This is Going to Be FUN: the Podcast
Episode 64: Be a Thermostat, Not a Thermometer
Episode Summary:
The Key To Emotional Regulation for Teens
Want to know the key to teaching emotional regulation for teens? You need to be a thermostat, NOT a thermometer.
Find out how your reaction to your teen’s emotions can either fire things up or cool them down. π‘οΈ
Learn about the importance of co-regulation in teen years, why your emotional stability acts as a safety blanket for your teen, and hands-on strategies to master emotional regulation. π§βοΈ
β¨Key Takeaways:
- The science behind why teens have such emotional swings and how you can help.
- The crucial difference between reacting like a thermometer versus regulating like a thermostat.
- Tips to process your emotions and why you shouldn't take your teen's outbursts personally.
- A sneaky trick to give yourself a quick breather during heated moments!
Want more support setting the right emotional temperature at home? π‘β€οΈ Join the ENJOY community now so you can navigate your teen's emotional rollercoaster with ease.
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The Key to Emotional Regulation for Teens
Be a Thermostat, Not a Thermometer
Years ago my 4-year-old daughter spiked a fever of 105.8. My husband works in family practice, so I immediately called him at work to see what he thought I should do for her.
He is typically calm as a cucumber, but I could hear a little bit of panic in his voice as he told me to take her to the urgent care immediately. Feeling a little panic myself, I did as he instructed.
When we arrived and they took her temperature I could sense some panic in the providers there as well. All of us were impacted by worry for this little girl and her spiked fever because of the reading on that thermometer.
Adding fuel to the fire of your teen’s emotional temperature
We often do the same thing with our teenagers. We read their “emotional” temperature and react to it by matching their emotions.
When the temperature reads anxiety or depression, we get anxious and sad about their anxiety and depression.
When they are burning up with anger or frustration, we get angry and frustrated about their anger and frustration.
Instead of encouraging emotional regulation for teenagers, when we match their emotions, we actually intensify the situation and make things even worse. (Not to mention feeling terrible about the things we say and do afterward.)
The key to emotional regulation for teenagers is being a thermostat
A thermostat measures the room’s current temperature and adjusts to reach the desired setting. If it’s hot outside, the thermostat triggers the air conditioning to turn on until it cools the home. In the winter, it triggers the heater.
We want to be an emotional ‘thermostat’ for our teenagers. No matter what their current emotional temperature, we can help them regulate their emotions by being steady like a thermostat.
Co-regulation is the first step toward emotional regulation for teens
From the time they are born, children regulate their emotions based on our emotional state. Remember when they’d fall down, and before crying, they’d look at us? If we were calm, they’d be reassured. If we panicked, they’d cry louder.
This co-regulation becomes even more vital during teenage years, while the brain is still under construction. The part of your teen’s brain that is responsible for emotional regulation won’t be fully developed until their mid-twenties, so they they often have big emotional swings. Regulating your own emotions helps them co-regulate to your emotional state and learn the process of regulating for themselves.
Your emotions can be like a security blanket for your teen.
When you can stay calm and consistent and stable in your emotional temperature, your teen feels a sense of safety and security.
But the opposite is also true. When you freak out because they’re freaking out, they think there’s something wrong with them for freaking out. They feel out of control, unsafe and insecure.
While we may not love the emotional rollercoaster our teen seems to be riding, it is a totally normal part of their development. To master the art of emotional regulation, they need to see it in action. They need a safe place to experience all of those big emotions.
When you are a thermometer, YOU ARE THAT SAFE PLACE.
They learn that no matter what temperature it is for them outside, you will always be a comfortable temperature that they can rise or fall to meet. When they feel out of control, you will show them the way back to emotional safety.
Strategies for Emotional Regulation for teens
So how do you actually become the thermostat in your home?
Learn to process your own emotions
You have to master your own emotions first, so that you can be the thermostat. But this doesn’t mean not feeling the full range of emotions or staying calm all the time. It means learning how to FEEL your feelings – the ones you like and the ones you don’t. It means learning how to regulate your own emotions.
If you want to learn this skill, grab my free Processing Any Emotion guide for free here
Don’t take your teen’s emotional outbursts personally
Your teenager’s emotional temperature is not about you. Their emotions are a result of their own thoughts about the things going on around them. Your teen’s emotional response is impacted by dozens of factors: the grade they got on their quiz, how much sleep they got, how they did in practice that day, what their friend said to them at lunch or what they saw on Instagram.
