Being a teenager is hard. You're under stress to be liked, do well in school, get along with your family, and make big decisions. You can't avoid most of these pressures, and worrying about them is normal. But feeling very sad, hopeless or worthless could be warning signs of a mental health problem.

Mental health problems are real, painful, and sometimes severe. You might need help if you have the signs mentioned above, or if you

• Often feel very angry or very worried
• Feel grief for a long time after a loss or death
• Think your mind is controlled or out of control
• Use alcohol or drugs
• Exercise, diet and/or binge-eat obsessively
• Hurt other people or destroy property
• Do reckless things that could harm you or others
• Feel depressed (sad and hopeless)

Mental health problems can be treated. To find help, talk to your parents, school counselor, or health care provider.

Many adolescents experience positive mental health, but an estimated 49.5 percent of adolescents has had a mental health disorder at some point in their lives.¹ The good news is that promoting positive mental health can prevent some problems. For young people who do have mental health disorders, early intervention and treatment can help lessen the impact on their lives.

It is a normal part of development for teens to experience a wide range of emotions. It is typical, for instance, for teens to feel anxious about school or friendships, or to experience a period of depression following the death of a close friend or family member. However, mental health disorders are characterized by persistent symptoms that affect how a young person feels, thinks, and acts. Mental health disorders also can interfere with regular activities and daily functioning, such as relationships, schoolwork, sleeping, and eating.²

Common Mental Health Warning Signs

Mental health is not simply the presence or absence of symptoms. Variations in how adolescents experience symptoms can make identification and diagnosis of mental health disorders challenging. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), an adolescent might need help if they:

• Lose interest in activities that they used to enjoy
• Have low energy
• Have difficulty sleeping or eating
• Spend more time alone and avoid social activities
• Excessively exercise, diet, and/or binge eat
• Harm themselves (e.g., burning or cutting their skin)
• Use alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs
• Engage in risky or destructive behavior
• Have thoughts of suicide
• Think their mind is being controlled or is out of control or hear things other people cannot hear

Common Mental Health Disorders in Adolescence

Common mental health disorders in adolescence include those related to anxiety, depression, attention deficit-hyperactivity, and eating.

Anxiety disorders

• Characterized by feelings of excessive uneasiness, worry, and fear
• Examples include generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias
• Occur in approximately 32 percent of 13- to 18-year-olds
• In 2016, roughly 11 percent of adolescents ages 12-17 and 7 percent of children ages 6-11 had a current anxiety disorder diagnosis^*
• Globally, the prevalence of youth experiencing clinically elevated anxiety symptoms—roughly 1 in 5—nearly doubled during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring the importance of mental health supports and services for adolescents

*According to the child's parent, guardian, or other adult familiar with the child's health.

Depression

• Depressed mood that affects thoughts, feelings, and daily activities, including eating, sleeping, and working
• Occurs in approximately 13 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds
• Examples include major depressive disorder and seasonal affective disorder

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

• Characterized by continued inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with daily functioning or development
• Occurs in approximately nine percent of 13- to 18-year-olds

Eating disorders

• Characterized by extreme and abnormal eating behaviors, such as restricted or excessive eating
• Occur in almost three percent of 13- to 18-year-olds
• Examples include anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and binge eating disorder

Get Help

If you observe warning signs and need to seek help, consult your health care provider or mental health professional. In life-threatening situations, call 911 or go to your nearest hospital emergency room. In a crisis, you can call or text 988 (for English or Spanish) to be connected to trained counselors in the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline network. For TTY users, use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 988.

Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, marked by episodes of mania and depression.

Common Signs & Symptoms of Mania

• Showing intense happiness or silliness for a long time
• Having a very short temper or seeming extremely irritable
• Talking very fast or having racing thoughts
• Having an inflated sense of ability, knowledge, and power
• Doing reckless things that show poor judgment

Common Signs & Symptoms of Depression

• Feeling very sad or hopeless
• Feeling lonely or isolating themselves from others
• Eating too much or too little
• Having little energy and no interest in usual activities
• Sleeping too much

Teens and young adults with bipolar disorder symptoms may think and talk about self-harm or suicide. If someone you know is expressing these thoughts, seek help immediately.

