If a teenager has a sudden 'meltdown', parents very often struggle to understand why. It can seem as though it comes out of the blue: one minute, they’re fine – and the next it’s like you have a volcano to deal with!
There are two things to remember here:
During the teenage years the brain is undergoing radical change. Many of the existing neural connections are pruned away – especially those that are not being used. They’re also being replaced by new circuits, but this process continues until the mid-20s.
The skills that can be affected include:
Also, this is not a smooth linear journey. A teenager can behave like a mature adult on one occasion and then revert to tantrum-throwing on another. Also, their threat-detection mechanism is working fine, but the skills needed to regulate this are largely absent. This means that something a parent thinks is 'no big deal' can trigger a response from a teenager that seems out of all proportion.
There’s usually a trigger for the explosion, although a parent might struggle to put their finger on what it was. In parent-teenager situations, it’s often something a parent says or does, such as:
…or a combination of these.
A parent might say that they didn’t do anything different, but it’s important to think about the wider context. Things can happen both within the family and in the outside world that ‘set the scene’ or increase the likelihood of a confrontation. For the teenager, it could be:
For the parent, it might be:
Any of these, and especially a combination of these, can create a situation where everyone’s feeling at hair-trigger level and a meltdown is more likely to occur.
Here are some of the ways a parent can reduce both the frequency of these meltdowns, and the chances of them recurring:
WATCH OUT FOR HIGH-RISK SETTINGS AND EVENTS:
This means tuning in to your own state of mind, as well as your teenager’s.
BE CAREFUL HOW YOU RESPOND TO THE VOLCANO:
Teenagers will build the brain circuitry that helps them to self-regulate their emotions, if you show them how by being a good role-model.
If you can stay calm and resist the temptation to solve the problem, the in-built calming mechanisms all humans possess will gradually kick into gear although it may take longer for some teenagers than for others. After they have calmed down is the time to talk.
Teenagers need to learn to self-regulate for themselves. Parents must resist the urge to step in and do it for them. Creating a safe environment and providing a calm, empathic and non-judgmental response will help them to do this.