Episode 98: Transforming Teen Turmoil: A Parent’s Guide to Emotional Harmony

Are you finding the emotional rollercoaster of parenting a teen more intense than expected? You're not alone. Join Pam Godbois, your guide to navigating the stormy seas of adolescence with grace and confidence. In this transformative episode of the *Peaceful Home Podcast*, we delve into the heart of teen emotions, offering you a science-backed lifeline. 

Here's what you'll discover:

• The Teen Brain Unveiled: Understand why your teen's emotions seem so overwhelming and how their brain development impacts their behavior.
• Bridging the Emotional Gap: Learn to apply mindfulness and co-regulation techniques that bring you and your teen closer, reducing stress and enhancing understanding.
• Resilience Through Routine: Explore practical strategies to help your adolescent build resilience, establish healthy boundaries, and find balance amidst chaos.
• Active Solutions for Emotional Overload: Discover physical outlets and coping mechanisms like journaling and visualization to guide your teen toward emotional awareness and self-care.
• The Power of Modeling: See how your behavior in modeling self-compassion, emotional regulation, and active listening sets the foundation for your teen's emotional health.

By the end of this episode, you'll walk away with a toolkit filled with strategies to help your teen manage their emotions effectively while fostering a nurturing and supportive home environment. 

Ready to transform your parenting experience and help your teen thrive emotionally? Dive into the episode now, and see the difference these approaches can make. Have insights or questions? Share them with us! Send a direct message or leave a comment below. Your journey to a more peaceful home starts here.

🔗 Seeking personalized support? Book a discovery call: askparentingtherapist@gmail.com

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Follow along for more insights and support:

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Facebook: @pamgodboiscoaching

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As Mentioned in this Episode - Check out Living CALM, a resource for moms on this journey to healing and raising compassionate & confident kids. 

The best thing you can do for yourself and your kids is effectively regulate your nervous system. And a great place to start >> to wire the brain for gratitude. Research tells us that gratitude increases happiness and a peaceful mindset. Make the shift and watch how things in your life start to change. Sign up today! www.pamgodbois.com/gratitude

