The Emotional Lives of Teenagers

dr. lisa damour, phd.

the emotional lives of teenagers.

raising connected, capable, and compassionate adolescents.

the teenage years can be an emotional minefield for your teen, and for you.

but if you're feeling fed up with a monosyllabic and uncommunicative child, exhausted from a relentless cycle of fraught confrontations with your teen, or longing for equilibrium as you help your kid navigate intense mood swings and hormonal shifts, take heart.

it is possible to help your teen navigate the tricky but rewarding transition from child to young adult with grace and good humor, all the while keeping your relationship with your child not just intact, but deeper and stronger than ever before.

are you up for the challenge?

this chapter to lisa damour's the emotional lives of teenagers will guide you through what's emotionally normal for adolescents, and what should give you cause for concern, set out strategies for supporting your teen through emotional ups and downs, and walk you through the best ways to stay connected to your child as they begin to establish their own independence.

let go of unhelpful myths about adolescent emotions parenting teens is filled with challenges.

slammed doors, sullen moods, and i-didn't-ask-to-be-born moments are all par for the course.

but guess what?

one of the biggest challenges you face in these teen years might well be overcoming your own unhelpful assumptions about adolescence and mental health.

specifically, there are three widespread myths about adolescent mental health that parents need to let go of before they can start effectively parenting through the teen years.

let's break them down.

myth 1.

emotion is the enemy of reason.

teens, so the stereotype goes, are led by their emotions, not by their reason.

that's why they can't be trusted to make their own decisions.

there is a widely held view that an emotionally informed decision can't also be a practical or reason-oriented decision.

emotions, we are told, cloud our judgment.

this simply isn't the case.

emotions are data.

whether they're good or bad, our feelings feed us important information.

if your teen tells you, for example, that they feel anxious about applying to a certain school or excited to take on an intense extracurricular activity, do your best to honor these emotions.

you'll be supporting them to trust their gut instincts.

and teens who feel empowered to trust their own instincts are less likely to be peer-pressured into behaviors they're uncomfortable with.

one caveat, though.

even teens who are completely in tune with their emotions and instincts can engage in risky behavior.

it comes with the territory.

a teen who's usually level-headed can get caught up in the excitement of being with their peers and act in a way that seems out of character.

experts put this down to the fact that teens can easily switch between cold cognition, the grounded, sensible thought processes that occur in calm, neutral contexts, and hot cognition, the thought processes that occur in heated, socially charged contexts.

in a cold cognition context, your teen might be adamantly opposed to risky driving.

in a hot cognition context, where risk-taking behavior comes with social rewards, they may abandon their rational sense.

put in the work when your teen is in a cold cognition context.

validate their feelings.

ask them how they'll handle themselves when their cognition inevitably does switch from cold to hot.

and plan out strategies to help them stay safe.

volunteering to be the designated driver at a gathering where others will be drinking, for example.

myth 2.

difficult emotions are best avoided.

no parent has ever despaired that their teen was too sunny or upbeat.

but for many parents, watching their teen experience unpleasant feelings, angst, anger, disappointment, or pessimism can be an automatic cause for concern.

should this be the case?

the truth is, when we experience and process difficult emotions, we grow as people.

when your child cheats on a test and is caught, the guilt they feel might prompt them to reflect on the kind of person they want to be.

when your kid goes through a painful breakup, the misery they feel might prompt them to seek support from friends and family and strengthen their social networks.

as a parent, you instinctually try to shield your child from pain.

but doing everything you can to spare them suffering may do more harm than good.

so when your teen is experiencing difficult emotions, don't try to dismiss them or move to a more pleasant subject.

cultivate their feelings and allow them to process.

allowing your teen to navigate choppy emotional waters helps them cultivate resilience and meet challenges with confidence later in life.

myth 3.

teens are emotionally unstable.

emotional?

yes.

but unstable?

adolescents feel their feelings with intensity, and it's tempting to assume that this makes them unstable and emotionally fragile.

actually, your teen is probably much more emotionally robust than you realize.

if you feel like your teen is melting down all the time, consider the possibility that you're their safe space.

adolescents can often keep their emotions in check at school or in social settings.

ideally, home is a place where they feel safe to express emotion and admit vulnerability.

if you feel like you're dealing with incessant tears, mood swings, and depressive episodes, that doesn't mean your teen is unstable.

