3 Ways to Help Your Teen Through Social Awkwardness
If you have a socially awkward teen daughter, know that it’s totally normal for her to experience this. And she can actively work through it with this blog article and your help!
>>> FREE DOWNLOAD: Depression & Anxiety Toolkit for Parents Raising Teen Girls <<<
10 tools you can immediately use to improve your female identifying teens’ mental health & build resistance against depression & anxiety:
Anxiety & Depression Toolkit for Parents Raising Teen Girls
‘Never Have I Ever Felt socially awkward’ is a statement NO ONE would win in the game “Never Have I Ever”. Everybody experiences moments of feeling kind of out of place. But when you combine the hyper-awareness of yourself that comes with being a teen it can feel 100 times worse.
What leads teens to feel like every move they make highlights all their flaws? If you guessed their brain 🧠, you got it!
Photo by Norbu Gyachung on Unsplash
Teen brains are fascinating and undergoing some major changes well into their mid-20’s. The limbic system (emotion centers) are in full swing and the prefrontal cortex (reasoning, executive functioning, and problem-solving centers) are working hard to wire. This can lead teens to misinterpret facial expressions and emotional tones more negatively (read more about this HERE).
Teens are also at the peak of egocentrism. Ok sometimes this gets a bad rap – thinking that teens are only utterly self-involved. It’s not quite that. Their brains are so self-aware during adolescence, that it makes it hard to see the differences between their own perceptions and that of others.
This can sometimes lead to self-consciousness and insecurities. Your teen is also experimenting in the in-between worlds of letting go of some childlike behaviours and stepping into adult-like behaviours. This includes how to use different social skills in different settings. Your teen probably acts and speaks quite differently around their friends than they would with their grandparent.
It’s like those little whispers we sometimes have running in the background, “what if they don’t like me”, “what if they think I’m basic”, “what if they make fun of me”, “what if no one talks to me”, are full on shouting. Those thoughts can make anyone feel like they are under the microscope with their every move.
So there’s a lot of stuff going on and I haven’t even mentioned the social and internal pressures to fit in, differences in abilities to interpret social cues, unique experiences, history, sociopolitical factors, and more.
So how does one move from socially awkward to gracefully nailing every social interaction. Um…..If I figure that one out, I’ll be the first to share it! The reality is social stuff is not always going to be perfect nor pretty, but I can share a few things that can make things a little easier for your teen as she navigates this time in her life.
Photo by Yanapi Senaud on Unsplash
3 Tips to Share With Your Socially Awkward Teen Daughter:
Tip #1 – Building confidence- Trusting that you can get through challenging things and make it to the other side somehow is key to feeling less socially awkward. You might stutter, go blank, mess up someone’s name, but if you know that it’s going to be ok in the end and that you’ll figure it out, it goes a long way to continuing on.
If you’re struggling to feel confident in social situations, here is a blog article with 10 rules to live by:
10 Rules for Being Confident When Talking to Others
tip #2 – Finding your people- This doesn’t mean only liking those that have similar interests (‘cause where’s the variety in that). It’s more about connecting with people who you feel kind of comfortable with, those who leave you feeling good most of the time, people you can have
Photo by Mi Pham on Unsplash
fun with. In order to meet these people, sometimes you have to have a few (or many) fails. In the end it’s so worth finding your people.
Refining your social skills- yeah some people seem to just have the hang of this social thing a little easier than others. However, it’s good to know that social skills are very teachable, so even if you didn’t win the lottery on it coming naturally, there are ways of learning how to make social interactions breezier. Important Note ***I want to make a distinction between learning social skills and encouraging masking behaviours in teens who are neurodivergent. Social skills will enhance communication, ability to read social cues, understanding of social situations, and a sense of connection to others. If you’re learning skills that make you feel like you’re forcing, faking, hiding yourself, unsafe, or exhausted, you might be more in masking territory and this could even make things worse.
REMEMBER- everyone else is working through their own stuff about social interactions and are likely more in their own heads rather than noticing your little mistakes.
>>> FREE DOWNLOAD: Depression & Anxiety Toolkit for Parents Raising Teen Girls <<<
10 tools you can immediately use to improve your female identifying teens’ mental health & build resistance against depression & anxiety:
Anxiety & Depression Toolkit for Parents Raising Teen Girls
And to finish, here is a list of movies and shows where the socially awkward characters are actually pretty freaking “adorkable” (wish I had coined this word!)- If you have some other suggestions, send them our way.
Movies and Shows With Socially Awkward Characters
- Peter Parker – Spiderman
- Mary Catherine Gallagher- Superstar
- Allison Reynolds- Breakfast Club
- Mike Drinkwater- Drinkwater
- Wednesday Adams – Wednesday
- Nadine Franklin – The Edge of Seventeen
- George McFly- Back to the Future
- Mia Thermopolis – Princess Diaries
- Josie Geller- Never Been Kissed
- Fogell McLovin- Superbad
- Minnie goetz- Diary of a teenage girl
- Kayla Day- 8th grade
- Napoleon Dynamite- Napoleon Dynamite
- Jess Day- New Girl
- Daria Morgendorffer– Daria
- Amy Santiago- Brooklyn 99
- Kevin Arnold- The Wonder Years
- Emma Nelson- Degrassi Next Gen
- Jenna Hamilton- Awkward
- Hannah Horvath- Girls
Love,
Chantal
Psychologist, Teen Life Coach, and Founder of Pyramid Psychology
Chantal Côté (she/her) is a psychologist and teen life coach living in Calgary, Alberta. After over a decade in non-profit and community mental health, Chantal started Pyramid Psychology, a practice dedicated to supporting teens – a population she is constantly amazed by. Chantal is on a mission to help 100,000 teen girls (and their parents) build bulletproof mindsets so they can weather the ups and downs of life. As part of this goal, Chantal has had the privilege of speaking at various events – virtual and live – to support teens and parents.
Outside of this passion, Chantal is often in nature, writing poetry, playing ball hockey and hanging out with her loved ones.
Each week, Chantal writes a blog article in response to issues she hears from the parents and teens she connects with.
If you have something you’d like to read more on – email ideas and questions to info@pyramidpsychology.com or DM us via Instagram or Facebook.
What I would tell my younger self (younger sibling). When I ask this question 9 times out of 10, teens tell me their advice for their younger person would be to wait as long as they can before they start using social media, to avoid platforms that constantly show them videos and pictures they compare themselves to, and to enjoy things outside of screen time.
Hello, my name is Tara, and I am a graduate student in counselling, I will be doing my practicum at Pyramid Psychology and I am very excited to practice all the skills I have learned as well as develop new relationships.
I am a registered social worker with a Bachelor of Social Work with a major in psychology from the university of the Western Cape, and a Master’s in Clinical Social Work specialization with individuals, families, and groups from the University of Calgary.