While they often blame their parents or direct their biggest emotional outbursts at you, there is usually a lot more to it than this single moment in time. Either way, don’t take it personally.
When the temperature is rising, take a break to close the window
One of my husband’s biggest pet peeves is when our kids open their windows at night during the summer and forget to close them in the morning. It lets all the hot air into the house and make those air conditioners work extra hard to get to the temperature on the thermostat.
If you feel yourself getting worked up, you might need to go and “close the window”. Take a time out so you can go processs your own emotions and come back ready to be the thermometer.
One of my favorite tips I learned for this is to say, “I have to go to the bathroom. Be right back.” You get a quiet space to process your emotions and come back calmer, and your teen won’t think anything of it.
Need help setting the temperature of your emotional thermostat?
I hope these simple tips will help you so that you can become the thermostat in your home instead of constantly Having to match the highs and lows of your teenagers’ emotions.
This concept seems simple enough and sometimes just learning about it can completely change your perspective, but you may need more help to get your thermostat working. Join me inside of my ENJOY community where I can help you apply these principles in your own family. You will get access to Marco Polo coaching with me and lots of other resources and trainings to help you become the thermostat in your home.
Mentioned on the Show:
Podcast Transcript
βYears ago, one of my daughters was sick. She had a rash all over her body and she was just not acting like herself. I checked her forehead and I could tell that she had a fever. And so I grabbed the thermometer and checked her temperature and sure enough, it read 105. 8. I called my husband to tell him and see what he recommended to do because he works in family practice and he immediately told me I needed to go to the urgent care right now, that that fever was scary high. Now my husband is Calm as a cucumber. He is always super chill, especially when it comes to health related stuff. But I could tell that he was a little panicked. Our daughter was only four at the time. So then I felt a little panicked. We got to the urgent care and they felt a little panicked. Everybody was really nervous about this little four year old girl who had a temperature pushing 106. And we often do the same thing with our teenagers when they have a hot emotion like anger or frustration. We take their temperature and then we start to react to it. When they have a low emotion like anxiety or depression or worry, we take that temperature and then we react to it. We respond to it. And we have a tendency to then change our temperature to meet their temperature. If they're angry and frustrated, we respond with being angry and frustrated. If they're anxious and depressed, we get anxious and depressed about their anxiety and depression. But this often does not serve us, and it definitely does not serve our children. Instead, we as parents want to be much more like the thermostat in our homes. I don't know about you, but there's a constant battle at our house. I am constantly turning our thermostat down or up depending on the season. I like it a little cooler in the summer. I like it a little hotter in the winter. And my husband likes to nudge it in the opposite direction to save and conserve energy and resources. I'm actually super curious to know if this same battle happens at your house too. So send me an email ([email protected]) or send me a message and let me know. Am I alone in this or does this battle happen at your house too? Either way, regardless of where that thermostat is set in your home, the whole house will work together to get to that temperature. So if it's hot outside and we have the temperature set to a cooler Temperature inside the home, then our air conditioning is going to kick on and it's going to blow. It's going to blow It's going to blow until the house gets to that cooler temperature, even though it's really hot outside. Likewise in the winter when it is cold outside and we set our thermostat to a higher temperature inside Our heater is going to kick on and it's going to blow that warm air throughout our house until the temperature reaches that thermostat temperature. The thermostat knows what temperature it is in the room right now, but it also knows what the goal temperature is so it's able to make adjustments in the behavior so that you can reach that goal temperature. And that is the kind of parent we want to be with our teenagers. Of course it's important for us to know what emotional temperature our teenagers are coming in at. Are they coming in hot, angry, and frustrated? Are they coming in cold, anxious, and worried? Are they coming in happy and bubbly? Are they coming in really excited about something? All of that is important information for us to know, but our job as the parent is to be the thermostat, to know their temperature and to know what temperature we're striving for in our home and to maintain that level so that they can match to our temperature instead of us matching to theirs. The reason this is so important is because our kids are wired from birth to co regulate their emotions to our emotions. This is why when your kid was little and they would fall and skin their knee, they would look over at you and before they reacted because they wanted to know, does mom think this is a problem or is mom okay with this? And based on your reaction, if you were like, “Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, are you okay?” Then they would freak out, right? But if you reacted and you were like, “Oh my goodness, look at you, you can stand right