You know, some teenagers can get a wee bit emotional sometimes.

I’m totally kidding – MOST teenagers can be extremely emotional a lot of the time!

Actually, they can be absolute assholes quite often.

But there’s a really good reason for this – their brain is literally re-wiring from around age 10 to about their mid-20s! And of course, if your brain is rewiring there are going to be side-effects.

So being moody, snippy, snarky and overly emotional is just one side-effect of this second phase of brain growth.

You know when they went through the first phase? From birth to around age 3. Remember toddlerhood? Yeaahhh…well, you’ve basically got a big toddler on your hands right now.

So, let’s talk about how you can help them with their emotions (and have a calmer home in the process!) – it’s called emotion coaching.

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that helps parents who are struggling to find peace and connection with their teens. My name is Ann Coleman; I’m an attorney turned parent educator and a mom who has been there - and I’m on a mission to help you build a stronger relationship and decrease the conflict with your kid so you can help them grow into the young adult they’re meant to be.

I want to give credit where credit is due – Dr. John Gottman of the Gottman Institute, which is best known for couples therapy than kids – his decades long research actually uncovered this style of parenting by observing kids and parents in the laboratory for more than a decade. But before getting into the nuts and bolts of actually emotion coaching your teen, there are some prerequisites and things you need to learn, think about differently and start doing.

So, when we’re talking about teens and tweens, emotion is always a huge part of the conversation. Everyone talks about their moodiness, how they can get mad for no reason, have emotional outbursts, but the level of emotionality you see in your teen can run the gamut from just a little snippy now and then to all out meltdowns on a regular basis and everything in between.

Every kid is obviously different and so much depends on personality and temperament, biology and genetics, and whether they’re neurodivergent (like with ADHD, autism) or they have a mental health disorder like anxiety or depression.

And a lot also depends on their environment and specifically, how you respond to their emotions and your response hinges, at least in part, on how much empathy you have for what they’re going through with that changing brain of theirs.

So, let’s back up and talk about that a little bit and let me explain briefly why adolescents have such a difficult time with their emotions.

One reason is because the part of the brain responsible for more unpleasant emotions like fear or nervousness and anger is supersensitive during adolescence. This is the part of the brain in charge of the fight, flight or freeze response – the part of the brain that protects us from threats.

For example, if a barking dog comes running at you from out of nowhere, this part of the brain (it’s called the amygdala) it responds and you’ll either run away, stand your ground and punch the dog in the nose or freeze and be unable to think or respond in any way at all. In an adolescent, the amygdala senses threats where there are none – it makes mistakes.

So, it might mistake your suggestion that your 14-year-old daughter wear her hair parted on the side as a threat and your daughter will respond by not actually running away in fear but by getting anxious about how she looks, or not by actually fighting you physical but by getting angry and responding by yelling at you, or she may get so flustered about her hair that she can’t even think of how to fix it and my dissolve in a puddle.

And this can happen about almost anything. Your son can’t find his jersey, your daughter get a Snapchat notification, it can be anything that sets off this part of their brain.

And, on the flip side, the part of the brain responsible for executive functions like self-control, problem-solving, focus, and making good decisions - the prefrontal cortex – it is still being programmed and is not very good at its job. So, when adults with a fully formed prefrontal cortex are able to calm themselves and use self-control and decide not to fight or argue or whatever, almost immediately, your teen or tween does not have this same ability.

And granted, many adults aren’t very good at this either – and remember what I said, there are tons of variables including things like temperament, personality, ADHD, anxiety, or other mental health disorders. But on average we can certainly say that adults have a greater ability to use their prefrontal cortex.

Something else you need to know is that if your teen is stressed, already nervous or upset about something, hungry, tired, sleepy, any of those issues will make the amygdala even more reactive and you’ll see even more mistakes and bigger emotional responses. And we know that teens are under tons of stress, perpetually hungry, and chronically sleep deprived.

So, when your teen “smarts off”, gets “fresh”, uses a “tone” or says or does something you feel is “disrespectful”, you must tell yourself, this is not personal, it’s not an attack on you, it has nothing to do with respect and everything to do with their brain’s automatic responses to stimuli in the environment – and you, my friend, are simply stimuli – nothing more at that moment.

They are acting the way they are because their brain is having an automatic reaction – almost like a sneeze. In that moment, they are unable to access their conscious, thinking, rational mind– they can’t. They are dysregulated and can’t regain their emotional footing. Emotion coaching is all about helping them learn how to be more regulated. But while they’re learning, you need to have more empathy regarding their dysregulation (that they cannot help) and not take it as a personal affront, manipulation or “disrespect.”

