Areas › Worry and anxiety › What worry does
Strong feeling about injustice can look a lot like being argumentative. Do not file conviction as defiance without checking.
For many young people these commitments are not a phase but a large part of who they understand themselves to be. Treat them as beliefs to be understood before deciding whether anything is being fought about at all. Get this wrong out loud once and you will not get another honest conversation for a long time. Both things can also be true at once, and if so the argument still deserves a hearing on its merits.
Qur’an and Sunnah
whose hearts tremble with awe when God is mentioned (Quran 8:2). Strong feeling is described as a mark of a living heart, not as something to be corrected out of someone.
إِنَّمَا ٱلۡمُؤۡمِنُونَ ٱلَّذِينَ إِذَا ذُكِرَ ٱللَّهُ وَجِلَتۡ قُلُوبُهُمۡ وَإِذَا تُلِيَتۡ عَلَيۡهِمۡ ءَايَٰتُهُۥ زَادَتۡهُمۡ إِيمَٰنࣰ ا وَعَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمۡ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ
true believers are those whose hearts tremble with awe when God is mentioned, whose faith increases when His revelations are recited to them, who put their trust in their Lord
Qur’an 8:2read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A psychometric study in a large sample validated a factor structure that separates distinct negative beliefs about uncertainty, showing that a single label can cover more than one thing. That is the transferable lesson here: named categories in mental health are often bundles that need unpacking before they get applied to a person. It is a measurement study, so it makes the point about constructs rather than about young people and their politics.
Sexton KA, Dugas MJ. (2009). Defining distinct negative beliefs about uncertainty: validating the factor structure of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale.. Psychological assessment doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Treating someone's values as a symptom ends the conversation you needed to have.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Once the surge is up it takes something like a quarter of an hour to drop, and nothing sensible said inside that window will land. Give it the time first.
When the alarm takes over, the reasoning part of you goes quiet for a while. That is not you losing your mind. It comes back on its own.
Some young people are behind their age emotionally and socially, and the growing up genuinely has not finished. It is a question of timing rather than of character.