The mood swings that teenagers experience are the stuff of legend; as adults looking back, it’s hard to believe that you felt so strongly about such trivial issues. Your teenager’s body is surging with hormones which makes them experience intense emotions. Unfortunately, most parents’ attempts to deal with their teen’s mood swings results in arguments and accusations. Read on for your guide to traversing your teen’s mood swings.
Be Patient
When your teen starts to act up, it is easy to want to jump straight to disciplining them. However, you need to exercise some patience. Remember that it is normal for teenagers to act this way; thanks to the increase in hormones, they aren’t totally in control of themselves. Being patient is the key to parenting teenagers. They need the time to work out how to recognize and deal with their emotions.
Encourage Communication
Instead of letting your teens deal with these feelings alone, you should be encouraging them to talk to you. Talk with your teen, help them to identify their feelings. Let them know that their feelings are valid and that they can talk about them with you. By talking to them about their feelings, you can help them to get to the bottom of why they are feeling this way.
Teach Them to Cope
Everyone has to learn how to cope with their emotions. It begins as children and continues long into adulthood. Over time the triggers for these emotions become more obvious, and you can come up with ways to control them. Your teen is still learning. Show them the methods that you use to cope, or teach them new ways. For example, encourage them to try meditative techniques that they can rely on the help them calm down whenever they need to.
Consider Their Lifestyle
Leading a healthy lifestyle can help to improve almost every aspect of your teen’s health, both physically and mentally. For example, eating bad foods can be detrimental to your teen’s mental health, making them feel more sluggish and prone to bad moods. Encourage them to eat more healthily instead. Make sure that they are getting more exercise too, the endorphins encourage a better mood and make their moods more stable overall.
Use Distractions
Often bad moods are made worse when you dwell on them. The best thing that you can do for your teen is to try and distract them from their bad moods. Do they have any interests that you can encourage them into further? Or any hobbies that you can take more of an interest in with them? A hobby can be used as a distraction and as a coping mechanism, and it may be something that your teen takes an interest in for the rest of their life.
In The End
Sometimes the best thing that you can do for your teen is to simply give them some space. Don’t crowd them, and don’t force the issue. Instead, allow them to come to you in their own time and offer the solutions then. Let them know that you are there for them, and they will come round.
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