Skills to Teach Adolescents (and Learn Ourselves!)

Recently I read an article by Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia. She outlined some skills that I think are vital for teaching adolescents. (Indeed, we can all learn from them!)

1.      Centering. Find a quiet place where they can sit alone for 10-15 minutes. Relax and breathe deeply. Focus on their own thoughts and feelings without judging or directing them. Observe them, respect them.

2.      Separate feeling from thinking.  This is challenging for a teenager, because their feelings are so intense and the pre-frontal cortex has not developed fully yet. They need to ask themselves “How do I feel about this?” and “What do I think about this?” They’ll come to recognize that they are two different processes,  that both should be respected when making a decision.

3.      Make a conscious, responsible choice. Make decisions slowly and carefully. Influence might come from others, but the final decisions are their own.

4.      Make and enforce boundaries. This is vital, for safety (who can touch me and who can’t). They need to learn to say “NO” firmly, and not be pleasers.

5.      Defining relationships. What relationships are in your own best interest? Many girls are “empathy sick.”That is they know more about others’ feelings than their own. They are socialized to let others do the defining: they worry about not being perceived as nice or appearing selfish. Once they have experienced becoming the object of their own lives again, they will be eager to continue to develop this skill. 

6.      Managing pain. All of the bad things in the world come from people trying to escape pain. Drinking, drugs, self-harm, hitting one’s partner, gambling, even suicide is an attempt to avoid unprocessed pain. One needs to sit with their pain, listen to it for messages about their lives, to acknowledge it, describe it rather than run from it. Positive self-calming methods such as deep breathing, exercise, hobbies, reading, mindfulness are very important.

7.      Modulate their emotional reactions. Both girls and boys have these, thought the boys’ more often take the form of anger. Rate their stress on a 1 to 10 scale. This helps them reframe extremes like “This day is the worst day of my life.”

8.      Look within for validation. Being “other directed” or looking to the world for praise and rewards makes teens vulnerable to depression and anxiety. Especially in this age of social media. Teach them to record victories, that is actions in keeping with their long term goals. Teach them to encourage themselves, not depend on other’s opinions of them, for their value doesn’t depend on what others think.

9.      Time travel. Teach them on bad days to go back and think of happier times. Sometimes travelling to the future helps, have them think about their hopes and dreams. Tell themselves that “this too shall pass.” Have a gallery in their mind of beautiful scenes that they can go to, to escape the present hard time.

10.  The joys of altruism. All teens are self-centered. It is not a character flaw, it’s a developmental stage, but it makes them unhappy and limits their understanding of the world. On a regular basis, volunteer to help people less fortunate than they are. Good deeds for neighbors, a homeless shelter, animals that need love, a political cause, children with disabilities…the possibilities are endless. This helps them feel good about their contributions and become less self-absorbed. 

Today’s adolescents need a North Star to orient themselves towards. Certainly the Bible and God’s love are a firm foundation and will provide them with something solid outside themselves to hold on to and focus on. Let’s, with patience and empathy, guide them in the right direction!



*Much of this article was taken from Reviving Ophelia: 25^th Anniversary Edition by Mary Pipher and Sara Gilliam.