Handling the Roller Coaster of Teen Emotions

Parents, the teen years are full of change and emotional ups and downs. I want to encourage you to take your teenagers shifting emotions seriously. I caved in far too often to the temptation to write off my teenagers’ emotions as silly and childish. My insensitivity communicated not only that I didn’t care, but that I was rejecting them. What I eventually learned is that my kids’ emotional resilience depended greatly on the relationship they had with us as parents. They needed us to hang in there with them and to love them despite the emotional highs and lows over what to us, as adults, seemed like trivial stuff. What may seem like an overreaction to us is in reality them handling their lives in the best way they know how. Our job is to realize that they’re not yet adults. They don’t have our maturity. They’re on their way. . . and we need to be sensitive and loving if we are going to fulfill our role to lead them to an emotionally stable adulthood.