Dealing with your teens emotions can be overwhelming and challenging for parents/caregivers and as well as for the teens. In one of my blog post, five signs that your teen needs counselling, I shared one common question that I often get from parents or caregiver, was when do I know my teens needs counselling and one of the signs I wrote about was if the your teen was having difficulties in managing their emotions, then that could be a sign that they needed to reach out to a professional. Today, I will be providing five tips for dealing with your teens emotions as a parent/caregiver.
1). Give your teen space to deal with their emotions
I know giving your teen space to deal with their emotions can be challenging for parents because all you want to do is to get in the face of your teen and tell them what to do, what not to do, and how to do it. However, everyone needs space and teens need more space because they are trying to discover themselves and that could appear or show up in different ways. Giving your teen space to deal with their emotion and come back to you when they are calm and ready will reduce stress and any form of confrontation. More so, it increases confidence in your teen that you trust them to deal with their emotions.
2). Understand the emotions your teen is dealing with
Parent needs to understand that sometime anger could be making other emotions in their teen and as a results anger shows up and parent may assume that their teen is rebellious. Anger could be masking shame, sadness, fear, and hurt and when the emotions are too much your teen may lash out, but if the emotional outbreak becomes an occurrences in your teen then you need to reach out to a professional.
3). Remain Calm
Really? I can hear a parent/caregiver ask me that question. Yes, remain calm and I know that can be challenging especially when you see your teen slamming the doors or breaking stuff. Remain clam can decrease any form of escalation. More remember you cannot control how your teen deals with their emotions but you can control how you respond to them.
4). Provide an Outlet for your teen to deal with their emotions.
As parents/caregiver you can help provide your teen an outlet to release their emotions in different ways. They could include providing a calming space, engaging them in exercise, cooking, baking, artwork, mindfulness breathing exercise to release stress associated with their emotions.
5) Consider Therapy
As, I mentioned in one of my blogs, parent second themselves most times. If you feel that your teen needs to speak to a professional, have that open conversation with your teen and connect them to a professional to support your teen. Ask yourself this question, what is the worst thing that can happen if I reach out to a professional, I guess you know the answer “nothing”.
Remember, parenting can be challenging and as such incorporating these techniques to your parenting style can help lessen the stress.
Emem Iniobong is a Brandon MB, Canadian Certified Counsellor that helps children, teens, young adults, parents, and families in dealing with anxiety, depression, grief, parenting support to live a more fulfilled and bliss-ful life.
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