Parenting a Rose in a Garden of Tulips: Intense, High-Risk Teen Behaviors with Katie May

What should parents do when a highly sensitive teenager exhibits intense, high-risk emotional behaviors?In this episode of The Positively Healthy Mom, we sit down with Katie May, a licensed therapist, author, speaker, and the founder of Creative Healing—a multi-location teen support center in the Philadelphia area to discuss strategies for parenting teens with self-destructive behaviors.This episode is a must-listen for moms of deeply feeling, highly sensitive teenagers who experience extreme emotional dysregulation and high-risk behaviors, offering practical strategies to move your household from a state of constant crisis into a place of calm and connection.Key Conversations in This Episode: Understanding why some teenagers are genetically hardwired to experience the world with raw, intense emotions, and why traditional parenting advice fails them. A clear breakdown of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), how it differs from traditional CBT, and why it is the gold standard for treating severe emotional reactivity and self-harm in teenagers. How a teen's emotional baseline can get trapped in an ongoing cycle of stress, and how parents can use environmental changes to help them "zero out" and calm down. Concrete advice on how parents can navigate the emotional grief of letting go of the parenting journey they expected so they can show up for the teen they have.Episode 111 Q&A: Why does my teenager explode over seemingly minor issues that shouldn't be a big deal?Highly sensitive teens often experience an accumulation of nervous system stress that never fully returns to baseline. Because they are easily triggered, they get re-activated before they can fully calm down, making minor incidents feel like major crises.Meet Our Expert:Katie May is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), author, speaker, and group practice owner who founded Creative Healing, a specialized center dedicated to supporting teenagers and their families. She specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and is passionate about giving parents the practical toolkits they need to understand their teen's intense inner world and foster long-term resilience.Connect With Katie May Katiekmay.com @katiekmay on IG Purchase Katie’s Book - You’re On Fire, It’s FineResources From Your Host, Laura Ollinger Instagram: @positivelyhealthycoaching Emotional College Prep for Teen Girls on July 14th, 2026: Register for Positively Healthy University Support the Show: Rate the Positively Healthy Mom podcast here!