Many parents shut down the prospect of their child taking stress meds. Yet, anxiety medications for teenagers are often essential for their mental healing. Many teens, unbeknownst to them or their parents, initially require anxiety medications to manage their symptoms appropriately. We ensure this process is safe and worry-free in a parentally and medically controlled environment. Here’s a comprehensive overview of the importance, role, and effective practices for implementing anxiety medications for teenagers.
Safest and Most Common Anxiety Medications for Teenagers
Blume Behavioral Health implements only the safest administration techniques because we treat your child as our own. Bearing those details in mind, here’s the safest and most common prescriptions we efficiently incorporate.
- SSRI Antidepressants: Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor-specific antidepressants are very effective at combating depression and anxiety in teens. Some examples of well-known antidepressants include Zoloft, Prozac, Risperdal, and Rexapro, just to name a few. Rest assured, to reiterate, all anxiety medications for teenagers are strictly monitored and administered under our complete control. It’s also worth noting that these antidepressants have minimal side effects compared to the others on this list.
- SNRI Antidepressants: Depending on the focus need of your child’s anxiety, SSRI or SNRI (serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) antidepressants may be used. Which one is utilized is solely dependent upon the results of the individualized assessment and treatment phase. Examples of SNRI-based medications include Anafranil, Effexor, and Cymbalta, among others.
- Off-label Medications: Off-label medications refer to otherwise listed prescriptions that are needed to meet the personalized needs of unique cases. This often becomes an option when all other options have been exhausted or when preliminary assessment necessitates them.
- Benzos: Benzodiazepine-based drugs are strictly a short-term solution to accomplishing the bigger picture of mental healing. These are often reserved for the most severe cases while therapists commence the introductory phases of anxiety treatment. Benzodiazepine prescription examples consist of Ativan, Xanax, or Klonopin.
What is the Role of Medications in Anxiety Treatment?
Stress-reducing meds play an intricate role in charting your child’s path to mental healing. Here are some of the various roles medication plays in helping treat anxiety.
Restoring Neurobiological Balance
Medications are often a necessary counteragent to neurobiological chemical deficiencies that are the root cause of many mental health conditions. Hence, a thorough mental assessment is necessary to get to the underlying cause of your child’s mental health battles. Our detailed assessment pinpoints these chemical deficiencies and the proper medications needed to counteract these mental insufficiencies.
Symptom Alleviation
Stress and anxiety symptoms are understandably overwhelming to bear, especially without having the proper training to combat them effectively. That’s where anxiety medications for teenagers come into play, inducing necessary alleviation as they undergo medically administered stress management techniques. Once these techniques are learned and become embedded as a natural stress response mechanism, these medications may be rendered unnecessary.
Mood Regulation
Some mental conditions induce erratic mood swings that are beyond their control. Therefore, anxiety medications are an inherent necessity to control these mood swings and boost happiness. This helps your child maintain a level head even when life’s unexpected hardships befall them. This, in conjunction with the life and character techniques implemented by our quality care team, equips them with the life skills to handle any obstacle.
Improved Sleep Quality
Mental problems are a known inhibitor of sleep patterns. Hence, sleep medication aids may be necessary to improve sleep duration and quality. These disturbances can be caused by disturbing, racing thoughts, other anxiety or stress disorders, or melatonin deprivation that hinders sleep. If your teenager struggles with falling asleep or staying asleep, connect with us now to get to the root problem.
Anxiety Suppression
There are specific medications that are intended to target and suppress anxiety and stress levels. These stress-specific medications are often an effective response for anxiety disorder sufferers. This helps them free their mind to better retain anxiety treatment training techniques and improve mental well-being. Speak to our mental health assessment team to see if your child qualifies for medications to help them manage their stress levels.
A Co-Assistant to Regular Therapy Programs
How Can a Parent Help a Teen with Anxiety?
Parents play the most important role in their child’s anxiety battles. While medications are needed to some extent, parents can help their child deal with anxiety in the following ways.
