Our behaviour is motivated by gratitude, fear, worry, wrath, compassion, love, restlessness, frustration and so on. It is your emotions that this moment you are calm, and the next moment you are wrathful at someone. It is crucial to gain emotional balance to lead a good life, but this is undoubtedly very challenging among teenagers.
Life has taught you so many things, and you have a mature perspective to look at it, but your teen kids have just begun to understand what it is. They will likely be struggling to deal with their emotions. As a parent, it is your responsibility to know what they are going through to help them control their emotions.
Being a parent of teen kids, you must have seen their moods change so rapidly. One moment they are ecstatic and loquacious, and the next moment, they give you cold shoulders. You often do not heed it as it seems normal to you, but what seems minor issues to you can be monumental for your children.
How to tackle teen emotions as a parent
Undoubtedly, it is tricky to understand how your kids feel because you have different perspectives. But thankfully, there are some ways to deal with them.
Remain calm
Your patience level can be threatened by seeing your kids’ mood swings. For instance, when you want to talk about a serious subject, they suddenly start talking to you aggressively. You can also feel indignant, exhausted and impatient. This is the moment when you have to bite your tongue.
Fighting back at this moment will flare up the argument, and you will end up shouting at each other. Staying calm can diffuse the situation. Give some time to your kids so they get normal and make sure you do not lose your rag.
As a parent, you can feel like being authoritative and fighting back, but winning an argument is not your goal. You need to understand what is hitting the back of their mind, which can have an impact in the long run.
In order to grow them emotionally healthy, you should understand their concerns instead of showing superiority. However, it does not need to be interpreted that you should put up with your insult but try to avoid flaring up the argument. Treat each other with respect.
Talk and talk
Teenagers may have several worries. They may be worried about trivial matters. Since their brain is not as developed as a brain of an adult, they will soon be overwhelmed by emotions like fear, anxiety, stress, and so forth.
It can be challenging to talk to you because when you have a tie, they might be busy and when they have time, you might be busy. Try to ensure that you are available so they know they can talk to you when they want.
Talking is the best way to understand the concerns of your teenagers and provide them with the best solution. This will help let up their anger and frustration. You need to make them understand what is right and wrong. Not all situations can be black and white, so you will need to make them understand everything without losing going through the roof.
Teenagers get uncomfortable very soon. They quickly get frustrated when they see things are not going as planned. You should encourage them to focus on things that are in control.
For instance, when they have difficulty meeting their living cost, you should tell them about budgeting, saving and borrowing money. Tell them the difference between best secured personal loans for bad credit and unsecured loans. These lessons will help them in the long run.
Ask them not to hold their feelings in
Tell your children that they should not bottle up their feelings because it can make them more frustrated. However, it depends on their nature too. Some teenagers can hold their feelings in; they blurt out, while others do not like letting others know about their true feelings.
Your kids must understand that they can always have the same approach. Sometimes it makes sense to express your true feelings, while other times, it is better to bottle up, regardless of your nature.
Tell your children how they can push negative thoughts back into their minds. Ask them to exercise, not overthink anything, listen to their favourite music, unwind, and do an activity they enjoy.
Help your children accept the ups and downs
Life seems very smooth unless you reach puberty. Suddenly you feel like going through a whole gamut of emotions. You get inferior complexes, start comparing yourself with others, your tolerance power becomes zero, and you feel isolated.
These emotional ups and downs your child must suffer during their teenage. Tell your child that this is just a temporary phase and it will fleet them by. Tell them you also feel emotionally overwhelmed, and that is normal.
Let your children know that you are always there to help them. Teenagers want support from their parents when they are struggling to tackle their emotions. You will likely not be able to solve their problems, but you can motivate them. Just keep reassuring them that you will always support them when facing difficulties.
Motivation will flood your child with positivity, and they will feel better.
The final word
It can certainly be challenging to deal with teen emotions as a parent, but this is the tenderest age your children are going through with. They need your support and help. Though being emotionally overwhelmed is not a problem that has a fixed solution, you can try to motivate them.
Listen to them and then tell them what is right and wrong. Try to avoid yelling at them. Be calm even if you know they are wrong to some extent. Point out their mistakes politely and get what is in their mind out to understand how you can help them better.