Transcript

Pamela: 0:00

Welcome back to the peaceful home podcast. My name is Pam Godbois, and I am your host. And today we're diving in to the whirlwind world of teenage emotions. If you've ever wondered why your adolescent can go from calm. Take chaotic in a heartbeat, your in the right place. The truth is the adolescent brain is still developing, which means managing intense feelings like stress. Anger and sadness isn't easy for them or for you. In this episode, we'll explore powerful science-backed strategies to help your team regulate their emotions, build resilience, and ultimately find more balance. So join us as we unpack the tools that you need to support your adolescents emotional journey. Let's dive in. Regulating the emotional center of the brain is a challenge for us. As fully formed adults. And to be honest. It's something that you have to learn how to do. And most millennial adults did not learn from their parents how to do this. It's just not how things were done in the eighties and nineties. The focus of parenting was on keeping a roof over your head. Uh, food on the table includes on your back. And if your parents were able to pull that off, they consider themselves successful. But here's the thing. That is not really enough in today's world. And I get it. There are lots of parents that say, we need to go back to the way things were, but we can't go back. We can only go forward and hopefully. Look to learn from our past experiences. And what we have learned in the world of mental and emotional health. Is that a lack of focusing on meeting our needs? Our emotional needs has made things really tough for us. We're in a mental health crisis, an opiate epidemic and a time where it's almost normal to treat other people badly. Bullying is at an all time high and our kids need us. To do better for them. Adolescence is a period of intense emotional experiences. And this is partly due to the ongoing development of the brain. The prefrontal cortex that. Part of the brain right underneath your forehead, which is responsible for impulse control and rational thinking. Is still maturing. While the amygdala. Which is what I often called the smoke detector. It's responsible for processing your emotions for letting you know, Hey, is there an issue here? And in adolescence, it's almost overactive. It's like on overdrive. It's constantly looking for. Risk. This imbalance often results in what we call heightened emotional responses in difficulty in controlling impulses. AKA your adolescents freaking out, melting down, yelling at you, yelling at their siblings, hiding in their room, crying hysterically because they can't find the sweater that they want to wear. And making really poor or impulsive decisions. And understanding that these are in fact neurologically based. Can help us. To hold it together. And respond with empathy rather than frustration. And if you've ever had an experience with your kid where they've snapped off for you, when they've had an attitude where they've acted disrespectfully, And you snap back. That's not you regulating your self. So if we recognize that it's a challenge for all of us, let's step into this path with compassion for you and for them. And see if we can find a middle ground. That is going to help to meet their emotional needs, help you help your children, regulate their emotions. And maybe just get a little bit more practice at regulating yourself. And here's the thing. Adolescents are facing a lot of stressors. Including academics. So whatever academic pressure that is, maybe that's more challenging schoolwork. Maybe they're moving into high school and taking honors classes. Maybe they're starting to look at. Their career path and they have no idea what they want to do, not to mention social expectations and extracurricular activities. And in the midst, all of this identity development. Figuring out who they are at their core, what are their core values? Who do they want to be? How do they want to show up in the world? All of that is developing during adolescence and that in and of itself. Is a freaking full-time job. All of this. Can contribute to emotional overwhelm. If our adolescents are not developing strategies to manage this overwhelm. They're getting kicked into states of chronic stress where their brain starts to activate the fight or flight response, or at the very least a chronic stress response, which starts to seep into their bodies. Right. It starts to show up physically for them. So maybe you have a kid that. Gets headaches or stomach aches. Maybe you have a kid, an adolescent. Who's got an auto-immune disease already. This chronic stress and this shift into the fight or flight response. Makes it difficult for them to access. Reason. To calm themselves down when stress is high. And remember that fight, fight or flight is a survival response. And you can't reason with survival. There's no language in this place of survival. There's no choosing. And I'm sure you've seen this in your child where they are, and they're so overwhelmed. They can't even choose between a or B. They can't even choose what they need from you. These are the times where we teach them to get into their body. And sometimes we do this by hugging, right? Sometimes we'll say, do you want to hug? That's what happens in my household? When my daughter, I can see it. She starts to kick over into that overwhelm. And I get really calm. I take a breath of myself and ground myself, and I say, Do you need a hug? And her immediate response is always yes, tears. Give her a hug. And we're able to ground together. This is the practice of co-regulation. That's what that is. You've heard me talk about it before. That's what co-regulation is. But teaching our teens. How to identify and manage their stress can help them gain a better grasp on effectively regulating their emotions. And making choices, healthy decisions in life. So this is why this information and this work that we're doing here is so important. And there are two main categories that I like to focus on that I like to use. Because they're both research based. We have a lot of science that backs both of these. The first is mindfulness practices. These are practices that actually strengthen the area of the brain. That helps them to control impulses. It helps them with decision-making and self-management. And when they become adept at mindfulness, the brain starts to rewire. And adolescents get better at regulating their responses and making thoughtful decisions even when they are stressed. So this is one of those a little bit each day. A little more, a little more, a little more. It starts to wire the brain in a way that they can better manage on a day-to-day basis. Mindfulness is also known to improve self-awareness and self-esteem. Which is a key concept in understanding and managing their emotions rather than being controlled by their emotions, which is the first half