Embarrass yourself on a date, and you might never date again. Say the wrong thing, and you could alienate the popular crowd. Make one wrong move, and you could be a viral video. In a world where social capital reigns supreme for teens, embarrassment, or anything that might jeopardize their social status, is frightening. You don’t want to be the one at school on Monday who knows nothing about the party last Saturday. Teens want to feel included, for sure, but they also want to feel involved. So popular that it’s been granted its own acronym (FOMO), the fear of missing out is a big one for teens today. For many teens, being accepted and loved is hugely important, and anything that threatens that feels terrifying to them. Whether it’s not being asked to the prom, or finding out that your friends went to the movies without you, rejection is a terrible feeling. This fear can have serious negative consequences if teens push themselves too hard for the sake of making someone else happy, rather than discovering innate self-confidence. They don’t want to be labeled a “bad friend.” They don’t want to be the one on the team that misses that game-winning shot. No teen wants to be a disappointment to their parents. Fear of the unknown fits in here as well, as students may be afraid of what adult life has in store for them. Moving away, changing schools, or even finding a new group of friends can be extremely intimidating in adolescence. Fear of change/the unknownĪgain, this one is understandable in teenage years. When you feel like your life is literally hanging in the balance, you’re definitely going to feel some fear about “messing things up”. They need to have good grades, so they can get into a “good” college, so they can get a “good” job, so they can have a “good” life. This is a big one for teens, and who can blame them? After all, they face daily pressure to succeed. Just as certain fears are more common among children, teens tend to struggle more with certain fears than with others. Of course, teenagers are notoriously difficult for adults to empathize and connect with, which is a problem for parents or caregivers who want to help teens navigate their fears in a healthy and mature way. As a person becomes more aware of their surroundings, more knowledgeable about the dangers of the world, and more focused on meaningful relationships, it’s no wonder that they would start to develop fears that are less about “sleeping without a night light” and more about “being alone forever.” In fact, adolescence can be an exceptionally fearful time in a person’s life. We’re born with a “fight or flight” response that never goes away (unless you happen to be SM, the woman whose fear response is essentially inactive thanks to a rare condition called Urbach-Wieth disease). But that doesn’t mean they aren’t afraid of anything.įear is an innate human characteristic. Once children become teens, they’ve likely grown out of most of their childhood fears (at least the ones about monsters under the bed and cooked broccoli).
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