Navigating Mental Health and Developing Resilience for Your 15-Year-Old

Now Is the Right Time!

Mental health is essential to every teen’s well-being. Fifteen-year-olds are navigating complex emotional landscapes as they develop into young adults, and these experiences can impact their mental health. Just like physical health, mental health requires attention, and it’s vital to equip teens with skills to support their resilience and emotional well-being.

Teens between the ages of 15 and 19 are going through many transitions, including increased academic demands, evolving friendships, and forming their identities. These changes can be overwhelming, and teens can find the changes difficult without proper tools to manage emotions. Your guidance as a parent or someone in a parenting role is crucial in helping them learn how to maintain mental health and build emotional resilience.

In some cases, intense stressors such as family mental health issues or trauma can impact a teen’s mental health. If you or your teen has experienced such difficulties, seeking external support from professionals is important. However, the steps outlined here can help your teen develop everyday skills to navigate mental health challenges and build resilience.

Why Mental Health?

Whether it’s your teen feeling anxious about an upcoming test, overwhelmed by social dynamics, or dealing with low self-esteem, attending to mental health is essential. In the short term, teaching mental health awareness skills can foster:

• Increased confidence in managing emotions and maintaining balance
• Better connections with family, friends, and peers by improving communication and understanding
• Greater self-awareness and emotional regulation

In the longer term, your teen can develop:

• Emotional awareness and the ability to understand and articulate their feelings
• Resilience in facing life’s challenges and stressors
• Healthy coping mechanisms to manage stress, anxiety, and other mental health concerns

Five Steps for Mental Health

This five-step process will guide you and your teen through strategies to support mental health, increase emotional resilience, and build lifelong skills.

Engage your teen in a conversation about their mental health. By asking open-ended questions, you give them the opportunity to reflect on their emotions and experiences. This process promotes self-awareness and encourages them to identify areas they want to work on.

Questions to Ask:

• “What emotions have been the hardest for you to manage recently?”
• “Can you describe times when you feel anxious or overwhelmed?”
• “What do you do when you’re feeling down or frustrated?”
• “What do you do when your emotions feel out of control?”

Active Listening: Practice active listening by paraphrasing their feelings to show understanding, e.g., “It sounds like you’re feeling overwhelmed when you have too much schoolwork. Is that right?”

Help your teen learn to identify and cope with emotions by modeling the process for them. You can introduce mental health strategies that include:

• Naming the emotion: Encourage your teen to identify what they are feeling. “I’m feeling angry right now,” or “I’m feeling lonely.”
• Sitting with it: Teach them to tolerate uncomfortable emotions without immediately trying to fix them.
• Getting perspective: Help them understand that emotions are information, not facts. Ask, “What’s this emotion telling you?” and remind them that feelings are only one part of the whole picture.
• Shifting the emotion: Show them how to move through the feeling by reframing the situation or engaging in calming activities, such as deep breathing or creative expression.

Actions to Practice:

• Model self-awareness by naming your emotions in daily life. “I’m feeling stressed today, and I’m going to take a break to reset.“
• Teach grounding techniques, such as deep breathing or mindfulness, to manage overwhelming emotions. Practice these together.
• Help your teen gain perspective by asking, “What might be a more balanced way of looking at this situation?“

To reinforce mental health strategies, it’s important to practice regularly. This can take the form of role-playing, reflecting on emotions, or simply incorporating calming practices into daily routines.

Actions:

• Create a routine for discussing mental health. You might ask each evening, “How did you feel today?”; “What are things that came up that felt overwhelming?”; “What emotions came up for you today? How did you handle them?”
• Encourage reflection on how emotions fluctuate. “You felt really anxious about that presentation yesterday. How are you feeling about it now?”
• Reinforce skills by acknowledging their efforts. “I noticed you took a few deep breaths when you were getting frustrated. That was a great way to handle it.”

Continue to offer support as your teen applies these new mental health skills. Monitor how they are doing, and be ready to reteach or adjust strategies when necessary.

Actions:

• Offer reminders: “Remember, you can always take a break if you’re feeling overwhelmed.”
• Check-in regularly: Ask, “How are you feeling today? Do you need help with anything?”
• Problem-solve together: If they’re struggling, ask, “What’s another way you could handle this?”

No matter how old your teen is, your positive reinforcement and encouragement have a significant impact.

If your teen is working to grow their skills – even in small ways – it will be worthwhile to recognize it. Your recognition can go a long way in promoting positive behaviors and expanding your teen’s confidence. Your recognition also promotes safe, secure, and nurturing relationships — a foundation for strong communication and a healthy relationship with you as they grow.

There are many ways to reinforce your teen’s efforts. It is essential to distinguish between three types of reinforcement: recognition, rewards, and bribes. These three distinct parenting behaviors have different impacts on your teen’s behavior.

Recognition occurs after you observe the desired behavior in your teen. Noticing and naming the specific behavior you want to reinforce is key to promoting more of it. For example, “I’m really proud of how you sat with your frustration earlier rather than avoiding it!”  Recognition can include nonverbal acknowledgment, such as a smile or hug.

Rewards can be helpful in certain situations by providing a concrete, timely, and positive incentive for doing a good job.  A reward is determined beforehand so the teen knows what to expect. It stops any negotiations in the heat of the moment.  A reward could be used to teach positive behavior or break a bad habit. The goal should be to help your teen progress to a time when the reward will no longer be needed. If used too often, rewards can decrease a teen’s internal motivation.

Unlike a reward, bribes aren’t planned ahead of time and generally happen when a parent or someone in a parenting role is in the middle of a crisis. While bribes can be helpful in the short term to manage stressful situations, they will not grow lasting motivation or behavior change and should be avoided.

Actions

• Recognize and call out when things are going well. It may seem obvious, but it’s easy not to notice when everything moves smoothly. Noticing and naming the behavior provides the necessary reinforcement that you see and value your teen’s choice. For example, “I see you’ve been more open about your feelings lately. That’s really brave!”
• Recognize small steps along the way. Don’t wait for significant accomplishments to recognize effort. Remember that your recognition can work as a tool to promote more positive behaviors. Find small ways your teen is making an effort and let them know you see them.
• Build celebrations into your routine. For example, create simple rewards for practicing mental health, like relaxing together or doing a favorite activity.

Celebrate small victories and consistent effort when it comes to managing mental health. Positive reinforcement will encourage your teen to continue practicing these vital skills.

Closing

Developing mental health and resilience is a continuous process. By using these five steps, you are helping your teen manage their emotions today and preparing them for the challenges they’ll face in the future. Mental health strategies build lifelong resilience and self-awareness, empowering teens to navigate life with confidence and emotional awareness.