Without that empathy, you stand the chance of becoming angry and dysregulated yourself and if you do that, all hope is lost. You cannot emotion coach when you’re also dysregulated and having a calm home just went out the window with your emotional regulation.

You need to understand that this is not easy for your kid either. They don’t want to be emotional – they cannot help it and that’s why they need your help. So tell yourself when they are dysregulated that they need your help – it’s just like when they were little and had a tantrum – they need you to help them calm down.

They need your help to learn about their emotions, to become more aware of what they’re actually feeling, how to calm themselves and decide what to do with that emotion they’re feeling and not let it take over and cause behavior they’re not proud of.

This is all extra hard for an adolescent and it’s part of becoming more emotionally intelligent; becoming emotionally aware and emotionally regulated – two very important skills within the realm of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence (or EQ as some call it) is a set of skills that research shows most accurately predicts a stable, happy, productive, and successful life. Not IQ, self-esteem, resiliency, grit, growth mindset…all of those things of course play a role, but it’s this skill set including emotional awareness and regulation, empathy, social skills, and motivation that are crucial.

And because of the way the adolescent brain works, it’s much harder to find teens high in EQ – most are going to be in the middle somewhere and many have low EQ  – those with really low levels of EQ are more likely to use hard drugs, have more sexual partners, and just have a harder time avoiding risky behavior in general.

Adolescents of lower emotional intelligence are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, dissociation, posttraumatic stress, and associated physical symptoms.

They’re more likely to have anger issues, be more confrontational, have problems with friends, commit petty crimes and be involved in the juvenile justice system.

So, obviously, we want our kids to have a higher level of emotional intelligence.

But we can’t help them if our own emotional intelligence is lacking; specifically those two important areas: emotional awareness and emotional regulation plus empathy for what they’re going through.

And by emotional awareness we just mean understanding what we feel as we’re feeling an emotion. So, if you have a hard time telling jealousy from anger or nervousness from hunger, you’re low on emotional awareness. If you know you feel upset about something but don’t think about whether you’re frustrated or you’re indignant or your furious or hurt, and you don’t stop to think about why you feel the way you feel, you’re low in emotional awareness.

And you’re low in emotional regulation if you get frustrated or annoyed or angry and automatically react without pausing to choose your words or decide whether you should even say anything or not then you’re going to be driving a lot of this behavior in your teen.

There are so many of us that feel like maybe we’re just low on patience but it’s actually low emotional intelligence. And If you have ADHD, anxiety, misuse substances or have another mental health disorder or neurodivergence, you have very likely had a hard time with emotional awareness and regulation throughout your years as a parent.

And as our kids move into adolescence, one of the main emotions we have a problem with is fear. Parenting out of fear of what their future will look like if they keep doing what they’re doing. It can cause us to behave in some super-controlling ways. Go back and have a listen to the very first episode of the podcast. And if you’re listening to this after December 2023, I’ll likely have a new episode out about this very thing so I will go back and add a link to the new episode in the show notes so be sure and check.

You can definitely turn your own emotional life around. There’s a wonderful book I often suggest called Emotional Agility by Susan David – it’s wonderful for gaining insight and thinking things through.

You can start keeping a journal of your emotions, dig into your own triggers, look for the reasons behind your outbursts, start a mindfulness practice, study emotional intelligence through podcasts, books, apps.

Just remember that you are responsible for your own emotions and behavior, no one else – no one causes an emotion in you, you interpret the situation, what people are saying, doing and you form an emotion and that emotion drives your behavior – by either completely controlling you or just by giving you information that you can decide how to use.

You can listen to episode 8 of the podcast to learn more and I’ll have that linked in the show notes along with a free downloadable guide and I may have some other episodes linked there if you’re listening after December 2023.

Something else you’re going to need to do if you’re going to coach your teen through their unpleasant emotions – you’re going to need to really understand their emotions well – in other words being more emotionally aware as to their emotions. Keeping everything in mind about how their brain works, you can also begin to take notice of their emotional vulnerabilities. Develop your awareness by noting when they get angry, frustrated, annoyed, nervous, what is it they’re reacting to? When the emotion involves you, what’s the situation? Much of this is intuitive and you probably already know it - the look on their face, the cadence in their voice, a specific thing they say or do.

I could see a meltdown coming a mile away with my son when he was a teenager – there would be this intensity in what he was saying, a deliberateness about the way he moved, and I would know something’s about to blow.

And I knew if I had to say No about something or had to change plans or disappoint him in any way, it was not going to be good. Not because he was spoiled – not at all – kids with ADHD and anxiety both, don’t handle things like this very well.