Bullying is a behavior that many of us have experienced in school or online, either as the person being bullied, the person engaging in the behavior, or as a witness. While bullying is far from new, it should not be considered a rite of passage for young people.

Bullying is defined as aggressive behavior between school-aged youth when there is a power imbalance that is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. It can include many different forms of aggression:

• Physical (e.g., pushing and shoving)
• Verbal (e.g., teasing, threats)
• Social (e.g., exclusion)

Bullying can happen through direct (e.g., face-to-face) or indirect (e.g., rumor spreading) means, and can occur in a variety of places, including at school or online.

Health and Life Impacts of Bullying

Bullying has been linked to serious negative consequences for those who are bullied, those who engage in the behavior, and even for those who witness bullying.

Young people who are both bullied and bully others are at the highest risk for negative outcomes such as:

• increased anxiety and depression
• increased suicidality
• increased substance use
• decreased academic achievement, and
• diminished earning potential.

In one study, over 60 percent of youth who reported experiencing cyberbullying indicated that it significantly affected their ability to learn and feel safe at school.

These outcomes may persist from childhood through adulthood. However, while media attention has often focused on the link between bullying and suicide, most youth who are bullied are not suicidal. Those who do engage in suicidal behaviors often have other risk factors, such as underlying mental health disorders, which can be exacerbated by bullying.

Healthy relationships in adolescence can help shape a young person's identity and prepare teens for more positive relationships during adulthood. Providing adolescents with tools to start and maintain healthy relationships (with romantic partners as well as peers, employers, teachers, and parents) may have a positive influence on young people's overall development.

The Role of Healthy Romantic and Dating Relationships

Frequency of adolescent dating. Young people tend to become more interested in dating around their mid-teens and become more involved in dating relationships during high school. Although dating does increase during this time, it is also normal for adolescents not to be in a relationship. Nearly two-thirds of teens (ages 13-17) have not been in a dating or romantic relationship. Thirty-five percent of teens (ages 13-17) have some experience with romantic relationships, and 19 percent are currently in a relationship. Older teens (ages 15-17) are more likely than younger teens to have experience with romantic relationships.

Adolescents date less now than they did in the past. This change is most striking for 12^th-grade students, where the percentage of youth who did not date increased from 14 percent in 1991 to 38 percent in 2013. Adolescent sexual activity also has decreased from previous decades. The percentage of U.S. high school students who had ever had sex decreased from 54 percent in 1992 to 41 percent in 2015.

Benefits of healthy dating relationships. Knowing how to establish and maintain healthy romantic relationships can help adolescents grow. Healthy dating during the teenage years can be an important way to develop social skills, learn about other people, and grow emotionally. These relationships also can play a role in supporting youth's ability to develop positive relationships in school, with employers, and with partners during adulthood.

Both male and female youth value intimacy, closeness, and emotional investment in romantic relationships. These relationships can be accompanied by extreme excitement and happiness, but also by disappointment and sadness. However, some youth might go beyond the normal range of emotions and may experience depression.

Meeting partners online. Despite media attention, few teens meet their romantic partners online. In 2015, only 8 percent of all teenagers had met a romantic partner online. Of course, many teens have never dated anyone, but among those with dating experience, 24 percent dated or hooked up with someone they first met online. Among this 24 percent, half of the teens had met just one romantic partner online, while the other half had met more than one partner online.

What Healthy Dating and Romantic Relationships Look Like

Adolescents may have questions about what is "normal" or "healthy" when it comes to dating. Learning and communicating the facts is important. For example, adolescents often think their peers engage in more sexual activities than they do, including more casual "hooking up." Nearly 85 percent of teens prefer other types of relationship-related activities, such as friendships and sex within serious relationships. The overestimation of a hook-up culture can be harmful to teens, causing embarrassment, shame, and pressure to engage in sexual activity or unhealthy relationship behaviors that they are not prepared for or do not want. Every relationship is different, but healthy romantic relationships are built on a core set of characteristics:

Partners Treat Each Other with Respect and Provide Space

• Partners should treat each other with respect, value each other, and understand the other partner's boundaries or limits in what they do and do not want to do.
• Partners should encourage self-confidence in each other.
• Partners should maintain their own individuality and keep their own friends and hobbies. It also is important for both partners to support each other in making new friends or pursuing hobbies.
• Partners should be role models to their partner, friends, and others and be an example of what respect means.