up, you're okay.” Then they would be like, Oh, no big deal, mom's okay with this, I must be okay, and I can keep on going. This comes in very handy during the teen years when our teenagers’ brains are under construction and they do not have fully developed ability to regulate their own emotions. That's why we talk about teenagers being constantly on that emotional rollercoaster because they don't have that fully developed skill of emotional regulation. So what they are learning to do is to look around them, at the people around them, and regulate their emotions. to yours, while your teenager probably would never admit it. When you can stay calm and consistent and stable in your emotional temperature, it helps them so much. It gives them a feeling of safety. It gives them a feeling of security. And the opposite is also true. When you freak out because they're freaking out, they think there's something wrong with freaking out. And they feel unsafe. They feel insecure. It is totally normal and natural for our teenagers to not be emotionally regulated. To feel like their emotions are kind of out of control. They're way up or they're way down. And so when we are the stable, consistent, emotionally regulated one, they feel safer with that. They don't feel like there's a problem with them. And your example of emotional regulation is actually what teaches your teenager how to bring their own emotions back into a regulated state when they experience those extreme highs and extreme lows. Again, there's nothing wrong with your teenager experiencing all of these emotions, but often when they're in those extreme highs and extreme lows, they feel out of control. They don't feel safe. So we want to teach them how to come back to an emotionally regulated state where they again feel in control. The greatest gift that you can give your teen is that of emotional stability from you. Of being the thermostat. Which means allowing them to experience all of their emotions and letting them know that that is okay by showing that you are okay even if they are at a higher or lower emotional temperature.And then we have to stay calm. We have to give them a goal, a destination, an emotional state that they are working toward. So how do we do it? How do we keep our own emotional temperature regulated when our teens are at those extreme highs and extreme lows? I want to share a couple of ideas with you that will help you become the thermostat in your home. The first thing you have to do is you have to get really good at emotions for yourself. You have to know how to come back from your own highs and lows into that emotionally regulated state. We are not always going to be emotionally regulated. So you've got to learn how to get yourself from that heightened emotion back to an emotionally regulated state. And if you don't know how to do that, that's okay. I have a free resource that you can download called Processing Your Emotions (https://client.jenbelltate.com/processingemotions), and it teaches you the process of really feeling and experiencing your emotions in a way that allows you to come back to that regulated state. I will link that in the show notes if you want to grab that resource. The next thing is that you've got to remember that your teenager's emotional temperature is not about you. It is created by their own thoughts and feelings about the things going on around them. Now you might be one of the things that That is contributing to the thoughts and feelings that they are having, but it is fully determined by their thoughts and their feelings. And so don't take it personally. If your teenager is having those highs and lows and directing them toward you, it's actually just their experience of being a teenager. And again, it is so normal and natural for them to experience these highs and lows. So. Make sure you're not taking it personally. You're not making their emotions about you and that will help you keep that calm regulated state. Now, one of my husband's biggest pet peeves is when our kids open their windows at night during the summer to like get that breeze in and then they don't close them in the morning because of course our thermostat is checking for the temperature in the house and the window being open is letting in all of this warm air, right? It's all coming into the room and it's making then the air conditioner work so much harder. So if you find yourself getting worked up and really starting to match your teenager's emotional state, whether high or low, you need to pause and find a way to close the window. Stop letting in the hot air, stop letting in the cold air that's making your air conditioning or your heating work so much harder to get that thermostat back to where it is. Sometimes this means you have to take a minute and take a break. One of my coach friends gave the greatest idea for this. She said, when you are feeling your emotions start to rise, say, I've got to go to the bathroom and that will give you a chance to escape, go to the bathroom, regulate your own emotions, go through that process of processing emotions. And then once you are calm, you can come back to your teenager who's in those heightened states and be more able to stay calm yourself. I hope these simple tips will help you so that you can become the thermostat in your home instead of constantly Having to match the highs and lows of your teenagers' emotions. If you want more help actually doing this in your home, I know sometimes it's easy to hear these concepts and think yes that makes so much sense. But if you want help actually doing it, I encourage you to join me inside of my ENJOY community where I can personally help you through Marco Polo coaching and through lots of other resources and trainings in there to be the thermostat in your home. https://client.jenbelltate.com/membership
