Hi. In this video we will complete the view of the critical incidents confrontation during adolescence by describing which is the best role the family and the adults can adopt in front of a teenager. In previous videos we have seen that this stage is characterized by high daily stress levels. We have also seen i's very important that during adolescence parents aren't the only ones to help modulating and containing the kids' emotions in front of a critical incident, but also teenagers and their equals group get a vital role. In fact, we suggest you a way to approach, an integral approaching model in which adults, especially relatives, the own teenagers and the group of friends of the affected teenager have an egalitarian and complementary role. Because each of them reinforces the anxiety confrontation and control. It's important to understand that from adolescence on the attention model in critical incidents changes, variates. If until approximate 12 years old adults have the vital role in modulating and supporting, both the information and the emotions management, from 12 years on, teenagers, which are a lot more autonomous, will involve themselves in the management of their own stress level, in their own confrontation capacity. And it's very important, don't forget about this, they will also involve their friends, their equals group. So, in this model, in adolescence, as in the adult age, to confront a critical incident, we need factors that are related to the affected person, factors that are related to its family, and factors related to its social network, to its support social network. Let's see what can you do to ease the confrontation of a critical incident if you are a familiar of the affected teenager. Then we will see how you can modulate and adjust the application of psychological first aid if you are the provider, which means you don't belong to the same family. If you are a relative, if you are a parent of a teenager son affected by a critical incident, the first thing you must learn is that you mustn't treat them as kids anymore. Teenagers are especially allergic to this, and so they want to be treated as the adults they think they are. So this means the best you can do here is treating them as equals. And this means you can offer them help but also receive help. As we are in front of an autonomous person, the logical thing is that we support and comfort each other. Not like before, when he was a kid, when most of the energy went from the adult to the kid. If you are a teenager's relative, during a critical incident don't forget he needs you anyway, he needs to know you're there and if you aren't there he will feel abandoned and betrayed. Finally, although it is probably the most important factor, don't bug the teenager that is having a bad time. Offer them help, once and again, but let them do things at their own rhythm, give them some space and simply remind them your availability. But if you are a psychological first aid provider and you are with a group of teenagers that are passing through a hard situation, facing a critical incident, what can you do to adjust the application of psychological first aid you are learning to the evolving stage in which teenagers are? OK. First, show a lot of comprehension and offer a space in which the family can establish themselves and decide how will they integrate the teenagers. As the relations before the incident maybe weren't good, let's ease, as providers, the fact that families are together or not, they complement each other or not. Because if we, as psychological first aid providers, express what is the correct thing, we will somehow make them feel uncomfortable. Secondly, remark once and again that although during adolescence relations are tense and communication is hard, you know that the bonds are solid, you know that both, adults and teenagers, need each other. And you know that deep inside you love each other and you are together to face what's happening. And say it many times, because sometimes they won't see how obvious it is, but with this you will calm this family down and ease the fact that they meet, comfort and complement each other. That is, if you say it many times, finally what you are saying will happen. Third, try to focus on the difficulties the family is experiencing. We've talked a lot on the common characteristics in teenagers in this stage and how these characteristics complicate relations, stress confrontation, familiar communication. Well, this is common in all families. But in the case of the family with which we are today, what happened yesterday? How difficult is it? What can they do if they are together? What can't they? You will probably discover that there are strong arguments on their participation in a funeral, if they should stay home or go out, if they should go to the school or not. All these aspects that you, as a provider, might find secondary, are expressing the family's discomfort and require a direct and effective answer. It's way better that you set off from these concrete things that worry them, help solving them and then you'll see how, once A and B problems are solved, they can find ways to confront C and D problems on their own. And finally, transmit the family a lot of respect for the difficulties they are encountering. In front of a critical incident, a family, a teenager, have the problem of facing what happened. If there has been a traumatic death in the family, it's a serious, hard and complicated situation. But it also happens in a stage in which the teenager feels bad. Say and remark this. Because the teenager is changing his personality, he's in a stressing stage, full of deep questions and doubts and the critical incident is too much for him, too much, this happens to everybody, but during adolescence it is actually a lot harder. And the family? The family is also facing this critical incident, so it is vulnerable, it is hurt, and besides that it is experiencing the obvious difficulties of communicating with this teenager. And they feel bad. They feel bad because they think maybe this bad relation is their fault, they feel bad because they can't say or do what the teenager expects them to, they feel bad because they can't comfort as they did before. So everybody involved in this situation feels twice as bad. And you, as a psychological first aid provider, have a big role when normalizing this, when making bridges and trying that everybody calms down and understands that these difficulties, although they might seem huge, never ever actually stain their deep bonds and love. Appeal to these important bonds to help the family when accompanying the teenager. And help the teenager feeling as good as possible.