Partners Communicate

• Partners should practice effective communication. This means speaking honestly and waiting until the other partner is ready to talk.
• Partners should try to understand each other's feelings.
• Partners should be honest with each other and build trust in their relationship.
• Partners should value consent, and not pressure each other to go outside of their comfort zone, including for sexual activity. Partners should respect each other's boundaries. Partners should feel comfortable and able to say "no" to activities, and those wishes should be respected.

Partners Practice Effective Problem Solving

• Partners can practice good problem solving by breaking problems into manageable parts, coming up with solutions, and talking things through.
• Partners should be willing to compromise and acknowledge the other person's point of view.
• Partners should manage anger in healthy ways, like using breathing techniques or discussing why they are angry.
• Partners sometimes argue but when they do, they should try to stay on topic, stay away from insulting their partner, and take some space if the discussion gets too heated.

Although all healthy relationships should contain these core characteristics, relationships may look different as adolescents get older. For middle school youth, the focus of relationships tends to be on peer relationships and on developing social skills, with less focus on romantic relationships. Also, younger teens are more likely than older teens to hang out with someone of romantic interest in group settings with other friends around. Establishing positive social skills during early adolescence may help youth develop healthy relationships at later ages.

Romantic relationships become more serious among older teens in high school (ages 15-17). At this time, romantic relationships become more exclusive, last longer, and can be more emotionally and sexually intimate.

Teenage Dating and Romantic Relationships Risks

While dating can be a way for youth to learn positive relationship skills like mutual respect, trust, honesty, and compromise, it also can present challenges. Youth in relationships with the following features may be at risk:

• Dating an older partner. Some older partners may want to have sex before an adolescent is developmentally or emotionally ready. When teenage girls do have sex with an older partner, they may not use contraception and are at a heightened risk of pregnancy. These risks are more common when young teens – particularly young girls – have a sexual relationship with an adult. Among young people ages 18-24, nine percent of girls and five percent of boys reported that they first had sex when they were age 15 or younger and their partner was at least three years older. This age difference also can carry legal consequences because there are laws that prohibit sex between minors and adults. The specific laws and definitions differ by state.
• Having unrealistic expectations. Sometimes adolescents have idealistic views about relationships. For example, they may expect that relationships always progress in certain stages. First, they hang out with a group of friends; then they meet each other's parents; then they tell people they are a couple; and so forth. Youth may feel disappointed when the reality of their relationships does not match those expectations. One study found the more relationships progressed differently than expected, the more often girls experienced poor mental health, such as severe depression and even suicide attempts.
• Dating at an early age. Younger adolescents are still developing their sense of self and learning about their likes, dislikes, and values. Younger adolescents also are more susceptible than older adolescents to peer pressure. Peers play an important role in influencing adolescent decisions about risky behaviors like having sex.
• Having sex at an early age. When younger adolescents have sex, they often engage in risky sexual behaviors. They also might experience other negative outcomes like depression, substance use, poor romantic relationship quality, and low school participation.

Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship

Adolescents and caring adults can learn to spot warning signs that a friendship or romantic relationship is unhealthy. Violence is not the only important sign. Unhealthy relationship behaviors can include:

• One partner is controlling, makes all the decisions, and tells their partner what they can or cannot do
• One partner is hostile, picks fights, or is dishonest
• One partner is disrespectful, makes fun of their partner, or crosses boundaries
• One partner is completely dependent on the other or loses a sense of their individual identity
• One partner intimidates or controls a partner using fear tactics
• One partner engages in physical or sexual violence

Dating Violence

Some youth find themselves in violent dating relationships. Dating violence can be emotional, physical, or sexual. Dating violence also includes stalking.

• Emotional violence is when one partner threatens the other or harms his or her sense of self-worth or self-esteem. Emotional violence includes things like calling names, behaving in a controlling or jealous way, monitoring the other person constantly, shaming, or bullying. Emotional violence also happens when someone keeps the other away from friends and family.
• Physical violence is when someone pinches, hits, shoves, slaps, punches, or kicks their partner.
• Sexual violence is when someone forces a partner to have sex or engage in sexual activities when he or she does not or cannot consent. Force can be physical or nonphysical. An example of nonphysical violence is when someone threatens to spread rumors if a partner refuses to have sex.
• Stalking is any form of repeated and unwanted contact that makes a person feel unsafe.

