5 Ways To Support Your Teen During Crisis: An Expert Weighs In

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Our guest writer Kirsten Cobabe is a social worker and family coach who specializes in supporting adolescents and parents. Learn more about her at the bottom of this post.

Before we dive in, just know you are doing better than you think you are. Truly.

We are currently living in unprecedented and uncertain times. Teenagers are adjusting to this “new normal” during a very social and expressive stage of development. This adds another dimension to this already stressful and challenging experience and can make supporting your teen even harder.

Many parents feel confused at the best way to engage with their teen, especially if they are feeling overwhelmed themselves.

Many young people, along with adults, are missing their friends and their freedom as we social distance with our families. Some might be mourning the loss of graduation and social events, while others the loss of a loved one. It is all valid, even if someone has it “worse”. We are all grieving. In times like these, we may feel stretched, strained and tested.

However, in every conflict lies an opportunity for reflection, redemption, and renewal. We can get to a place even better than before.

Here are a few ways to support your teen during crisis:

1. Stay Present.

Before you roll your eyes, hear me out. Presence isn’t about perfection, it’s simply about awareness of what is. This is how we check in with ourselves — a skill so needed right now. Even if you have mountains of laundry and are juggling a million things, finding time to be present is truly essential. Presence doesn’t mean a false sense of hope or pretending there isn’t trauma unfolding before our eyes. But it might mean carving new pathways to deal with our realities. And you already are, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Humans are adaptable. Many of us have watched the world around us (and our parents during our own childhoods) run from discomfort, trying to avoid pain. Presence doesn’t mean you always need to be “on” but it does mean we need to learn how to sit in the discomfort of uncertainty and accept this moment.

Practice: If your teenager is struggling, observe the culture at home. Is there something in the environment that could be adjusted to support them? Notice if you are binge watching the news or feeling overwhelming emotions. If so, your teenager may embody this by mirroring similar emotions and fears, or you might observe them trying to find space from it by spending time in their room or on technology. Supporting your teen starts with noticing how they’re coping.

Try to steer clear of blaming yourself or your teenager and realize that we are all doing the best we can while simultaneously growing.

2. Offer Validation.

Offer authentic validation for your teenager’s experience, no matter what it is. Just like you, your teen needs to feel seen and heard. If you can remain present, really listen, and validate while radically accepting what is, you are more likely to observe positive and powerful changes in your home. Validation is often seen as enabling, but this is only because someone told you this when you were young. At some point you weren’t allowed to have your big feelings, so you adjusted. Now you might find yourself repeating this pattern. It’s okay and we are outgrowing this parenting style because it isn’t sustainable or effective.

Know that you are allowed to do things differently and step off the paved path of the old parenting paradigm.

Practice: Use their language. If they are swearing, try responding by saying, “Ugh, no wonder you’re pissed.” If they are frustrated with being at home and away from their friends, try saying “I hear that missing school means missing your friends…that is so hard.” When they express life isn’t fair and today sucks, try saying “Yeah, today was really sucky. I am here if you want to talk.” Feel free to add “You can stay in your room as long as you need to, just know I am here to listen if you want to share.”

It’s important to follow through with your words, so if they come to you to talk, your only job is to listen. And if they need space, it’s important to honor this. Take off your parenting hat for a moment and imagine they are your best friend having a really horrible day.

3. Get Curious.

If your teenager is struggling, get curious instead of trying to fix it. This can support your child in learning how to feel their emotions and process their experience, eventually finding their own resolution with your (or another trusted adult’s) compassionate guidance. There are some situations such as suicidal thoughts and behaviors or broken bones that require immediate medical or professional services, but what I am talking about is the day-to-day communications with one another.

How can you cultivate an environment that is full of wonder right now? Can you embrace both the tragedy and the opportunity that we are collectively facing?

Practice:  What better time to engage our curiosity than now? Ask your teenager for insight on something, for their advice. Ask them to help create new house rules. Teenagers are allergic to control, partial presence, and inauthenticity. Mutual respect and authentic engagement are the missing links. We cannot expect teenagers to want to spend time with us if we are policing them and ordering them to do things. This is the recipe for a distant and strained relationship. If your teenager is asking you for advice, rather than offering your opinion, guide them into finding their own resolution, with you by their side.

If your teenager doesn’t want to talk, instead of taking it personally, consider how you can get curious. Curiosity has the ability to bring us back into our compassionate heart.

4. On Being Right.

When we are presented with the opportunity of being right or being kind, many of us want to choose being kind. However in real life conflict, things don’t always unfold like this. When we are stressed, our breath and our thoughts are strained. This often leads us to fall back on old patterns that are in need of an update: Think about “because I said so” statements.

Practice: If this sounds like you, just breathe and stay open to learning new methods of communication and connection. This is where a coaching session might come in handy — sometimes we all need a little help. For those of you who have an especially defiant teenager and you aren’t sure how to manage enforcing the new rules for this new world, I recently found an amazing article that dives into this exact topic. Check out what to do and what to say here.

Don’t be afraid to start new patterns. A little time learning something new now can save you loads of time, tears and stress later.

5. Have Fun.

Even if all of your worst thoughts come true, worrying will not necessarily change them. Plus, research shows enjoying ourselves and our relationships supports our overall health and well-being. Continue to follow the safety protocols encouraged by experts and officials and within these guidelines. But…

Where can you have some fun?

Practice: How can you join your teen in playing their favorite video games? Or making videos for TikTok? Or helping them to learn a skill they’ve always been interested in but never had the time for until now? I have yet to meet a person where there wasn’t a way to connect, even if it’s about how awful the world is and that there’s no point in any of it. If that’s your teen, find a way to connect with them about this. Supporting your teen can actually be fun. Promise!

We tend to believe that if we ignore that hard stuff, it will go away, but it only makes it stronger.

Ways to support your teen during crisisIf the old ways of supporting your teen were working, they’d be working. This is one of the primary reasons I encourage outside of the box parenting; we aren’t meant to be in boxes.

We are forever evolving and this time right now is especially full of opportunity to reconnect to what is important and those we love most. Remember, you and your teen are on the same team. You truly can be the best teammate they’ve ever known as you find new ways to support your teen during crisis.

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Kirsten Cobabe is a social worker and family coach who specializes in supporting adolescents and parents. For more information or to connect with Kirsten, visit www.raisingunicorns.co or www.kirstencobabe.com or connect with her on social media @kirstencobabe

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