This may seem like a harsh way to put it, but it is 100% accurate.
Acceptance is a hard concept for anyone to adopt but especially so for teens.
Teens have so much going on that can cause stress and anxiety, but unlike adults, they have yet to reach a maturity level where acceptance can truly be put into practice.
A bad grade, a snub from a friend, being told they cannot have something that they want. These all cause them to feel upset, stressed or anxious. When they have these feelings they tend to react by lashing out or using a negative internal dialogue which does not serve them.
Helping them to understand that circumstances don’t need to define them but how they respond to those circumstances absolutely does is a key lesson.
When they are struggling with acceptance, engage them in a conversation around it.
Oftentimes, what they are struggling with is Radial Acceptance.
What to us as adults seems like something we should be able to accept, to them seems impossible in the moment.
Engage them using some of these tools below:
Ask them to name their emotions and what the biggest “root cause” to their feelings is.
Do not try to solve the problem or trivialize what they feel.
Ask them what would help them cope.
Use questions to help them identify what they can control or do in the situation.
When your teen learns the power of acceptance, the world becomes a much easier place to navigate.