Unfortunately, adolescents experience these forms of violence too often. Among adolescents who dated in the past year:

• Almost one in 10 reported being hit or physically hurt by a partner.
• Almost one in three reported being emotionally abused by a partner.
• Over one in 10 reported being forced by a partner to have sex or engage in sexual activities – like kissing or unwanted touching.

When dating violence occurs, it is common for both adolescent partners to be violent. In fact, 84 percent of youth ages 12-18 who survived dating violence also behaved violently. Adolescent boys and girls also experience similar rates of violence. About 69 percent of girls and 69 percent of boys who dated in the past year experienced some type of violence.

Some youth experience violence more than others. For example, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth are more likely than other students to experience physical violence and sexual assault by a partner. Adolescents with intellectual, emotional, or learning disabilities also experience violence more often than other students.

Cyberstalking

Technology gives youth new chances to be stalked by a current or former dating partner. Cyberstalking includes:

• Unwanted, frightening, or offensive emails, text messages, or instant messages (IMs)
• Harassment or threats on social media
• Tracking computer and internet use
• Using technology such as GPS to track a person

Positive social connections with people at all stages in life help ensure healthy development, physically, socially, and emotionally. As children transition to adolescence and start to spend less time with parents and siblings, friendships with peers become an increasingly important source of these social connections.

The Role of Positive Friendships in Youth Development

Adolescence is a period of rapid change—physically, emotionally, and socially—and relationships with friends play an important role in the lives of adolescents as they become increasingly independent, develop their own identity, and grapple with self-esteem. Positive friendships provide youth with companionship, support, and a sense of belonging. They can encourage or reinforce healthy behaviors, and evidence suggests that positive friendships in adolescence can lay the groundwork for successful adult relationships, including romantic relationships. Building on what adolescents have learned at home, friendships:

• Provide an opportunity for youth to develop social skills with a wide range of people. Through peer relationships, adolescents learn to cooperate with others, communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, and resist negative peer pressure.
• Allow adolescents to practice intimacy outside the immediate family. Through friendships, adolescents learn how to make, maintain, and end relationships, as needed. Additionally, they allow adolescents to practice being caring, honest, and trustworthy. Talking about personal problems is one way adolescents develop closeness in friendships; using humor is especially important for boys.
• Provide a source of support outside the family. Friendships are especially important during times of difficulty, offering a sense of belonging and relief from depression, anxiety, and stress. Feelings of closeness in friendships are linked to increased resilience; in other words, youth with strong friendships can better navigate and recover from life challenges.
• Can support adolescents as they develop their own unique identity—for example, exploring new looks and new interests.
• Can motivate students to engage in school work and achieve academically as well as be involved in extracurricular activities. For example, youth with high-quality, supportive friendships tend to be more engaged in school and make better grades than other youth. Similarly, youth with friends who participate in extracurricular activities are more likely to be involved in extracurricular activities themselves.

What Healthy Friendships Look Like Across Adolescence

Younger adolescents are often driven by a desire to ‘fit in,' and may gravitate toward friends of the same age and gender or who are popular at school. At this age, youth are most likely to change their behavior to match that of their friends. Additionally, they may change the way they dress, the music they like, and the activities they enjoy, often in ways similar to that of their friends.

Older adolescents start to spend even more time with friends. They begin to form friendships with peers of other genders and ages, or who have different interests, appearances, and beliefs. They show more caring feelings and develop more intimate relationships. At the same time, they may become more settled in their own tastes, independent of their friends, and focus on developing them more deeply. This is increasingly true as they move toward adulthood.

Peer Pressure

Friends can influence an adolescent’s attitudes and behaviors in ways that matter across multiple domains of health and well-being, well into adulthood. We often hear about this in the form of peer pressure, which refers more explicitly to the pressure adolescents feel from their friends or peer group to behave in certain ways, good or bad. It can take the form of encouragement, requests, challenges, threats, or insults. Sometimes, peer pressure is unspoken—an adolescent may feel pressured to do something simply because their friends are doing it.

