Contemporary society presents many circumstances that can encourage stress for teens. One of the chief potential stressors is often found right at home: parents.

That’s not to say parents cause teen stress. Even teens are self-responsible individuals, within the realm of actions open to them. And that’s the key to some of the sources of teen stress. They are sometimes given too much freedom, in other areas too little.

Setting a developing person adrift among the variety of choices available in modern, complex society is a near guarantee for stress. That reaction is fundamentally the result of a perceived, unresolvable conflict between “I must” and “I can’t”. In many cases, it is indeed true that the teen can’t.

No one could reasonably expect a fourteen year-old to know how to negotiate the maze of challenges the modern world offers without good guidance. Few are equipped by parents or nature to do so at that age. One isn’t born knowing how, for example, to earn money, raise babies and deal with adult life – and that knowledge is rarely attained by age fourteen.

But it’s also true that teens are not children. They are very self-aware, have complex systems of values and have some knowledge of the world. They have the ability to begin to exercise their powers independently. When that independence is stifled, opportunities to test guesses and solve problems is stunted.

The results of both these false alternatives – independence in the sense of being totally abandoned to one’s own devices, and lack of independence in not being allowed to make choices and deal with the consequences – will inevitably result in stress.

The former leaves the teen in the position of having to solve problems they simply aren’t ready to solve. The latter makes it extremely difficult for them to gain or expand their ability to solve them.

Teens will often implicitly recognize this when they complain to parents ‘You never let me have my way’, or, “I’m old enough to make my own decisions”. Some parents react dogmatically by declaring that they will make those decisions, others err on the other side by simply throwing off all restraint and allowing the teen to ‘sink or swim’.

Knowing when to do one, when to do the other is every parent’s challenge. But the teen can help themselves and the parents out of this dilemma – and in the process save themselves much needless stress.

Just as they are not children, teens are not adults. But they can improve their situation by demonstrating the first and emulating the second. Paradoxically, voluntarily reaching for responsibility is one very effective way to minimize stress before it builds.

Though responsibility can lead to stress – if met with resentment or fear rather than confidence and persistence – it can also help build those skills needed to head off stress before it grows. When the responsibilities are those the teen is actually, with effort, able to handle the result is confidence building.

The surest way to decrease the stress that comes from fear of failure or of dealing with stubborn parents is to successfully tackle the challenges of school, home responsibilities and other hurdles. Sometimes that will require starting over after initial failure. Teens will learn practical knowledge from undertaking the challenge and build psychological strength from making the attempt.

If you are having problems with your short term memory, there may be many reasons why this is happening. There could be an underlying medical condition, but there are times when it is just that you aren’t using your mind enough.

  You may think just fine, but you might not be exercising your brain in other areas. If you do the same things day in and day out at your job, you may find that your brain is good at what you do, but you may lack in other areas. The brain needs workouts just as much as the rest of your body does.

Short term memory loss can mean other things. If you are a parent of teenagers, you should watch out for signs of this. There are some children who get mixed up in the wrong things. If they show signs of losing their short term memory (more than normal for them, anyway) you should consider something is going on. Though it might just mean that they are not getting enough rest, which is common for teenagers, there might be something else going. One of the signs of drug abuse is the loss of short term memory.

You should never jump to conclusions though. Loss of short term memory alone is not enough to go by. You should know the other signs of drug abuse so that you know what to look for. You might think this is something that your children would never do because they are good students or because they play a lot of sports. That assumption has been a problem for a long time. Any child is vulnerable if they are pushed enough by their peers. Know all of the signs, and then react when appropriate.

There might be other reasons why short term memory loss occurs. Though there is usually nothing to worry about, and it might just be something that goes away or is coming from stress, any spans of memory loss that seem to drag on should be checked out by a doctor.