What Causes Anxiety in Adolescents?

This is one of the most common questions I hear. When someone hears that I’m a therapist for adolescents, they always want to know what seems to cause anxiety in teens. Sometimes it sounds like “What could a teenager today possibly have to be anxious about?” and sometimes it’s more like “I can’t imagine being a teenager nowadays. What seems to be the most stressful thing they talk about?”

Have you ever asked someone a question and gotten the reply “How much time do you have?” That’s sort of the situation with answering this question. There’s so much that causes anxiety in teenagers. It further complicates things that many teenagers are in various stages of puberty and experiencing the normal challenges of adolescence.

I will try to give a shorter list here, with some of the more common causes of anxiety in adolescents – especially in the Brentwood, Franklin, Cool Springs area. So, here we go:

School and Grade-Related Anxiety

Whether your teen goes to private or public school, many of the schools in the area push AP & honors classes, near perfect grades, and high test scores. These things become the norm, and I’ve heard plenty of teens say they feel “dumb” because they’re in a standard class or get a B on a report card. Unreasonable standards tend to cause irrational thinking and a pretty high amount of stress and anxiety.

Social Anxiety

Every adolescent wants friends, and kids can be pretty brutal in adolescent years. For some teens, it can cause lots of nerves to be standing on end in social situations. You want to be someone that other people like. It can get pretty lonely otherwise. You also don’t want to be ridiculed for saying or doing something out of the way in a social setting. Then there’s dating, which has the potential to being other risks and definitely brings other worries and stress.

Driving-related Anxiety in Adolescents

Not every teen is just dying to get behind the wheel of a car. It’s not uncommon for me to work with some adolescents with a heavy focus on anxiety about driving. The area is quite a bit more crowded than it used to be. People are in a hurry and on their phones in their car. Those are scary circumstances, in addition to piloting a 3,000 pound vehicle that can go 100+ miles per hour. Plus some people just act like assholes to everyone else on the road, and they don’t care if your kid is a new driver.

Anxiety About Life Changes and College

The college to “rest of life” transition is a crazy one for some teens to mentally process. Going to high school from middle school is also a big one. Any kind of life transition is a tough one. For comparison, you know how stressful it can be to just move to a different neighborhood as an adult? Going from one school setting to a new one – your whole social and educational life changing – is a big one. Or looking at being a “real adult?” Like you were taking a biology exam last week, and you’ll be filing your own grown-up taxes in 6 months, or you’ll be living on your own and keeping your own schedule in a few months. For middle schoolers going to high school – you’re the youngest in your school by 4-5 years and your school is probably at least triple the size. And everyone is telling you “your grades really count now.” You may very well be thinking “that’s just life,” and you’re right. But if you’re reading this, you probably wonder what’s causing anxiety for an adolescent in your life, and this could very well be a reason, regardless of whether it’s a normal part of life.

Traumatic Events

There are probably way more people dealing with the effects of trauma walking around than you would expect. It’s easy to get the idea that trauma has to be something worthy of having its own true crime documentary. It’s really not. Seeing (or even hearing) about a murder, wreck, tornado, or other disaster can be traumatic. Being chased by a dog, seeing someone fall or be injured, being yelled at or threatened, involvement in a fight, or having a traffic incident can all affect someone in a negative way. They may replay it in their brain, have nightmares or trouble sleeping, tend to isolate or avoid certain activities, or you may see a shift in their personality. Trauma typically has a pretty big effect on a person’s emotions and thoughts.

Family Conflict

Conflict in the home can be a stressor for everyone. Specifically talking about adolescents in this case, it can be a difficult issue to deal with. Family conflict can be between adults in the home, adults & kids, or just between kids themselves. The conflict may not even involve the adolescent in question. Sometimes just being around conflict between other household members can cause anxiety.

Hereditary Anxiety in Adolescents

There’s always the genetic predisposition issue. You don’t have to have a predisposition to experience anxiety. On the same hand, anxiety doesn’t have to run in your family in order for you to have it. It’s good to be aware of though. It can help to understand why you may be experiencing it and why it may follow the course it does, as well as how to go about dealing with it.

Again, it’s important to remember that this is a short list of highlights that can contribute to anxiety amongst adolescents. Ultimately, anxiety is something that doesn’t always make total sense. It is usually driven by “irrational thoughts,” although those thoughts may feel very real to the person thinking them. It’s important to remember as parents, or any adult in a teen’s life, that if someone could just stop having anxious thinking or experiencing anxiety – they probably would just do that. So, if they can’t “just stop,” it may be useful to look for some additional help with that.

Get Help for Anxiety in Adolescents

My canine assistant, June, and I offer a variety of counseling services in Franklin or online throughout the state of Tennessee. Our services include teen counseling, therapy for young adults, and walk + talk therapy. I specialize in working with folks experiencing anxiety but can help with a wide range of concerns. I also offer teen girls therapy group and a young adult women’s group counseling in the Nashville area. To learn more about June and me, please contact my counseling office.