it means they feel comfortable enough with you to let their feelings show.

and remind yourself that just because your child isn't always happy doesn't mean they're not mentally healthy or stable.

the definition of good mental health is having the right emotions at the right time.

yes, even ugly emotions like anger, frustration, or hopelessness.

by supporting your child to feel appropriate, proportionate emotional responses to difficult situations, you can help them grow into an emotionally robust adult.

adolescence is an emotional minefield.

parenting an adolescent is confusing.

it feels like only days ago you were parenting a sweet, sunny-natured child whose eyes lit up whenever you walked into the room.

now you're dealing with a hormonal, emotionally unpredictable teen who hates everything about you, from the goofy way you talk on the phone to your latest haircut.

what happened?

basically, your teen's brain is a construction site.

transforming a child's brain into an adult's brain involves generating neurons at 4-5 times the rate an adult's brain generates them while simultaneously pruning back underused neurons.

like most big construction projects, this overhaul rarely runs smoothly.

especially because while the emotion centers of the brain are rapidly enhanced, the perspective-maintaining centers take longer to reach full maturity, creating the perfect conditions for emotional meltdowns over even the mildest of stimuli.

the good news is that emotionality tends to peak at ages 13 or 14, then abate.

on top of all this cognitive construction work, adolescents are busy going through an emotional process known, in technical terms, as separation individuation, and, in layman's terms, as the reason why your teen is suddenly mortified by everything you say and do.

when kids are young, their identities are closely intertwined with their parents.

and they're okay with that.

as they enter adolescence, kids want to start building their own identities.

and that means they need to start extricating their conception of themselves from their conception of you.

the bad news?

any of your traits that don't fit with their new identity—your corny jokes, for example—will suddenly become excruciating to them.

worse news?

any traits you share, like a love of sports, will also become excruciating, as they'll feel frustrated at sharing any aspect of their identity with yours.

if you feel like when it comes to your teen you can do nothing right, well, that's because you really can do nothing right.

this phase will pass as they settle into their new identity.

in the meantime, deal with any outbursts directed at you by giving your teen three options.

they can be friendly, they can tell you what's bothering them in a civil way, or they can give themselves some space.

that's it.

finally, as they prepare to assert their independence and enter the world on their own, your teen will start to challenge your authority.

this is a healthy, natural stage in your parent-child relationship.

it also typically leads to far more household friction as your teen reaches for flexibility and freedom, and you push back by asserting boundaries.

over and over and over again.

that friction is actually a good thing.

you might well be sick of having the same argument over curfew every weekend, but this kind of friction is a sign that both of you—you and your kid—are doing their job.

you're probably ready for some good news by now, so here it is.

as your teen's brain is undergoing a full reconstruction, their capacity to adopt the perspective of others is dramatically enhanced.

psychologists consider a constructive conflict to be one in which both parties are able to envision the argument from the other's perspective.

try and activate your teen's growing cognitive capacity for appreciating perspectives other than their own to help ensure your disagreements stay productive.

you and your teen may never see eye to eye on curfew, but if you can show them that you've taken their perspective into consideration and encourage them to do the same, then, in the long run, you'll both come out as winners.

get your teen talking about their feelings.

your teen is learning something incredibly important—emotional regulation.

this involves learning to move through intense, difficult emotions by expressing them healthily and learning to give themselves a break from difficult emotions by developing strategies for reining them in.

it's all about expression and control.

including your teen in both aspects of emotional regulation will help them steer a course through the challenges of adolescence.

let's talk first about strategies for expressing emotions.

one of the most effective methods for working through emotions is also one of the simplest—talking about them.

study after study shows that simply talking about difficult feelings can help us feel better, even if our circumstances remain entirely unchanged.

when we articulate our emotions, we shift them from the field of abstract experience to the field of thought and language.

it's this shift that allows us to analyze and process how we feel.

of course, as the parent of any monosyllabic teen can tell you, there are easier things than getting your adolescent to open up to you—performing brain surgery, for example.

encourage your teen to talk to you by letting them take the lead.

few teens respond well to direct questions along the lines of, you seem upset.

what's bothering you exactly?

many parents find their teens open up to them when they're not talking face-to-face.

for example, when they're walking together or driving in the car.

