It is always so interesting to me to see patterns emerge in the coaching that I do. And recently I have noticed a lot of people coming to me for coaching on how to handle their teenagers going through a big emotional response to something. Whether that is anger, whether that is frustration, whether it is overwhelm. So many parents feel like no matter what they do in that moment, it is the wrong thing and it just makes things worse. And they come to me wondering, what can I do instead? The first thing that I always do is explain that this is totally normal and expected teenage behavior. Teenagers feel their emotions big. Whether it is a happy emotion, whether it's a sad emotion, whether it's a frustrated emotion, they feel those emotions in a big way. This happens because your teenager's brain is under construction and that construction happens from the bottom up. The bottom of your teenager's brain, the lower brain, as I like to call it, is responsible for survival. It is the part of our brain that processes our immediate reactions to things and it processes our emotions and our fight /flight /freeze response. The upper part of our brain, also known as the prefrontal cortex, is the last part of our brain to develop and mature and that is the part of our brain that processes logic and reasoning. This is the part of our brain that is responsible for planning and decision making and problem solving. And part of this construction process that's happening during the teen years is getting the lower brain and higher brain to communicate with each other. It's as if the upper brain and the lower brain each have a telephone and they're talking to each other. But when the lower brain starts to get activated and starts to experience those big emotions, it gets so intense that the upper brain drops their telephone. So they cannot hear the signals that are coming from the lower brain and they are not sending any signals back. So your teenager is essentially operating only from that lower brain when they're in that big emotional state. That means they do not have access to logic and reasoning and problem solving. So no matter what you do in that moment to try and teach them or correct their behavior or look for solutions or solve their problem with them, it won't work. Because that part of their brain is not online in that moment. Now, this is going to manifest differently with every child and in every family. So I want to give a couple of examples that might help you see when this might come into play. One really common example of this is when your child comes home from school and you ask them about their day, and all of a sudden they are biting your head off, like, "don't get into my business. Why are you asking me so many questions? Leave me alone." Right. That is a common experience for parents. And this is a perfect example of how your teen is having an emotional reaction that probably has nothing to do with the questions you just asked them or you in general, they probably have had a rough day. They're feeling emotional. All of a sudden, those emotions come out in a. big way and that higher reasoning brain goes offline. So if you launch into a conversation about, "don't talk to me that way. I'm just asking you how your day was." That is not going to land with them at all in that moment because they are not operating from that higher brain. The higher brain has dropped the phone receiver and they are not online at all. Another great example of this is when your teenager is trying to study for a test or finish a big project and it's getting later in the evening and you say something like, "Hey, when are you gonna be finished? Are you just about done?" And they have a total and complete meltdown. Tears. "I'm never gonna get this done. It's a disaster. I'm gonna fail this test." Right? And they are just having this completely emotional response and no matter what you do in that moment to try and help them solve the problem or come up with solutions or see what you can do to support them, nothing is going to work for them. They're going to shut all of it down because right now they don't have the problem solving part of their brain online. It's not holding the receiver. All they're operating from is the emotional reaction part of their brain. Another example of this that I think is extremely common with parents of teenagers is that our teen is on their device or playing a game of some sort and we ask them to put it down and come do something else. And more often than not, we are met with anger and frustration and they blow up at us. And in that moment, most of us as parents try and reason with our child, like you've already been on the phone for an hour or you agreed to these rules, we set them together, you know that you can't be on your phone right now. But in that moment, your teen is acting from their lower brain. They don't have access to the logic and reasoning, and careful planning part of their brain that they did when you made the plan or when you set the boundary or when you guys established your rules in your family. Now, I know that some of you out there listening are like, yes, this is exactly what's happening in my house. Please tell me how to fix it. But I am guessing there are also some people out there that are like, my teen does not react like that. They do not yell at me. They do not call me names. They do not freak out like this. And I want to speak to that for just a minute because it isn't that your teenager isn't having big emotions. They are. I promise you that they are because that is part of the biology of being a teenager. But what has happened most likely is that your teenager, instead of reacting to those big emotions, has learned to repress those emotions to push them down and hide them and keep them inside. And that is not better in any way. In fact, sometimes it's more