Procrastination is when a person delays tasks and activities that they want or intend to do. Procrastination among adolescents often involves academic procrastination – delaying school assignments or decisions. It’s associated with negative consequences for young people’s well-being and academic performance, including low self-esteem, missing deadlines, and withdrawing from courses.
What Causes Procrastination?
There are several different factors that may affect adolescent procrastination. Research has found that certain parenting styles are more likely to lead to procrastination among young people. Self-esteem also plays an important role, both contributing to and resulting from procrastinating behaviours.
1. Procrastination and Parenting Styles
Parenting styles have a big impact on young people’s emotional and behavioural development. They shape the way that young people perceive themselves, make decisions, and interact with others. While during adolescence, young people become increasingly concerned with their friends and evaluation by peers, parents continue to play an important role in their development.
Research has linked certain parenting styles to increased procrastination among adolescents. For example, children of parents who place high expectations on and are critical of their achievements are more likely to develop perfectionist traits where they feel pressured by others to perform well academically.
These traits (known as socially-prescribed perfectionism) make it more likely that a young person will procrastinate. They may avoid starting a task because they’re concerned they won’t be able to achieve the standard expected of them or feel worried about the criticism they will face. Schoolwork and assignments may lead to high levels of stress and anxiety, causing young people to delay tasks.
Other research has linked authoritative parenting styles to increased procrastination. In a similar way, authoritative parenting may cause young people to be more afraid of ‘failure’ and avoid attempting tasks in the first place.
2. Procrastination and Self-Esteem
Self-esteem refers to how a young person evaluates themselves as a whole, whether it’s positive or negative. Self-esteem is related to procrastination: young people with low self-esteem tend to procrastinate more, while those with high self-esteem procrastinate less.
Research has found a two-way relationship between procrastination and self-esteem. Low self-esteem causes young people to procrastinate more while procrastinating also decreases young people’s self-esteem (and vice-versa). This can lead to negative (or positive) cycles of self-esteem and procrastination.
2.1. How Can Low Self-Esteem Lead to Procrastination?
Low self-esteem is often associated with a fear of failure. Adolescents with low self-esteem may have less belief in their ability to complete a task well, causing them to avoid it. Lower motivation and self-expectation – traits connected to low self-esteem – may also lead to procrastination.
Self-esteem may also influence procrastination indirectly. For example, young people with low self-esteem may be especially worried about peer rejection and deliberately delay or fail to complete tasks to be accepted by their friends and classmates.
2.2. How Can Procrastination Cause Low Self-Esteem?
On the other hand, procrastination can also lead to low self-esteem among adolescents. Procrastination is associated with poorer academic performance which can make young people feel less good about themselves.
Over a semester, procrastination may also have a negative impact on adolescents’ mental and physical health, causing feelings of guilt, fatigue, and anxiety. These negative emotions might further harm a young person’s self-esteem, reinforcing a vicious cycle of low self-esteem and procrastination.
3. Procrastination and Parental-Attachment Style
Attachment styles refer to the types of emotional bonds that someone forms with other people, including parents, friends, and partners. Until adolescence, attachment styles are largely shaped by a child’s relationship with their parents or primary caregivers. After this point, other relationships begin to affect a young person’s attachment style – but their early relationships can still have a lasting impact.
There are two main categories of attachment style: secure and insecure. Within insecure attachment styles, young people may have anxious, preoccupied, or disorganised styles.
3.1. Secure Attachment Style
Secure attachment styles develop from positive early-life relationships where caregivers are attentive and responsive to their child’s needs.
Young people with secure attachment styles tend to feel safe and stable in close relationships. They can set appropriate boundaries and are comfortable depending on others. Secure attachment styles are associated with high self-esteem and trust in other people.
3.2. Insecure Attachment Styles
Insecure attachment styles (avoidant, anxious, and disorganised) usually develop when parents are unable to meet a child’s needs or are inconsistent, sometimes responding to their child and sometimes not. Young people with insecure attachment styles usually have low self-esteem.
Young people with avoidant attachment styles tend to avoid close relationships and emotional dependence. They may find it hard to trust others, express their feelings, and avoid intimacy.
Those with an anxious (or preoccupied) style are typically scared of abandonment in relationships. They may be worried that their partner does not love them and experience severe distress when a relationship ends.
Young people with disorganised attachment styles may switch between anxious and avoidant attachment and act in unpredictable ways.
3.3. Connecting Attachment Styles and Procrastination
Young people with secure attachment styles are likely to perceive themselves and other people positively. They also tend to feel supported and cared for in relationships with friends and caregivers.
This may mean that they’re more likely to believe in their ability to complete tasks – and less likely to procrastinate. Because they feel cared for in their relationships, they may be less afraid of making mistakes and understand that their value isn’t based on their achievements. This may reduce anxiety associated with schoolwork and assignments.
On the other hand, those with insecure attachments usually have low self-esteem. This means that they may be anxious about making mistakes or not performing well and prefer to avoid the task in the first place.
They may also see tasks relating to themselves (such as school work) as unimportant and de-prioritise them. Those with anxious attachment styles tend to still hold high opinions of other people. This can cause them to focus on pleasing others rather than on their own development, learning, and growth.
Adolescents with disorganised attachment often experience intense anxiety in social environments and may avoid school assignments that involve group work or interacting with others in some way.
Research has found that preoccupied insecure attachment styles have a direct effect on procrastination in academic settings.
How Does Procrastination Affect Young People’s Well-Being?
Procrastination is linked to negative emotions like stress, anxiety, guilt, and pressure. These feelings can harm the subjective well-being of a young person. It’s also connected to poorer academic performance which can damage adolescents’ self-esteem.
In some cases, academic procrastination can have a big impact on an adolescent’s daily life. Some young people may benefit from specific interventions that address the behaviours and emotions underlying procrastination. These include cognitive-behavioural interventions and acceptance-commitment therapy.
Sometimes procrastination is driven by continuing parental pressure or expectations that may cause anxiety and stress. In these situations, family therapy and other interventions can support parents and young people to develop healthy behavioural dynamics that promote high self-esteem and self-efficacy. Therapeutic approaches – including group therapy sessions – can also address insecure attachment styles and childhood experiences that may contribute to procrastination.
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