Let Them Vent to You
Perhaps the greatest accelerant to anxiety is bottling those anxieties with no vocal or emotional outlet. That’s why it’s so vital to hear everything they have to say and let them vent as much as they want. Venting can be one of the most therapeutic things, especially for a child. Without an emotional vent, these emotions can boil over into rash decision-making. Lend an ear and your time to listen to them.
Express Your Understanding of Their Circumstance
Listening without responding to their concerns will make them feel misunderstood or abnormal. That’s why it’s important to reassure them that you truly do understand, not just by words, but by action. Share a story or circumstance of when you experienced anxiety similar to theirs. This helps you connect with them in a unique way that can help them feel understood and heard. It’s your parental expression in these moments that helps you grow closer together, while aiding their mental healing.
Reassure Them of the Positives
Anxiety and stress are predominantly an imagination of the mind that can feel so real and imminent. Sometimes, it takes reassuring them of the positive and present reality to ease their concerns. This doesn’t mean to make them feel as if their stressors are invalid. On the contrary, validate their concerns, but utilize discretionary communication to also show them the positive side they may not have considered. This full-spectrum reassurance, all while simultaneously validating the source of their concerns, goes a long way to ease these anxieties.
Don’t Treat Them Like They’re Odd
Keep a Level Head and Voice
No matter what anxiety-fueled state a child may be in, a level head and a calming tone of voice are the greatest remedy. Your reactions to their stressors can diffuse or elevate their stress levels. Hence, it’s so vital not to raise your voice, act panicked, or irritated, no matter what the circumstance. Doing so will only escalate the issue and stir animosity or friction between you and your child.
Talk to Them About Therapy Programs
Promote the idea of enrolling in a therapy program positively. Speak about the opportunities and benefits of mental health treatment in a way that motivates them to seek help. This can help them open their eyes to the nature of their struggle and encourage them to get the help they need.
What are the Side Effects of Anxiety Medications for Teenagers
Anxiety prescriptions come with predominantly mild side effects that don’t prevent your child from living an active lifestyle. On the contrary, the medicative effects will likely boost their activity levels despite the following side effects.
- Drowsiness: It’s common, especially early in the medication phase, to experience drowsiness as your body adjusts to the change. This weariness is usually short-lived and with minimal hindrances.
- Low Sex Drive: Considering sex drive should not be a primary focus at this life stage, this side effect is more positive than negative. Nonetheless, some medications act as a deterrent to sexual desire and drive.
- Increased or Decreased Appetite: Like other personalized variables on this list, prescriptions can cause increased or suppressed appetite depending on individual bodily reactions. These cravings or lack thereof are often minor, but can potentially result in slight weight loss or gain.
- Headaches: Mild headaches can occur when you first begin taking anxiety medication. Please note, these usually mild headaches are usually temporary and fleeting as your body adjusts accordingly.
- Stomach discomfort: Experiencing some sort of stomach discomfort is not uncommon when you begin taking prescriptions for the first time. This is often a result of meditative effects on appetite suppression. Thus, it’s important to appropriately maintain a normal food intake to prevent medication-induced stomach discomfort.
- Overanxiousness: Some prescriptions can adversely affect your child’s behavior to be hyperactive. This means extreme restlessness like pacing, inability to remain still, or RLS, just to name a few examples.
Blume Behavioral Health Can Assist Teens with Anxiety in CA
Dr. Aneta Lotakov Prince is a board-certified psychiatrist with over 20 years of clinical experience treating adolescents and adults facing severe mental illness, co-occurring substance use disorders, and complex emotional and behavioral health challenges. Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, she holds an active DEA registration and California medical license. Dr. Prince’s patient-centered approach is rooted in compassion and driven by a dedication to improving quality of life and supporting long-term recovery. She remains deeply committed to empowering each individual she works with to build a life of purpose, connection, and resilience.