The problem is, as soon as I saw him getting upset, I would get anxious knowing what was coming. And when I got anxious, I would become dysregulated and act out in anger or somehow make things worse before I knew emotion coaching.

So, if you haven’t been paying a lot of attention to your teen’s emotional states - start now. When they’re in the room, pay complete attention to them. Keep your eyes and ears open and look for clues in everything they say, every facial expression, tone of voice, and body language – Learn what triggers their unpleasant emotions. Become an expert on your teen’s emotional world.

Next you’re going to probably need a shift in mindset to be able to emotion coach. I don’t know about you but as I said a minute ago, when my son got upset, I could feel myself getting anxious. He had this thing he used to do when he was frustrated – your kid probably does too – I’d hear him from his room go (do it) and I’d tense up inside knowing that he’s gonna be stomping around the house soon and who knows what would happen after that.

But I’m going to give you some confidence here today so you’re not going to feel that way anymore. As an emotion coach, instead of dreading their outbursts or meltdowns, look at them as opportunities to connect on a deep emotional level and help them become more emotionally intelligent. This is when the magic happens. Don’t try to distract them or make them stop or fix their problem or give them advice or judge them in any way.

Instead, as their emotion coach, you’re going to help them realize that unpleasant emotions are unavoidable and that they need to understand them, accept them and deal with them better.

So, you’re number 1 goal, when they’re dysregulated, is to help them calm down and in the process you’ll be teaching them emotional awareness and emotional regulation.

And a word of caution – I know it can be really hard to be empathetic if they’re upset and yelling at you or using a smart-ass tone or cursing. It’s much easier to jump in and scold them about being disrespectful - but that’s not going to help them calm down and it’s not going to help you either.

At the moment your kid is emotionally dysregulated and out of sorts. They are not saying what they’re saying or using a “tone” purposefully. Again, it’s like a tantrum-ing toddler – they are no longer in control – their amygdala has taken over and their prefrontal cortex is too weak to help so their just spouting off like a sprinkler.

I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that by not addressing your child’s tone or words in this moment is not going to cause them to be “disrespectful” to someone else. Your kid is doing this with you – not teachers or strangers on the street – you. And after the storm has settled you can talk to them about it – just not now.

The most important thing you can do right now, when they’re upset is to just zip it and listen. By doing this you’re showing them they matter to you, that how they feel matters, their opinion and input matters. Listening supports their autonomy and helps them begin to calm down.

As you’re listening, get curious – try to pick up cues in their words, their tone, their body language about the emotions they’re experiencing. If they’re acting angry but they look like they could cry any second, what’s under that anger? Did someone hurt their feelings? Are they ashamed, embarrassed, jealous?

During pauses you can ask questions that will help them think or give you information you need to know so you can help them figure out how they feel. These questions are not to find out exactly what happened or who said or did what to whom necessarily. You’re just trying to get clues as to how they feel and you don’t need all the gory details for that generally and they may not want to share it. But you can say something like, “has something hurt your feelings?” “Did someone say something mean to you?” “How do you feel about it?” If they don’t know you could ask – “Are you sad?” Or are you maybe more angry?” “What are you thinking right now?” Not all of those – this isn’t 20-questions. You just need enough information to validate (or acknowledge) their emotions and reflect back to them so they know and feel that you get it that you understand them. That’s when they can begin to calm down. This is you helping them learn to be more aware of what they feel and learn to regulate their emotions.

But you don’t want to ask questions like  “why are you so angry?”, “what happened?”, or  “why did you do that? or “I told you that would happen” These step over the line from curiosity and move into accusatory and judgmental – exactly what you don’t want to do.

So, what do I mean by validating or acknowledging their emotions and reflecting them back? To understand validating I always start with what it means to invalidate their emotions because that’s what we normally do.

You might say something like “Cheer up, it’ll be OK”,  “It’s not that big a deal, you’ll be fine”, “Don’t worry about it”, “Get over it”, or my go-to, “Calm down.”

We don’t think about it but it doesn’t feel great when you’re angry or anxious or frustrated or mortified and someone is telling you that you shouldn’t be feeling the way you feel! What if you were furious that someone purposefully lied about you to a whole group of people and you were ranting to your husband about it and all he could say was “will you calm down please?” Would you appreciate the sentiment? Or would it make you even madder – Calm down? What are you talking about, calm down?!!!

Another way we invalidate their feelings is to give unsolicited advice, (if you’ll just do this) try to solve the problem for them (I’ll email the teacher), or even take the other person’s side (well, I’m sure she had a really good reason).