of emotional intelligence, right. Understanding, recognizing and managing your emotions. Is part one of emotional intelligence. The second category. Is where I kind of lump all those other practices that are evidence-based. And these are all calming practices that are responsible for activating the vagus nerve. So these are kind of Vegas nerve calming or activation practices. And this includes things like breath work. Tapping. Connecting with nature, vegal toning exercises. And then there's also some somatic practices that we do here that can activate the Vegas nerve as well. All of this stuff. I teach in depth extensively inside the living calm program. And all of these practices. Activate the rest and digest response in the brain. Reducing cortisol. And boosting resilience for both you and your adolescents. So what can you do as mom to help them on this journey? Well, You can start by being their calm anchor during stormy moments. What the heck does that mean? When your teens experience a heightened, emotional response. Or big feelings. Model calmness. Instead of mirroring their emotional state. It's very easy to fall into mirroring the person across the table from you. Especially if you were a mom with ADHD. Your survival instincts are going to tell you to mirror. You have to break through those survival instincts. And be the state of calm that your child can mirror back to you. Remaining grounded in your response helps them to co-regulate their emotions with your emotions, making it easier for them to deescalate. Now here's the really cool thing about co-regulation. It does not have to happen with someone. That even knows you. There have been times. Or I've been in presentations or meetings or doing work or have been in like really heated school board meetings. Where I've had someone that's really, really anxious around me. And I just really focus on staying calm and grounded and moving the energy down through my feet. As I'm taking everything in. And I become the anchor of a calm anchor in that person's storm. You can do it with anyone. When you can stay calm. You can be an anchor and help them to co-regulate. And you get to respond with empathy and calm statements. Like I can see you're really upset. I'm here. If you want to talk, right, you can use your words as well to support them on this journey. Of co-regulation. Another way that you can help your child. Our adolescent. To learn how to regulate, to support their regulation journeys by setting boundaries. In a clear and consistent way. Now, again, most of us did not learn how to set boundaries early in life. And if you can model setting boundaries, holding boundaries with compassion. And. Allowing your child to do the same and respecting their boundaries. That goes a long way. Because setting boundaries is a vital part of teaching emotional regulation. When you can maintain consistent boundaries, calmly. Your providing your teen with a clear structure. That supports emotional safety, right? This is about attachment. Then you get to go on and explain boundaries in a way that focus on the emotional or relational impact and your why, why you're setting the boundary, why you need this from them now. Now, this is not how you set boundaries with a five-year-old. But it is how you set boundaries with a 13 year old. So you might say something like I'm asking you to speak calmly because it helps me to understand you better and it makes it easier for us to work together. Or I really want to meet your needs, but I'm having a difficult time understanding what those needs are. Can we take a deep breath together? And then try again? Another way is to help your teen find physical outlets for emotional release. Remember I said, some of these things are going to be somatic. Somatic healing is about physically feeling and being in your body. And. Regulating from that place. So this could look like encouraging, just regular physical activity. Maybe your kid plays sports. Maybe it's taking a walk. My daughter has recently taken up running. It might be practicing yoga. Physical activity has proven to reduce cortisol, improve moods and helps your teen to release any sort of pent up energy or stress. But it's important that you talk about it, that you're not just sending them off to sports and going, oh, this will work. Talk about moving your body as a coping mechanism for dealing with stress. Talk about your experiences, tell them about how you take walks or do yoga. To manage your own stress, to calm your head down through the use of your body. When thinking about, or trying to clear out the struggling or difficult thoughts is not working. It could be something as simple as saying I've had a really busy day. I'm stressed and overwhelmed. I have a lot of my mind on my mind. I need to go practice yoga for 20 minutes just to move my body and try to move some of the stuck energy. I need to go for a quick run or go for a bike ride or go to the gym or whatever it is that you do to move your body to help regulate. You're modeling all the time. So talking as your kids get older, really talking to them about why you're doing what you're doing. And then trying to incorporate physical activity or physical outlets into your weekly routines as a family, it can be something as simple as taking a family hike on Sunday afternoons or taking a walk together in the evening, allowing you both time to unwind. And connect. And finally modeling self-compassion and self-care. This one gets overlooked all the time by moms. We go, ah, yeah, I know. I need to take care of myself, but it's fine. The thing is your adolescent, especially your adolescent daughter is watching you and our kids at all ages and stages and regardless of gender and identity and where they are in their growth process. They are learning more by what you do. Then what you say or what you teach them. What you do matters the most and research is telling us this. That our kids are looking to us and they're modeling their actions, their behaviors, and how they're showing up for people based on how we do it. So if you're somebody that's screwed up until this point, I E you don't take care of yourself very well. Start talking about that. Start talking about that as a flaw, as something that you're trying to fix, speak through it and say like, I know that in the past I've allowed the stress or I've put other people's needs before my own. I'm making a conscious choice because it's really important for me and for you that I make that I do this work. I'm making a conscious choice to do this differently. So showing your teens how to be kind to themselves by modeling that self-compassion. Like I said, when you make a mistake, Own it. And then practice forgiveness. Be able to say like I'm human it's okay. That I'm not perfect. So some of these might be conversations you're having with yourself. Some of them are conversations you're having. With your preteen, your