Becoming a teenager means more independence and responsibility. You need to think for yourself and about yourself. You may find yourself assessing your own strengths and weaknesses, and you probably want to do something about them yourself. Rather than wait for your parents to tell you what you should be doing, as a healthy teenager you need to start making some decisions for yourself and learning how to balance your parents’ perspectives with your own observations and thoughts.
When it comes to improving your performance in school, staying well-organized, managing your time more effectively, and learning how to handle stress, it’s very important to learn some strategies on your own. Unless you are willing to have your parents hover over you and tell you when to study, who to hang out with, and when you can have fun, you’ll want to learn some skills for managing yourself–psychologists call these executive functions.
Even if you find adult input a bit annoying at times, you’re lucky to have parents, teachers, and other adults who can help guide you and offer tidbits of wisdom that they have learned from their own experiences. So don’t ignore what they have to say, but recognize that the biggest changes that you can make will be ones that you determine to be important. If you are serious about changing, you’ll need to put in the time and effort necessary to improve yourself.
Over the years, teens have told me many things that they do to improve their own skill sets. You’ll find links to some simple strategies for improving executive functioning and processing skills below in the following articles.
Easy Ways to Improve Working Memory
Strategies to help you build working memory so you can remember to do your homework and bring it with you when it’s time to leave for school in the morning.
Video Games Are Good for Teen Brains
It’s the research you’ve been waiting for to argue with your parents for more screen time. Bring it up respectfully and back it up with research. And you should still balance that screen time with other things.
What Can Teens Do About Stress?
Entering junior high and high school are some of the most stressful transitions for teens. School is harder, friendships are more complicated, even home life can be more difficult… what can you do about all that stress? Here are some strategies.
What Else Can Teens Do About Stress?
More strategies for dealing with stress.
Apps and Tools to Help Teens with Depression
If you’re feeling sad or irritable, or if you have extreme mood swings, you could be suffering from depression. Only a doctor can diagnose you, but these apps and tools might help.
How Can Teens Improve Processing Speed?
If you’re feeling sad or irritable, or if you have extreme mood swings, you could be suffering from depression. Only a doctor can diagnose you, but these apps and tools might help.
Featured image: Flickr user Jeffrey
