Photo by Isabella Christina on Unsplash
When our teens feel a certain emotion that we deem as negative, we want to help them escape the emotion.
We don’t like to see them feeling anxious, depressed, sad, lonely. We offer up suggestions or things that will help them feel better.
*I bought you this video game.
*Let’s go get ice cream.
*Why don’t you call a friend and go on a walk?
Or we try to convince them there are so many reason they shouldn’t be feeling that way.
*Nothing bad is going to happen. Put your shoes on and get in the car.
*Do you know how lucky/blessed you are. Let me tell you…
*You have a bad attitude, so just cheer up right now.
Emotions don’t have a timeline.
The only reason we want to hurry our children along to better feelings is because we think if they feel better then we will feel better. We don’t like seeing our children upset so we try to help them get happy so we can be happy.
Emotional health is being able to handle all the emotions that come. We can watch our children experience anxiety and allow the discomfort we feel because they are feeling anxiety. There is no need to rush them to a better feeling. In fact, in the rushing we might prolong the emotion.
Have you ever noticed that when you hold in an emotion and try to push it away that it expresses itself eventually in even bigger ways?
Let’s look at an example of this in action:
Spouse comes home late. (It bugs me but I don’t say anything.)
Spouse forgets to pay a bill. (It’s annoying, but I don’t say anything.)
Spouse turns the TV on when I’m trying to talk about something important. (I’m frustrated, but I don’t say anything.)
Spouse leaves wet towel on the bedroom floor. (I explode. I yell and rant and slam a door.)
I’ve been pushing the emotion away so many times that it finally erupts.
Similar things happen when we try to hurry along an emotion that our teen is feeling.
For example:
Teen is sad.
We give them our best speech about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and putting on a happy face.
Teen comes to dinner table with a smile on their face.
Teen does their chore without complaining.
We ask teen to hang their backpack on the hook and they burst into tears and run to their room.
We are left thinking, “What just happened?”
They weren’t allowed to experience sadness. They resisted it. Pushed it away. Then it erupted.
I’m not saying do nothing. You can receive personal revelation on how best to help your teen. I’m just suggesting you consider that allowing them to feel emotions that make us uncomfortable is okay. It’s human to feel the whole range of emotions.
I was talking with a client recently who thought she should have been over a break up by now. But she still was grieving the loss of the relationship. She was rushing her grief.
When we try to hide an emotion or minimalize it then it gets bigger. Some emotions may come and go in a matter of minutes. Others may last longer - a whole lot longer. Some may carry anxiety around their whole life. But it doesn’t have to be a problem.
Feeling emotions is just part of the human experience.