Research shows that friends and peer groups are linked to adolescents’ positive and negative:

• Health behaviors, including their diet and level of physical activity;
• Risk behaviors, including tobacco use, marijuana use, alcohol use, and use of other drugs;
• School engagement, including their GPA and attitudes towards school;
• Tastes in clothing and entertainment; and
• Dating behaviors and formation of sexual identities and romantic partnerships.

Emerging research indicates that social acceptance by peers triggers stronger positive emotions during adolescence than it does in adulthood, which may be one reason youth are so keen to fit in. Additionally, teens, unlike adults, are more likely to ignore risks in favor of rewards when making a decision.

Generally, young adolescents are the most susceptible to peer pressure, and recent research indicates that popular adolescents may be under higher pressure than other youth to conform to peer behaviors. While popular adolescents often possess a wider range of social skills and better knowledge about themselves than other youth, popularity can be associated with higher rates of alcohol and substance use, vandalism, and shoplifting.

Adolescent Friendship Difficulties

Healthy friendships matter across the life course. Examining the lifelong health benefits from friendships in adolescence is an emerging field of research. There is some evidence that healthy adolescent friendships contribute to healthy long-term outcomes, such as physical activity. Furthermore, difficulties forming healthy friendships in early adolescence can lead to trouble forming healthy friendships in late adolescence and adulthood. There are numerous difficulties adolescents can encounter in the process of making, keeping, and deepening friendships.

• Some adolescents have difficulty making friends or feel more comfortable alone. Struggling to make friends is not unusual, and parents and other caring adults can help adolescents build the skills needed to make friends. Additionally, alone time is important to adolescents. However, if adolescents spend most of their time alone and have other warning signs like difficulty sleeping, they may need mental health support.
• Families are the first social relationships children form. Adolescents who were raised in families with limited emotional closeness or strained relationships may have difficulty with intimacy. These youths may struggle to express themselves openly and form close bonds.
• Some adolescents experience, witness, or engage in bullying, which involves repeated aggression and an imbalance of power among youth. Being bullied is linked to a range of negative outcomes, including depression, anxiety, and decreased academic achievement.
• Technology can be a challenging factor in some adolescent friendships. Conflicts between friends can originate online. While many youth use technologies to make and stay in touch with friends, others use social media and other online platforms to engage in cyberbullying. Additionally, spending more than two hours a day on sedentary screen time can be a risk factor for obesity and other health problems.
• Youth with disabilities may have additional challenges forming friendships and participating in activities.

How Adults Can Support Healthy Friendships

Positive and supportive friendships are important to the health and wellbeing of adolescents. While friendships become increasingly influential during adolescence, young people's relationships with their parents and other caring adults remain extremely important. Adults can use this influence to encourage adolescents to develop healthy friendships, a key step in the process of learning to function independently. Specifically, as an adult, you can:

• Model healthy relationships with your partner, co-workers, friends, neighbors, and children. Setting an example by treating others with kindness and respect is the best way to teach your child about friendship.
• Coach adolescents on social skills if they're struggling to make friends. Talk to them to see where they're encountering difficulty in their relationships. Then, focus on building the skills they need, like striking up a conversation, listening and asking questions, managing emotions when upset, or setting appropriate boundaries.
• Talk about peer pressure. Ask adolescents about instances of peer pressure at school or with their friends and how they felt. Share your own experiences of peer pressure and how you've dealt with it. Role play scenarios in which adolescents can practice different strategies for saying no.
• Encourage participation in positive groups like school clubs, youth programs, and religious activities where adolescents can meet like-minded friends. Parents, get involved yourself — this way you can be there to support your adolescent and learn about their relationships.
• As a parent, get to know your child's friends. Make your home a welcoming environment and encourage your adolescent to have their friends over. Providing a safe, supervised space for unstructured time with friends can help youth share ideas and develop important social skills. If they want to go somewhere, offer to drive or supervise the activity. Talk to your child's friends and observe what they like to do and how they interact with one another. Getting to know the parents of your adolescent's friends is also a good idea — you can work together to ensure the friendships are positive for all involved.