Maybe you do this because their emotions make you uncomfortable, anxious, or even angry. Maybe you see them as manipulative. You think if you show empathy, you’re “giving in” to the behavior, “spoiling” them, “letting them win”, or “reinforcing” the behavior.

But scientific research says that kids whose emotions are continually invalidated will not develop the emotional intelligence they need to deal with life appropriately. They have trouble understanding their own emotions and communicating them, they don’t know what to do with them, how to regulate them, they have issues relationships, work issues.

So, rather than invalidating their feelings, learn to acknowledge that their emotions are real and they have a right to feel the way they feel, even if you disagree (because guess what? You’re NOT them and they can’t help how they feel at the moment).

The goal is to let them know you respect their feelings; you do not judge those feelings.

And because teens are so much less emotionally aware and regulated because of how their brain works, they may need your help to figure out exactly how they feel (that’s where listening and asking questions and paying attention will help you help them!)

For example, your kid may know they feel “really bad” but have no awareness of what that bad feeling really is – is it annoyance or disappointment or boredom). They generally don’t even have the emotional vocabulary to describe how they feel. This is why they may need your help to understand exactly what they’re feeling . So, part of this validation process is to help them find the right words to describe how they feel, to help them develop their emotional vocabulary and build greater emotional awareness, which means better emotional regulation.\\\\\\\

It might sound a little like this, “I hear you – it sounds like you’re really frustrated that you didn’t make an A. You feel like your work deserves it” Or “I know you really want that t-shirt. I can see how disappointed you are that you can’t get it right now. It’s really hard to want something right this minute but know you have to wait.” By doing this you’re also reflecting what they’ve actually already said to you – you’re just using the emotion words if they haven’t already (and some of them can use the right words so do give them a chance)

Validation is more than simply saying “I understand” or “I get it”, or “I’m sorry you’re sad” you really need to respond in a way that illustrates to them that you hear them, you see what’s going on, and you sincerely do understand.

And you also have to be able to read your kid and understand if it’s time to open your mouth to say something or simply keep quiet and acknowledge with a mmm or uhhmm or even a nod or an empathetic expression. Often just being there, sitting with them, showing your support, is enough.

Something else you can do to help them calm down - if it’s appropriate in the moment - is to give them a gentle touch on the arm or back or even a hug. It’s been scientifically shown that a caring touch from a loved one can flood the brain with oxytocin and helps release other positive hormones like dopamine and serotonin, which counteracts the chemicals the amygdala has released. In other words, it puts out the fire the amygdala started with the fight or flight response.

Just make sure they’re in a place where they’re open to being touched – you have to know your kid and read the situation. But if you can make it work, it will go long way to deescalate the moment and provide instant connection.

So, as you’re sitting with your kid, listening, validating, helping them describe how they feel, and helping them calm down, quite often they will figure out what they need to do (if anything) to maybe resolve a situation or solve a problem. If not, you can help nudge them along to solve the “problem” by perhaps confirming what they’ve indicated they want to do about it or helping them understand why people do the things they do sometimes. But it’s important to know when to back off as well. Once they’ve calmed down they may not want to go any further with you. Let them know you’re there for them and willing to talk it through if they want but don’t force it.

Now, if there’s behavior to discuss (maybe they were really rude to you when they were upset) you can address this after they’ve calmed down, but it doesn’t need to be immediate – it can be the next day or even after that. Just remember, that was their dysregulation talking – not them – it does no one any good to get all indignant about it.

The whole point of emotion coaching is to help your teen explore their emotions, figure out why they feel the way they do, how to become more aware of their own emotions, to understand that no emotions are “off limits” or “bad”, to help them learn to regulate their nervous system and think about their issues and resolve their problems.  And in the process you’re making a strong emotional connection with them, which makes it much more likely they’ll come to you and talk to you about things in the future – it keeps you in the loop and gives you an opportunity to influence their behavior.

Learn to be more emotionally in tune with yourself and work on your own emotional regulation so you can be there for your kid when they need you and make your home a more peaceful and supportive refuge. No one will say this is easy - but boy, can it turn your life around.

If you want to take a deeper dive into emotion coaching, leaning about your own emotions, about how your teenager thinks and how to discipline them to bring about real change, check out the Speaking of Teens Parent Camp – the link is at the very bottom of the episode description.

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. I really appreciate you listening, and I hope what I’ve shared helps you in some way. Please come back each Friday and Tuesday for new episodes and pass the show along to another parent who may need a little help.

If you’d like, you can come join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group - that link is also right there at the very bottom of the show description in your app.

Until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way.