teenager. And encourage them to practice self care as a way to take care of their emotional health to two. For example, taking breaks, asking for space, engaging in an activity they enjoy. Right. So my child comes home and she's been really busy. She's got lots of things on our plate right now. And I've been saying to her, Hey, when you get home, you need to get that. Violin. The thing that you're doing, you need to get practiced on that you need to get working on your forms and everything. You have karate testing for a second degree, black belt in a few weeks. Uh, you have homework, you have all these other things going on, right? She has a cupcake business. I'm like, I need that menu so that I can get the email sent out for Thanksgiving. And she is one that she'll go. Yup. Yeah. Yeah. I need to take 30 minutes when I come home to decompress. Please don't talk to me. I'm like, okay. All right. Noted. And that's because it's something that I've taught her that it's important that she takes time for herself and make space for herself. So that whole conversation around boundaries. If your child is saying, I need 20 minutes. I need time to myself. I need some space. It's important that you respect that. It's okay to say, Hey, I want to give you this space right now. We need to do this first. And then that space can come after that. It's okay to negotiate and have those conversations, but it's important to have the conversations to speak it out loud and to recognize that you're offering them the space. When you're able to do so. Next up is five different strategies that you can use. Or exercises that you can use to help your child regulate their emotions. The very first one, which is the most important, important, and you can start teaching this at a very young age. Is called name it. To tame it. And this is all about naming what they're feeling, right. It's using the logical brain to put a label on their feelings. This is why having feelings, wheels, and. Uh, feelings, charts and whatever other things that help them identify what they're feeling, words that are deaf. I. What they're feeling is so valuable. When they're experiencing strong emotions, encourage them to identify what that emotion is. What is the feeling? So. You might notice they might have a difficult time labeling it. You can say, are you feeling angry? Okay, great. So just say I'm feeling angry. I'm really stressed at the moment. I'm overwhelmed or I'm worried about this test or this project that I have do. Moms have the ability to model this by labeling their own emotions. Openly. Like I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all. That's on my plate right now. It's okay to go from there and say, can you help me? Right. You're modeling, asking for help as well. But this exercise is really about teaching them how to label their feelings. Ask them the question, how are you feeling? And if they say, I don't know, say, can I help you label your feelings? What this does is it takes away the emotions, power. And it helps to calm the amygdala down. The amygdala is no longer in a state of like, oh my God, I. I don't know what's going on. It's like, oh, that's anxiety. Okay. We've felt that before. All right. We're okay. We're we got this, we got this right. When you put a name on a feeling, it reduces the intensity and helps the brain find ways to manage that emotion more effectively. And this process engages the prefrontal cortex, that area of the brain where logic lives and allows them to find a calmer. Response. Right. So that's. Step one. The next strategy is just a breathing exercise. This is all about the pause and brief. These are the steps. Your teen is experiencing some emotions they're activated. They're irritated. The emotions are getting high. They want to calm down. When they feel. A strong emotion, encourage them to stop what they're doing. Like just step back from what they're doing. Take a deep breath and count slowly to four, as they inhale. Hold for a count of four. And exhale for a count of four and repeated a few times. This is a mindful breathing exercise. So it didn't combines those two categories that I was talking about earlier. And it lowers their stress response. It actually activates the vagus nerve and starts to move them into that. Rest and digest that calmer, more controlled. Place. It's very simple. Identify that you're stressed. Pause and step back. Breathe. In for four hold for four. Out for four. Do it three, four or five times. Then step back into what you're doing. The third exercise I like to use is a visualization for emotional regulation. And this helps your teen and your adolescent practice. Shifting my focus away from what's overwhelming them. And using positive imagery. So you're simply going to guide your kiddo through a simple visualization. When they feel stressed or angry, I'm going to give you an example here. Inside living calm. I actually give your kids a script to be able to write their own visualization. But this is a real quick way to do it. Ask them to close their eyes and picture a place where they feel calm and happy. Maybe it's the beach. Favorite spot in nature in their room. You can ask them, what is the spot? And then encourage them to imagine the sites. The sounds the smell. What do they feel? Right. The sense of touch. Allowing them to be fully immersed in themselves for just a moment or two. This shifts, focus away from their emotional state, reduces the stress level and then gives them a sense of calm by using the five senses. In this case, the four senses. Unless they're also, their imagery is, uh, eating something, right. That's the fifth census taste. So strategy number four that I like to use is a physical reset. This is a Somatic practice. When we have a lot like of energy, Kind of stored up we're feeling anxious, angry, overwhelmed. And we want to kind of clear it out. You see this sometimes, like if you've been cooped up in the inside or have your kids been sick and now they're healthy and they're like climbing the walls and you just say, go outside and run around the house a few times. What you're doing here is simply suggesting physical activity. It could be going for a walk. It could be jumping jacks. It could be shaking out their body. It could be throwing on a song, a favorite song of theirs and having them just dance like wildly for. The length of the song. Literally, what you're doing in this case is resetting the nervous system through movement of the body. Bilateral stimulation. Physically move. It releases endorphins. It stimulates the nervous system on both sides. It reduces stress. It allows your teen to channel. Their emotional energy constructively. And gives them the opportunity to ground. So a real simple one, a physical reset. And exercise number five is journaling. I always use journaling with adolescents. Always. And give them the opportunity. Some, some kids say I'm