Among adolescents ages 18-19, just under eight percent of females and just under three percent of males identify as homosexual or bisexual. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) adolescents are happy and thrive during their teenage years. However, as a group they are more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience difficulties: LGBT adolescents are at increased risk for suicide attempts, homelessness, alcohol use, and risky sex. The way parents respond to their LGBT adolescents can have a tremendous impact on their children's current and future mental and physical health. Supportive reactions can help adolescents cope and thrive.

The relationship between children and their parents or caregivers (such as guardians, aunts and uncles, or grandparents) is one of the most important relationships in a child's life, often lasting well into adulthood. In adolescence, this relationship changes dramatically as youth seek increased independence from their families and begin to make their own decisions. With increased independence comes the possibility of increased risk, both positive and negative, and teens need parents or caregivers to help them navigate the challenges that adolescence presents. Though some amount of conflict between adolescents and their parents is normal, adolescents still rely on parents or caregivers to provide emotional support and set limits, both of which are linked to positive adolescent development.

Just as close parent-child relationships are linked to the healthy development of adolescents, positive parenting behaviors are linked to increased parent-child closeness. There are many positive parenting techniques for parents who want to build stronger parent-child relationships. These tips also can be used by siblings, other family members, and other caring adults who are influential figures in adolescents' lives.

The Importance of Parental Figures in the Lives of Adolescents

Parenting an adolescent is different than parenting a younger child. Peers become increasingly important in the lives of adolescents and influence their appearance (e.g., clothing), certain behaviors (e.g., language use and taste in music), and social life (e.g., dating). However, parents still play a large and vital role; they help shape adolescents’ educational plans, their moral and social values, and their broader world view.

As children grow, parenting shifts from making decisions for the younger child to helping older children and adolescents make decisions on their own, while minimizing the chance that they engage in high risk behavior. Parents can provide needed support and affection and help adolescents understand how their choices can affect their health and well-being. In fact, research shows that parents continue to have more influence than peers on many important outcomes, including whether adolescents smoke, use alcohol or other drugs, or have sex.

Developing and maintaining a positive and strong parent-adolescent relationship has real consequences. Positive parent-child relationships are associated with higher levels of adolescent self-esteem, happiness, and life satisfaction, and lower levels of emotional and physical distress. Close parent-child relationships also have been linked to safer sex behaviors among adolescents and lower use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.

Parenting Styles and Healthy Parent-Child Relationships

Many aspects of parenting have been studied by researchers and some have been covered by the popular media. The following categories were identified by developmental psychologists to describe different parenting styles:

• Authoritative: Authoritative parents are characterized by having high expectations for their children, while providing warmth and support. Central to authoritative parenting is having an open style of communication between the parent and child.

• Authoritarian: Authoritarian parents (“strict parents”) are characterized by having high expectations, while offering little support. The structure and rules provided by authoritarian parents can be helpful for adolescents, but should be balanced with support and open communication.

• Permissive: Permissive parents (“indulgent parents”) are responsive to their adolescents and often very nurturing, but are not demanding. These parents rarely set rules or rules are inconsistent, and this lack of structure can be challenging for adolescents.

• Uninvolved/Neglectful: Neglectful parents are those who are unable to meet the emotional and physical needs of their children. Children in these families may have a harder time developing trust and forming relationships with other people.

Authoritative parenting, an approach that combines warmth and support with appropriate discipline and guidance, has been associated with the healthiest outcomes for adolescents, including lower rates of substance use, violence, and risky sexual behaviors as well as improved diet and increased physical activity.

The ability of parents to successfully engage in authoritative parenting requires strong communication skills and the ability to set appropriate behavioral limits. While some parents may face parenting challenges because of financial strain, marital conflict, or other stressors, all parents and caring adults can learn and practice these skills.

Communicating

Effective and open communication is at the heart of healthy parent-adolescent relationships. And research shows that adolescents who can openly communicate with their parents (or caregivers) on a regular basis—and feel like they are being heard—are less likely to engage in a wide range of risky behaviors or to experience dating violence. In fact, these benefits extend to college-bound adolescents who are no longer at home and subject to parental monitoring.

While talking with adolescents can be difficult, research shows that as children enter early adolescence, they are less likely to disclose aspects about their life to their parents. Here are some suggestions for how to communicate effectively with your adolescent:

• Provide warmth and support. Warmth, encouragement, and responsiveness are key elements of effective parent-adolescent communication. Adolescents are better able to have difficult conversations with their parents when they trust that their parents will love them no matter what. This confidence is built up with parents who demonstrate kindness and support daily.

