What you can do to stop the teenage meltdown

Below is a story of a parent I have worked with.

Maybe you can relate?...

She walks in the door, her heart pounding.

What will I do for dinner?

What do I have in the fridge?

What do I want?

What is quick?

I should have a meal plan, why don’t I have a meal plan, oh well I can’t think about that now.

She trips over as she walks through the kitchen.

Ahhh! Why can’t people put things away! They’re old enough now they could be cooking their own dinner.

Maybe I do too much for them?

“Kids! Come here right now I need you to unpack the dishwasher, help out around here and at least look after your own stuff.”

Silence. No one comes.

She runs upstairs and sees eyes glued to their phones.

She is frustrated but manages to calmly ask them to get off their phones and do what they have been asked to do.

One starts yelling “What mum, it’s not my turn do the dishwasher! You don’t understand what I am going through! I hate you! I hate you all” and slams the door into the bedroom.

She looks for the other child, he seems to have quietly escaped the gunfire of words into his room to continue what he was doing on his phone.

Alone again. Mum’s heart is pounding...

Do you relate to this scene?

This scenario is one I hear often from parents I work with.

I have worked with many parents to improve their teenager's emotional resilience and to create calm and connected households with teens that are able to get off their phones when they need to, calm themselves and do what they need to do (chores, homework, go to school).

The starting point is understanding why your teenager is behaving the way they do.