Happiness Projects - Psycho-Social Education programs for teens

Mobile phones and social media use are associated with an increase in mental distress, self-injurious behaviour and suicidality in teens.

I strongly believe that one of the reasons for this harm is because teens haven’t had the opportunity to learn how to communicate in the real world. Because they can “communicate” with anyone, anywhere, anytime, using emoji’s, meme’s and as few typed letters as possible, they have not learnt social etiquette, or how to read subtle communication cues. At this point in their development, they should be learning how to read body language, voice tonality and inflection and then using these skills to strengthen communication, to debate the reasons for life, and to find friendships where they feel they belong.

As a result, many feel anxious in social situations (school, clubs, sports) and isolate themselves. Many suffer with depression and loneliness, because they are not receiving the positive effects of belonging, of being in positive company. They are not resilient because they have not had to try and fail at communication because they couldn’t start in the first place. 

We are biologically designed to learn to communicate, to empathize, cooperate, give, and love. A key component of happiness is positive relationships “other people matter.”

Therefore, I believe it is vital to teach teens how to communicate, to help them develop the skills with which to build positive relationships. In so doing their confidence will increase, they will make friends and can feel safer to talk about their feelings, an in-road to helping their wellbeing improve.

I offer bespoke workshops to schools using positive psychology principles and interventions, psychotherapy, psychology and over 20 years of experience of working with teenagers to help teens learn how to communicate, to understand how the mind works and to develop the resources to manage their own wellbeing.