• Create opportunities to talk. Pay attention to when and where your adolescent feels comfortable talking, and try to create more opportunities to connect with them. Shared activities — practicing a sport, cooking, driving to the mall, watching a TV show — can be great opportunities for conversations. Talk with them about things they’re interested in, like media (movies, music, video games), school, friends, family happenings, current events, your past, and the future.

• Listen to your adolescent. Be attentive, don’t interrupt, and ask follow-up questions. Sometimes the less you talk, the more your adolescent will ask what you think. When you do respond to your adolescent, share with them instead of lecturing. Tell them about situations and challenges you faced when you were their age, and how you felt at the time.

• Ask open-ended questions. When talking with adolescents about decision-making, don’t jump to tell them what to do. Instead, ask questions that invite them to think through the possibilities. If your child is considering quitting their after-school job to join a sports team, for example, ask them how such a decision might affect them positively and negatively. This teaches adolescents to weigh costs and benefits before deciding, a vital skill in adulthood.

• Don’t overreact if your teen has opinions you disagree with or displays behavior that you find upsetting. Share your concerns firmly but calmly. If you can stay calm, your adolescent will feel more comfortable sharing information with you. And if your child feels judged by you or sees that you are visibly upset, they may be less likely to open up to you in the future. If you or your adolescent are having trouble staying calm, take a break and return to the conversation after cooling off.

• Talk early, often, and honestly about sensitive topics and risky behaviors. You can be a strong support for your adolescent if you engage them early, often, and openly about sex, substance use, and other sensitive topics. Many parents delay these conversations and allow the teen’s peers, the media, and other sources to provide their children with information before they do. Instead of waiting, have ongoing conversations with your children into adolescence. Use TV shows or movies as starting points for conversations, and consider talking in the car or via text if it’s more comfortable.

Setting Limits

Adolescence is a time of growth and experimentation, and given the risks and challenges adolescents face, they need parents to consistently provide age-appropriate rules and structure. Younger adolescents especially rely on parents to help them make positive choices and teach them how to behave safely and responsibly.

Parents who set clear limits and provide explanations tend to have less conflict with their adolescents. Parents who take extreme positions — either setting inflexible rules and demanding total obedience or creating few rules and allowing for excessive freedom — tend to struggle more with their children. Here are some ways parents can set limits in a way that fosters a healthy parent-adolescent relationship:

• Set clear and consistent limits. Rules should be clear, reasonable, and have specific consequences. When you set an expectation, explain the reasoning behind it. Listen to your adolescent's concerns or objections, but be firm in creating and enforcing limits that have their best interests at heart. If your adolescent breaks a rule, enforce the consequences consistently.

• Monitor your child’s activities. Keep track of where your adolescent is, who they’re with, and what they’re doing. Check in with your teen by phone, and get to know their friends and their friends’ parents. Parental monitoring is important throughout adolescence and is associated with lower levels of risk-taking behavior, such as having sex at an early age, using alcohol and tobacco, and skipping school. If you’re worried about your adolescent’s friendships, share your concerns and talk with them about peer pressure.

• Be open to negotiation. As adolescents get older, rules may become more flexible and open to negotiation. Listen to your adolescent’s concerns when discussing chores, curfews, access to the car, and other rules and privileges. By discussing guidelines with your children, you can foster your adolescent’s ability to think independently, compromise, and negotiate agreements — all important life skills.

• Gradually allow more independence. As your child matures, allow them more independence in stages. Perhaps you transition from shopping with your adolescent to giving them a clothing allowance, with the opportunity to earn extra cash by performing additional chores or taking on a part-time job.

• Offer choices. Find ways to allow your adolescent independence and agency within your rules. You might tell them that they need to do their homework or clean their room, for example, but consider allowing them to choose when they complete their tasks if they consistently accomplish them.

• Guide without being too controlling. Resist the temptation to control every aspect of your adolescent’s life. While you may not share your child’s taste in clothes or music, they will benefit from the opportunity to explore different roles and styles as they navigate the process of forming their identity. Take an interest in your child’s choices and talk with them about their preferences, offering guidance as appropriate.