. Teens need some reality checks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Especially if the anxiety is around a particular upcoming event or milestone in one\u2019s education, \u201cthe anticipation of the event is more anxiety-provoking than the event itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

That anxiety is normal, and so is feeling down about something, Olson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in this world where all the messages are telling us we have to be OK all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s OK to not be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

jstroud@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tina Olson sees a lot of teenagers who are dealing with stress and trying to find ways to deal with typical teen pressures. Likewise, their parents are often stressed about how to deal with that stress, she said. As senior therapist with YouthZone, the youth advocacy and crisis management organization serving Garfield County and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1313785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 07:47:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}