Stress and anxiety can be commonplace, especially in tense family conditions. It can affect parents and children, and in bad cases leads to suicide or self-harm. Recognising behaviors that increase anxiety and stress is the first step in ridding yourself of this discomfort. There are three obsessive behaviours, and you may not indulge in all three, but any of them have the power to make your family life less happy than it should be. These stresses in your family life might have originally been able to be controlled or alleviated by indulging in hobbies or interests such as photographing animals but you might find that life is overtaking you, or circumstances have changed for either you or children, possibly caused by a change in school, divorce, hormones, bullying and more. So what are these behaviors?
Obsessed negativity is the first, and it is quite simple to self-diagnose. People with obsessed negativity tend to be generally negative about things that happen in their life. While teenagers can tend to be 'down' on a lot of things, obsessed negativity is a step above this where absolutely nothing seems right and they may not have friends or a social life. Sometimes it's just one area, such as work, but it can be pervasive, from family and friends, personal image, places, situations encountered, politics and more.
Obsessed negativity ranges from the trivial ("There's never anything good on TV when I want to watch"), through to the more deep-seated psychological and self-esteem-related thought patterns ("I can never do anything right", or "People are out to get me"). Solid patterns of negativity like this often prevent you from seeing legitimate good things that happen every day all around you.
Obsessive perfectionism sets people up against impossibly high standards, either your own, or some external pressure such as what you think your friends will think, or your boss. Many parents force high standards on their children, but don't back it up with praise and encouragement. If it's your own standards, you may consider yourself a failure if you don't achieve them; if they're your perceived standards from other people then you may think that you'll make them mad by falling short. This type of behaviour is sometimes difficult to identify as we all tend to want to do a good job. It's recognizing whether holding yourself to the standards is causing you stress if you don't meet up to them.
Obsessive analysis is the third. You might be obsessed about minute details of processes and procedures, going over them again and again until you are sure you understand it in miniscule detail - often far more than is required. You can't relax if things go wrong, so you obsess over the processes and procedures.
Child and teenage brains need to have rest as well as stimulation. If you notice your child over-analysing or micro-analysing a situation, and always wanting control, this is not good for them. They need to be made to feel safe, and that it's OK to relax.
Don't go rushing off to find a psychologist for you or your kids. If you have already identified blocking behaviours, the first step is to consult your friends and family to get any feedback from them. It will help them if you explain what the blocking behaviour types are so that they can give you a critique based specifically on those things as opposed to trivialities such as your dress sense or whether you can sing! Incidentally, singing lyrics to songs you like can be a great stress reliever.
You will need to approach this with an open mind because the truth can hurt, but this is the quickest way of finding out whether others see you differently to how you expect them to see you. The insights you gain can be used to actively change how you deal with life.
Another technique to identify issues is to keep a diary and note down what you do and when you feel anxious. There are many different triggers for anxiety, and diary will allow you to go back over several weeks and look for patterns.
Obsessed negativity is the first, and it is quite simple to self-diagnose. People with obsessed negativity tend to be generally negative about things that happen in their life. While teenagers can tend to be 'down' on a lot of things, obsessed negativity is a step above this where absolutely nothing seems right and they may not have friends or a social life. Sometimes it's just one area, such as work, but it can be pervasive, from family and friends, personal image, places, situations encountered, politics and more.
Obsessed negativity ranges from the trivial ("There's never anything good on TV when I want to watch"), through to the more deep-seated psychological and self-esteem-related thought patterns ("I can never do anything right", or "People are out to get me"). Solid patterns of negativity like this often prevent you from seeing legitimate good things that happen every day all around you.
Obsessive perfectionism sets people up against impossibly high standards, either your own, or some external pressure such as what you think your friends will think, or your boss. Many parents force high standards on their children, but don't back it up with praise and encouragement. If it's your own standards, you may consider yourself a failure if you don't achieve them; if they're your perceived standards from other people then you may think that you'll make them mad by falling short. This type of behaviour is sometimes difficult to identify as we all tend to want to do a good job. It's recognizing whether holding yourself to the standards is causing you stress if you don't meet up to them.
Obsessive analysis is the third. You might be obsessed about minute details of processes and procedures, going over them again and again until you are sure you understand it in miniscule detail - often far more than is required. You can't relax if things go wrong, so you obsess over the processes and procedures.
Child and teenage brains need to have rest as well as stimulation. If you notice your child over-analysing or micro-analysing a situation, and always wanting control, this is not good for them. They need to be made to feel safe, and that it's OK to relax.
Don't go rushing off to find a psychologist for you or your kids. If you have already identified blocking behaviours, the first step is to consult your friends and family to get any feedback from them. It will help them if you explain what the blocking behaviour types are so that they can give you a critique based specifically on those things as opposed to trivialities such as your dress sense or whether you can sing! Incidentally, singing lyrics to songs you like can be a great stress reliever.
You will need to approach this with an open mind because the truth can hurt, but this is the quickest way of finding out whether others see you differently to how you expect them to see you. The insights you gain can be used to actively change how you deal with life.
Another technique to identify issues is to keep a diary and note down what you do and when you feel anxious. There are many different triggers for anxiety, and diary will allow you to go back over several weeks and look for patterns.
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Other relaxing activities you could take up to take your mind off anxiety and involve your family include reading magazines. Your teenagers would appreciate watching great movies.
