I receive calls regularly from parents panicking because their 16-year-old won’t stop crying or their 14-year-old can’t control his temper. They want to know how to make it stop. They want to help them feel better — right now.
I get it. Big emotions can be scary and upsetting, especially when they’re coming from our teenagers.
We may worry that something is seriously wrong with them.
We may be terrified they are going to hurt themselves or someone else.
But telling our kids to stop feeling bad, doesn’t make the emotion go away, it just makes them feel bad about feeling bad.
ALL emotions have an important purpose. They are our body’s way of coping with the stressors and pressures that life throws at us.
And teenagers have A LOT of stressors and pressures thrown at them. By school, by friends, by society, by us.
We may not agree with or understand what causes our teen’s big emotions, but it’s essential that we accept them and…
give them the space and time they need to work through their emotions naturally.
Here are some ways to guide your teens through their big emotions:
1. Stay calm. Adding more emotional fuel to the situation will only heighten and prolong your child’s emotions.
2. Listen + validate. Sit with them quietly. Try to see the situation from their perspective and let them know it’s okay to not feel okay. Avoid pep talks, trying to fix, giving advice — all that does is invalidate what their feeling (Check out Pro Parenting Tip #22: Sit on your “but.”)
3. Normalize their emotions. Help them label them as sad, nervous, angry, etc. Avoid pathologizing everyday feelings with words like depression, anxiety, and bipolar.
4. Set your own boundaries. If you don’t like the way your child is talking to you, calmly say, “I can see you’re angry and that’s okay. But I feel mistreated and I’m not okay with that. I’m going to walk away, but I’ll come back and check on you in 15 minutes.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
The best way to help our teens manage their big emotions is to guide them THROUGH them.