dangerous because we as parents do not see the big emotions so we can help them manage them. They are trying to deal with them all inside. Even though they are repressing those emotions, they are still operating only from that lower brain and that higher brain, that reasoning and logic brain is still not online in those moments. So if you notice that your teen seems to get the glazed over look in their eyes, or they go blank, or they're tuning you out, or they seem kind of aloof and disconnected. It could be that they are operating from that lower brain, and they are having a big emotional response, but instead of reacting to it externally, they are repressing it internally. This is really important to know because that means you, as the parent, need to be even more clued in to your teen's signals that they're sending because they are more subtle. So now the big question, what do I do as a parent when my teen is experiencing big emotions and their higher brain goes offline and they're functioning only from that lower brain? The first thing you need to do is stay calm when your teen is freaking out, whether internally or externally. You need to set the tone. You need to stay calm. This is a skill that takes practice and work to develop. And it is something that we are working on right now inside of my Enjoy Coaching community as we learn to process our own emotions and to sit with uncomfortable emotions and to get comfortable with our teen's uncomfortable emotions. This is a skill, it is a process, and it is something we have to learn how to do. But it is absolutely essential to things from escalating and getting out of hand. The second thing is don't take it personally. Anything your teen does or says when they are functioning from that lower brain and the higher brain is offline is not their own intentional, reasoning, higher thinking self. That is not online when they're functioning from that lower brain. They are just in automatic response to whatever is happening around them. And it probably has nothing to do with you. You just are the safe place where they unload all of these big emotions. Third, we want to reflect back what we are observing to validate the emotion that they are experiencing in this moment: I can see that you're really upset right now. I'm so sorry you are feeling that way. I can tell that you're feeling really overwhelmed by studying for this test, and that's really hard. I can tell that you're really frustrated that I asked you to put your phone down, and I know that it is hard to do that when you're in the middle of something. Once an emotion is in our bodies, there is no way we can get rid of it until we validate it and process it. This is an essential skill that most of us as adults don't have and that our teens definitely are not learning. When we reflect back to them what we are observing and help them put their emotions into words, it helps them feel validated, seen, and understood. Once we have reflected back what we observe, the final step is to get curious. Now we don't want to launch into a dozen questions to get our team to figure out what's going on. They don't have that higher brain online. They don't know what's going on, most likely. They are just experiencing a really big emotion. So the question we want to ask them is, Tell me more. I can see that you are really struggling right now, tell me more. When we ask this question, whether we use these words or different words, we allow them to share with us what they are experiencing. We're not trying to get to the root cause or find out exactly what happened that led to this moment where they reacted. What we want is for them to have a space to narrate what they are experiencing without being corrected, without being lectured, without having to find a solution or figure out what to do next. They just need some space to feel what they are feeling. To give that lower brain a voice. And when they start to calm down from that heightened emotion, then their higher brain will come back online. And that is when you can do the reasoning. That is when you can look for solutions. That is when you can reinforce boundaries and reiterate expectations. But none of that will work if we try and do it when the higher brain is offline. I hope this conversation has been super helpful for you in understanding where your teen's big emotional responses are coming from and what you can do to respond more effectively to them. There is so much more to this than I could possibly cover in a single podcast episode. So if you want to know more about how to do this, and if you want help applying the principles that I've shared here to your situation with your teenager, I want to invite you to join me inside of my Enjoy Coaching community. When you join, you will get instant access to in depth workshops and classes that I have taught on this topic and many other parenting issues. And you will get personalized help and coaching from me on the specific challenges that you are facing with your teenager, so you never have to try and figure it out all on your own. I am so proud of you for being here. I know the concepts that I teach you here are often simple and they seem very obvious and straightforward, but they are challenging to actually implement. And I want to applaud you for being willing to put in that effort. It is hard to stay calm when your teen is freaking out. It is hard to not take things personally when they say things that cut you to the core. It is hard to reflect back to them what they are experiencing and ask them to tell you more when all you want to do is call them out for being rude or correct them or lecture them or help them find a solution and fix the problem. But, it is work worth doing. I am so proud of you for being willing to do this work and I want you to know that I am here cheering you on every step of the way.
