Recently, the Tel-jeunes team was challenged by the open letter “Let’s stop scaring the public1 and the article “I’m scared, is it serious, doctor?”2 » published by The Pressdealing with anxiety and stress in young people.
At Tel-jeunes, we agree with this article co-authored by researchers on the subject. And even more, we want to emphasize more on very relevant nuances, putting teenagers at the forefront of the matter, since we hear them every day on these subjects.
We are of the opinion that it is necessary to try to bring nuances to the studies which publish results which can send the message to young people that manifestations of stress and anxiety are abnormal or even insurmountable. These young people, certainly exposed to multiple and significant stressors, are in question and are concerned about their condition.
We have been observing it at Tel-jeunes for 30 years, and particularly in the last few years: adolescents are increasingly putting words to what anxiety is, its different forms and manifestations (which we did less forward), and that’s a step in the right direction.
This is why it is essential, especially in adolescence, to qualify the types of stress and anxiety, as well as their symptoms. Why is it important in adolescence? Because they are in a period of learning and discovery. They experience new situations, from first confrontations to new realities, which naturally generates stress and anxiety. It’s normal, it’s healthy.
Teens are now able to recognize these new emotions and be able to develop positive and helpful strategies to deal with them, strategies that will serve them throughout their lives. We welcome the idea of young people talking more about their stress and anxiety and opening up about it.
This openness that young people have to expressing their emotions to us is an opportunity to lend an ear, to validate and normalize their experiences, to maintain a discourse that is not alarmist, with the aim of enabling them to identify their skills to cope with these emotions, and thus to act as a reassuring role model. We have a responsibility here to accompany young people with kindness rather than labeling them.
Faced with a generation of informed and sensitized adolescents, it is up to adults to offer them spaces of openness without judgment to demystify and remove the taboo surrounding their experience, such as stress and anxiety, in the goal that they learn to live with these sometimes overwhelming, often uncomfortable, but mostly normal emotions.