good. I don't want to write some kids say, I definitely want to write. This is because we're trying to help them figure out how do they process? Some of us are verbal processor. Some of us need to write it out. There's lots of different ways that we process through the, what we're feeling. So giving them another avenue. So if you have a kid that you say what's going on, how are you feeling? You know, how can I help you, blah, blah, blah. And they just they're like, oh, I don't know. Uh, And they can't come up with. Oh, I can't talk it through with you. Journaling might be their secret. Secret tool that they need. So encouraging your kiddo. To spend a few minutes each day. Journaling their thoughts and feelings. And then ask them to answer questions like. What made you feel upset today and why? How did you respond to it? Could you have reacted differently, right? So. Putting together a list of questions. That they can use. On a daily basis to just write about. Getting more aware, getting curious. So journaling increases emotional self-awareness and helps them. Recognize patterns and their behavior over time, this practice strengthens emotional resilience and teaches them how to manage. Similar situations in the future. Cause they've already written it down. They've already said. I did this this way. I would like to try it a different way. They have it written down. They can go back to it. And reflect on it and then try to different way and see what works. Journaling is an amazing tool. It's amazing for our kiddos. It's amazing for us. And I will throw you out at the end of our, of this episode. A self-reflection. Prompt for you and for your adolescent. So stick around. And there are a couple of things that you can do with your adolescent that will help both you and them and the processes of self-regulation. So if you're like, Ooh, I would love to be able to co-regulate with them, but I'm really struggling myself with regulation right now for one reason or another. And I will just say there's lots going on in the world. There's lots going on. Astrologically. I have a friend who's an astrologist and like from planetary perspective, there's lots going on. There's lots going on in our culture. There's lots going on with our kids, with us. It's a stressful time. It's even if you're like, I'm normally so good at X, Y, Z, you might right now not be so good at XYZ. It's totally fine. No judgment here. Right? All love. Here's three things that you can do to practice. Mindfulness a little bit more with your kid out with your adolescent. The first is by practicing, breathing together, taking a few minutes. Of mindful breathing together. It's gonna be really powerful for bonding and you're modeling emotional regulation. So maybe you just turn on a quick like meditation app or guided meditation and you sit and focus together on the ground, on the couch, just focusing on your breath. And just kind of being and breathing. It's important to set aside time when you can both sit comfortably and practice to breathe together. Not when things are chaotic. During stressful times, you can use this shared tool to bring calm to the whole household, creating a habit of mindful breathing as a go-to response for emotional situations. So maybe you're in conflict, but you've been practicing, breathing together and you're now fighting about something and you say, Hey, you know what? Before we go any further. Before we do any damage. Let's just take two minutes. Like we've been practicing and just breathe together. See if we can sync our breath. Right. Let's sit across from each other. I like to sit across from my my teenager and we'll sit like, cross-legged need a knee. And we'll just sit and breathe and I'll see if I can like, feel her. Her breath or her, the rhythm of her breath, the rate of her breath. And she'll do the same. We'll see if we can kind of sync it up. You can also do that back to back. If you're, if you have less experience at this. Back-to-back sometimes works really well because you can feel the breath moving, need a knee you're connected, but you can't, you're not feeling the torso. So it's a great way to kind of practice that. Another one is like an emotional check-in. Creating a habit of checking in emotionally each day. And asking each other, some simple questions, like, how are you feeling today? So this is not just. One sided. This is not just you check in with them. That's great do that, but this is actually a practice that you would do with your adolescent. How are you feeling today? How was your day today? What did you notice? What went really well. Was there anything stressful or exciting that happened, right. We're just kind of posing these questions and walking through them. Practicing. These check-ins regularly builds emotional awareness and strengthens a habit of talking openly about feelings. And as mom, you can model active listening. Which TC teaches your teen, how to communicate and share in a safe space. And then finally gratitude practices for perspective. Now, if you listened to last week's episode, it's all about gratitude. So if you want more ideas go there, but encouraging grabs, you can help your teen shift their focus from stress to appreciation, helping them adopt a more balanced perspective. Right? So maybe it's each evening taking turns sharing. One thing that you're grateful for. Or one positive moment each day, the simple practice can help you. Your spouse, your kids become more resilient. Learn to focus on the good. Versus the challenging and develop a more positive outlook. Okay, so one journaling prompt or self-reflection journaling prompt for each of you. Your journaling prompt for this week. Are there situations where I tend to mirror my teens emotions. How can I stay grounded and model emotional regulation? So the question you're getting at is, are there times where. What my teen is experiencing overtakes my own ability to manage my emotions. And what can I do to stay grounded in those times? A journaling prompt for your adolescent. What emotions do I find the hardest to manage? And why do I think they're so challenging? So those are our promise for this week. If you love the prompts, let me know. I'm going to start adding them in regularly. So if you're loving journaling prompts, let me know. I will add more of them. Thank you guys so much for being here. If you want to do more of this work, if you're thinking, you know what, this is the kind of work that I want to be doing. I want to be doing it myself. I want to be helping my. Adolescent with this work as well. Living calm is the place for you. This is what we do there. And right now, if you join us, you get the opportunity to jump in. Live with me. To do some of this work on a weekly basis. So check out the link in the show notes. I would love to see you inside living calm and thank you so much for being here. And we will see you again next week. Take care.