Today we're getting into practical psychology for parents. How to help an angry teen?
Hi, I'm Dr. Paul Jenkins a clinical psychologist with about 30 years of experience now working
with teenagers. I know how their minds stick and I'm going to help you with that.
First, two things you need to know about the psychology and then I'll give you two practical
challenges that you can implement right away. Let's start with a practical understanding of
what anger is all about. In psychology, we like to refer to anger as a secondary emotion. What
does that mean? It means that you've experienced something else. First, something else is primary
and the anger manifests as a secondary emotion. The primary emotion is typically something like
disappointment or fear or loss or sadness. Those feelings sometimes get translated to anger
because we don't know what to do with the primary feeling. For teenagers especially this
can be really challenging. They're still reaching a level of emotional maturity that allows them to
process and deal with their emotions and it's a lot easier to just translate it over to anger.
Because anger is an active emotion. It's something that I can wrap my hands around and go
do something. Do you feel how anger is that activating emotion? What about disappointment? Not
sure what to do with that and this is where teens get stuck sometimes. That's why it's so common to
see that anger but it's also really important to notice how that impacts you. Because anger
triggers you this is a natural response that your brain will have. Anger looks dangerous
and there are parts of your brain that are built in to pick up on those threats
and actually secrete chemicals into your bloodstream that power up your body for what we
call the fight or flight response. I tell you what, if you ever feel like you need to fight your teen
or get away from them then probably you're experiencing the fight or flight response. Does
that make sense to you? It's important to notice that it's going on because your understanding and
awareness of that will put you in a position where you can actually start doing something about it.
In addition to a basic understanding of anger we need to have a basic understanding
of teen psychology. There's basically five things every parent of a teen needs to know there's a
video that you can click on to cue that up to watch next after you finish this video.
That will fill you in on the psychology and some practical strategies that you can begin to apply.
The short version is that they are still coming to terms with who they are and how they fit. It's
really common for teenagers to have feelings of insecurity or lack of confidence because they lack
some of the experience that they need to teach them these things and it's not that anything's
wrong with them necessarily. It just means that they're going through developmental processes. One
of the developmental tasks that teens are going through is this wrestle between their profound
desire to have autonomy and control over their life. They want to be the ones calling the shots
and that's in contrast with an equally profound sense of being inadequate or not good enough
or that they're lacking in the skills or the abilities that they need to actually do that. This
creates quite an internal conflict for your teen and sometimes that's going to manifest as anxiety.
Sometimes it's going to come out as depression and a lot of times we'll see it as anger. They
don't have enough experience yet to know exactly how to run their own life. But within the next few
years they need to develop those skills and that's why it's so important for you as a parent to be
there for them. Before I get to those challenges that I promised you take a moment to subscribe to
this channel and click the notification bell too. Because then you'll be notified every time we have
new content to support you as a parent. Now, let's get back to those challenges. Understanding what
you already know about anger and about teenage psychology it puts you in a better position to
show up differently for your teenager and this will make a difference for them as well. Remember,
this is not about you, this is about what they're going through and how it impacts you obviously.
It's really important in light of that to take care of yourself. Please do not defer
this responsibility to your teenager that's way too much of a burden for a teen to take care of
you emotionally. You need to do that. So, that leads us into the first challenge. Now I'm going to set
this up as a five-day challenge just take this on and see what happens. For each of the next five
days spend at least 10 minutes each day and by the way the time you spend watching these videos
counts. You spend at least 10 minutes each day on your own mental hygiene and personal development
and you can do that by any one of the following pick one of these. Number one watch another video.
We've already cued one up if you clicked that card earlier and you can click on the little eye
up there in the corner if you want to see that again. Pick some kind of a video that helps you
to improve how you're functioning as a parent. How you're doing personally. This is your personal
development it's your mental hygiene. What I'm trying to do is put you in a position
where you can be a more effective parent to your teenager. It's going to require that mental hygiene.
So that's one of the things you can do pick a video. Number two, listen to a podcast an audiobook.
Something that is geared toward personal development. You can plug in the little earbuds and
do this while you're working in the yard or while you're doing your exercise or workout routine.
Remember, your commitment or the challenge is that for five days in a row you spend at least
10 minutes doing that. Can you see how easy that's going to be if you've got something
queued up to listen to? The third idea is to spend at least 10 minutes in quiet meditation,
prayer, mindfulness, solitude. Something that allows you to clear some of the noise out of your head
and get reconnected to purpose and principle. This is a powerful practice. Now, you might choose to do
all three of those things. But the challenge is to pick at least one of those and spend 10
minutes each day for the next five days on your personal development or mental hygiene. Are you in?
Let's give it a try and see what happens. Here's your second challenge and this is where it comes
back to your teenager. This is the one where we focus on and show up for them in a very different
way. For the same five days do each of these three things for your teen. Number one, smile okay.
Bring that smile out. Changing this facial expression will do wonders toward changing the
energy of your interaction with your teen. You're going to see less anger you're going to feel
differently yourself as you enter that interaction. They'll probably wonder what you're up to at first
because as I often like to say when parents are smiling kids are thinking. It communicates a very
different level of confidence from you as a parent. The second thing you'll do every day
for the next five days is to express appreciation for something that they're already doing well. This
requires you to be on the lookout a little bit. You'll find things that they're already doing well.
I already know that your teenager is doing some things that you are absolutely pleased about. We
get distracted sometimes because we focus on the problems. I'm just asking you to shift the focus.
Find something they're already doing well and daily for five days, you express your appreciation
for that thing. Now it can be a different thing tomorrow than it is today that you're expressing
appreciation for. But you're gonna find something every day and the third thing that I want you to
do for this daily challenge for five days is to ask them a non-threatening non-judgmental
question. Now, what do I mean by non-threatening and non-judgmental? Okay, did you get that job done?
Is not the kind of question I'm talking about. Hey, what were you doing last night?
Not in that tone of voice that's threatening and judgmental. Do you hear that? It's going to
put them on the defensive. So I'm talking about the kind of question that can draw them out.
Hey, so what do you think about the team? You know, if they're following a favorite sports
team for example you're going to draw them out get them talking about something that they enjoy that
they're interested in. Tell me about is another good way to phrase this question. Hey, tell me
about that thing that happened last week, whatever it was. You have to monitor their activities and
know what's going on in their life in order to ask really good questions. Ask a non-threatening
non-judgmental question every day. So, the three things are smile, express appreciation
for something they're already doing well, and ask a non-judgmental non-threatening question. Hey, as you
take on those two challenges I think we're going to see some differences in the dynamics. Come back
and share what you've learned. If you'll come back to this video and go down to the comments down
below let's have some conversations. See, what's working and share that with each other. We've
also got that next video cued up for you so watch that when it's about the five things that every
parent of a teenager needs to know. I think you're going to enjoy that as well. I'll see you soon.