other parents have found that teens who are reluctant to talk in person happily share their feelings over text.

if you want your teen to open up to you, work on your own listening skills.

the next time your teen tells you about a frustrating situation at school, notice how you listen to them.

do you try to problem-solve their issues?

do you try and sympathize by telling them about a similar situation you once found yourself in?

neither of those responses constitutes proper listening.

try this instead.

imagine your teen is a journalist filling a story and you're a newspaper editor.

it's your job to give their story a headline that distills that story to its compelling essence.

for example, if they're venting about how hectic their school schedule is and how little time they have for pursuing hobbies or hanging with friends, you could say something like, it sounds like life is all work and no fun at the moment.

simply by concentrating on their story, then feeding the underlying message back to them, you're showing your teen that you're actively listening to whatever they need to share.

talking about feelings helps.

talking specifically about feelings helps even more.

help your teen develop emotional granularity, the ability to finely distinguish between a range of emotions.

when a teen tells you they're feeling upset or bummed, they're offering you a valuable opportunity to get granular.

when they say upset, do they really mean irritated or despondent?

helping your teen pinpoint how they're feeling doesn't just expand their emotional vocabulary.

it demonstrates to them that you care about what's going on in their inner world.

controlling emotions is just as important as expressing them.

we've just talked through some strategies for supporting your teen to express their emotions.

but remember, the second aspect of emotional regulation is controlling emotions.

here are some effective strategies to support your teen in controlling difficult emotions.

sometimes, simply expressing emotions doesn't help.

this is particularly true when those emotions have become so overwhelming, they eclipse other aspects of your teen's life.

that's where control techniques come in handy.

distraction is typically viewed as a negative, but when your teen is stuck inside an unpleasant feeling or fixed on an unproductive train of thought, finding a distraction can help move their attention away from what's bothering them and perform a mental reset.

help your teen find a distraction technique that works for them, whether that's watching funny shows, playing sports, or finding time for a home manicure.

did you know the body has its own inbuilt mechanism for controlling overwhelming or difficult emotions?

it's called sleep.

sleep when we get enough of it, helps us regulate our emotions.

when we don't get enough of it, unpleasant or unwanted emotions can be felt more keenly.

your teen might look, talk, and act like an adult or close enough to one, but their developing brain and body still need a whopping 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to function properly.

if your teen is less emotionally robust than normal, they might simply need more sleep.

ensure they switch off screens at least an hour before bed.

encourage them to exercise to improve their sleep quality, and if necessary, cancel or rearrange commitments that prevent them from getting the rest they need.

finally, if your teen is stuck in unhelpful thought patterns leading to overwhelming and unpleasant emotions, encourage them to change their feelings by changing their thoughts.

let's say your child is apprehensive about starting a new school.

they're convinced they won't make friends and will hate all their new classes and teachers.

they're worried they'll never feel as happy as they do at their current school.

all these thoughts, unsurprisingly, lead to a feeling of relentless anxiety.

they're almost certainly overestimating how bad the new school will be.

but there's a problem.

as a parent, your impulse might be to underestimate how bad the new school will be.

you'll be fine, you might say breezily.

you'll make lots of new friends.

your intent is to comfort their fears.

but the truth is, you're just being as unrealistic as your child.

instead of trying to replace overwhelmingly negative thoughts with overwhelmingly positive ones, try for a dose of realism instead.

a more productive approach would be to tell your child that, yes, starting at a new school can be really hard.

tell them that they probably won't make lots of friends immediately, but ask them to consider the possibility that there'll be one or two people they'll click with.

finally, find ways to remind them of how they've dealt with similar situations in the past.

ask them to tell you how they adapted to another big life change, or get them to talk you through how they made and maintained friendships at their current school.

if you can present your team with a range of tools for controlling their emotions, they'll be able to press pause on distressing thoughts and feelings in the moment, and create the mental space necessary for processing and problem-solving the things that bother them most.

you've just listened to our chapter, the emotional lives of teenagers, by lisa damour.

the key message here is that mood swings, tension, conflict, and power struggles all come with the territory of parenting adolescence.

instead of avoiding big feelings, help your teen articulate, navigate, and process them.

it's by tackling difficult feelings with courage and clarity that your teen will grow into a resilient and emotionally robust adult.

okay, that's it for this chapter.

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see you in the next chapter!