Adolescence comes with a lot of intense emotions — and they can sometimes be hard to deal with. We spoke with psychiatrist, adolescent expert and bestselling author Dr. Lisa D’Amore, who also writes for the New York Times regularly and is a mother of two. The meeting was about the mechanism by which parents can support their children in managing their strong or painful feelings.
A tantrum can affect all children, young and old. It happens when emotions completely overwhelm the child, drowning him in their weight. These feelings can be fear, frustration, anger, or other feelings.
What are the symptoms of a tantrum in older children? When children who can express their feelings become overwhelmed with sadness, they usually cry loudly, or rush out, or become agitated. Older children are often less prone to tantrums in public, for fear of embarrassing themselves. But tantrums abound at home. For example, a teen may hold his tantrum all day at school to go home and then explode.
What should I do if my teenage son is experiencing severe emotional outbursts? Here are nine practical steps Dr. Damour recommends that parents try to help teens manage their tantrums. Give each step its time to see how well it works. If you do not achieve the desired, then go to the next step.
1. Listen without interrupting Older children may experience an emotional outburst that includes speaking in a frustrated manner, about what is wrong. The solution in times like these is to let them say whatever comes to their mind. Most of the time, well-meaning adults jump in to interrupt their children’s conversation or offer advice, forgetting that expressing how you feel is in itself a source of comfort.
2. Show sincere empathy Expressing emotions in words will often provide relief. After you listen carefully to your teens, you can simply support them with empathy. Adults can say, “This is awful” or “I feel so sorry about what happened.”
3. Believe in their distress It is very important to believe in the extent of someone’s suffering, especially if they are a teenager. Teens sometimes worry that something is wrong with their feelings because their emotions can be very violent. While one part of a teenager’s thought is engulfed by resentment, the rest of his thought is often trembling at how strong the emotions are.
A teen feels very comfortable when adults say, “You’re right about how you feel, and I can totally understand why you’re reacting.” But if adults say, “Why are you so upset about this? There are people who suffer a lot more than you do,” the immediate effect will be for teens to continue to feel frustrated, plus guilt. In other words, trying to change a teenager’s perspective does not always provide the help that parents hope for.
4. Support adaptation Often the above three steps will be enough to help your child. But if it doesn’t bring much relief, we can put aside steps to help teens express their feelings and move toward helping them regain control of their emotions. One way to do this is to help teens find comfort on their own without being dependent on others. Talk with your teen about positive steps he can take to help himself feel satisfied, such as deciding to take slow, deep breaths. Abdominal breathing brings great relief and helps us draw oxygen deeply into our lungs. Here’s an easy, three-step method for abdominal breathing:
Put your hand on your stomach Take five deep breaths, and spend five seconds in each breath you take and another five seconds as you exhale. Take the breath out of your nose and out of your mouth Simplify it by telling your child that inhaling air is like inflating his stomach like a balloon, and that when he exhales, the air is slowly coming out of the balloon again.
5. Express boundless confidence Try to show your support by saying, “This is difficult, but these feelings won’t last long” or “How great they are, I really like your ability to channel them, and that we can discuss them together and talk about them.”
6. Offer to help solve problems If you’ve listened to and comforted your teen, but he’s still frustrated, the next step is to say, “Would you like me to help you try to solve this problem?” Asking your teen for help rather than direct advice can help keep the conversation going. Sometimes teens will say, “No, I just want to loosen up.” Trust that listening to your teens will provide as much support they need as possible. But if they say yes, we would like you to help us, that means that they are now ready to take our advice.
7. Classify problems into two categories If your child accepts your help with his problems, it is helpful to divide the challenges he faces into two categories: the things that can change and the ones we can’t. 8. For things that can be changed, brainstorm possible solutions Help them focus their attention on finding solutions to the problems they face by making meaningful changes that will help them solve those problems.
9. Support accepting it as it is, if it cannot be changed Help your teen do what he can to accept problems that cannot be easily resolved. One way for young people to accept these problems is to talk about them, in terms of how much energy they can waste for nothing. You can say to them, “You have a lot of energy, but keep it up to direct it toward problems we can actually solve. Don’t waste that energy on challenges you can’t control at the moment.”
