The turbulent life makes parents increasingly distance themselves from the dialogue with their children. Parents often attribute to the school the mission of educating their children, especially after childhood, as if in adolescence the children did not need assistance and monitoring.
Adolescents have found less and less space for dialogue, including within the family and at school, there is also a control that makes this dialogue difficult. They feel alone and misunderstood and have preferred virtual to face-to-face contact for both friendships and relationships.
According to the WHO (2018) there are several reasons that lead young people to commit suicide, which is the second main reason for death among young people aged 15 to 29 years. There are several motivations that can lead a person to do this. Among young people, experts point to depression, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as issues such as bullying, domestic violence, sexual violence, abuse in general as the main causes. Adults often do not understand and believe that young people’s lives are easy. Families are getting smaller, parents usually work a lot and put all their anxiety, fear and guilt on their children. Children are increasingly over-protected and over-supervised, which leads to a childish treatment by the parents, leaving them insecure.
Another stress factor for these teenagers is the need to be accepted. What was once a face-to-face practice, trying to be part of a group of friends, now happens virtually through social networks, where young people expose their actions in search of “likes” as a way to be accepted. According to experts, young people are increasingly insecure, depressed, anxious and medicated.
The relationship between adults and adolescents must also be better understood. Dealing with the young person makes us get in touch with the young person that we were or that we would have liked to be, which makes the relationship very complicated.
Social networks act as an escape valve for young people to express themselves. In this way they are exposed to all sorts of comments about their life, actions and feelings. This exhibition can be a request for help and needs to be observed and understood.
The help of a professional in these cases helps to mediate conflicts and reduce tensions between parents, children and even the school.
The psychotherapeutic work aims to promote the psychological strengthening of young people to face their anxieties and fears, in addition to mediating the dialogue with the family.
