Adolescence is a challenging time for teens. They undergo physical, emotional, and mental changes that can be overwhelming to manage. During this time, teens also carry the weight of their parents’ expectations on their shoulders. They are expected to behave like adults while still being told what to do. It can be very confusing to be a teenager. Teenagers who cannot handle complex emotions may begin overreacting to situations.
An overreaction or meltdown is an involuntary reaction that leads to a nervous system overload. The reaction is usually disproportionate to the problem. Overreactions are generally an emotional response to a current trigger and a reaction to a prior trigger or painful memory from their past that is unresolved. Think of it as reacting to the current problem, with the prior problem piled on top. Their feelings get out of control when this happens, and an outburst ensues. It can be distressing for any parent to watch their teen overreact to certain situations or problems.
This article aims to help parents understand how to manage their teen’s meltdowns or overreactions and when to seek professional help. However, if you are looking for help now, contact NexStep Teen Academy. Our team can provide you with the expert insight you need to make an informed treatment decision.
Identifying Emotional Overreaction Triggers
Several factors can cause your teen’s emotional overreaction. These factors may be external or internal. Parents need to recognize common triggers to try and prevent future overreactions. These triggers include the following:
External Stressors
Teenagers live in a dynamic world where they face various challenges. At school, your teen may face mounting academic pressure that may be overwhelming. A lot is expected of your teen when they are at school. They are expected to perform well in their academics and extracurricular activities. This pressure may be too much for many teens to bear.
Your teen’s social life may also contribute to an overreaction. If your teen experiences conflict with friends, they may be unable to regulate their emotions properly. The fear of losing their friends may make them clingy and overreact to situations.
Family disagreements may also cause your teen to have an emotional overreaction. They may feel misunderstood or caught in a fight that is not their fault. This feeling can cause them to overreact as they think it is unfair for them to walk around on eggshells all day.
Internal Factors
As teens grow, they start producing hormones that affect their moods. Fluctuations in hormones may cause your teen to be irritable and unable to process their feelings correctly. As a result, they may overreact when they face a small inconvenience.
Difficult emotions such as romantic feelings or loss can make your teen overreact to problems. Even as adults, it is hard to process loss or betrayal. Imagine what it is like for your teen to experience these complicated emotions for the first time.
Strategies for Managing Teen Emotional Overreactions
As a parent, it can be distressing to watch your teen have an emotional meltdown. If your teen is having an emotional overreaction, there are several things you can do to help them feel better, including:
Immediate De-Escalation of The Situation
Parents are encouraged to de-escalate the situation when their teen has an emotional overreaction. This can be done in several ways. First, speak to your teen in a compassionate and empathetic way. Show them that you love and support them regardless of the current circumstances. Feeling seen, heard, and supported can help teens regulate their emotions better.
Second, always remember to stay calm and collected. If you let your emotions run high by raising your voice, you will cause the situation to escalate further. Remaining calm diffuses the situation and allows your teen to model their behavior to reflect yours. When you stay calm, your teen can observe how they are supposed to behave when faced with a difficult situation.
Third, validate your teen’s feelings. Although you know that your teen might be overreacting, it is vital that you validate their feelings. Tell them you understand how they feel and that there is nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed. An underlying issue may cause your teen’s overreaction. When you validate their emotions, they know they can count on you to help them through their struggles.
Timeout and Space Creation
Create space for your teen to feel emotional. Do not force them to remain in a place where they feel uncomfortable. As a parent or guardian, you should remove your teen from the triggering situation to help them regulate their emotions. Giving teens space and time to process their feelings allows them to reflect on their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Open and Effective Communication
When your teen has an emotional overreaction, they yell or shout rather than verbalize their problems. As a parent, you should encourage your teen to communicate their issues effectively. First, you need to calm them down. Secondly, ask them about their feelings. Use open-ended questions to give them the chance to express themselves fully. Yes or no questions limit your teen’s expression by providing them with few options.
As they express their feelings, listen attentively without interrupting them. Validate their feelings and repeat what they said to avoid miscommunication. Once you are on the same page, collaboratively solve the problem. Offer them insight into how you would have solved the problem if you were in their shoes. Remember that sometimes your teen just needs to vent. Let them talk about their concerns; if they require solutions, help them with problem-solving.
Reappraisal
If your teen has an emotional overreaction, it is important to reappraise them about the situation. It involves reframing their negative thoughts into more positive ones. For example, if they overreact to failing to buy their favorite artist’s ticket, you can help them put a positive spin on that situation. They can think about something else they could have used the money on and focus on acquiring it.
Reappraisal helps teens to understand that always reacting negatively to situations is not helpful. According to research, teens who reappraise themselves of the problem have less anxiety and depression.
Role of Parents and Guardians in The Long-Term Management of Teen Emotional Overreactions
Apart from immediate management of emotional overreactions, parents and guardians play a key role in long-term emotional regulation. Some strategies you can use to help your teen include the following:
Providing Emotional Support and Understanding
A supportive environment can be the difference between worsening or improving mental health conditions. The importance of love and support in a teen’s life cannot be understated. Supporting your teen is not about enabling their negative behavior but understanding it. As a parent, you should foster a supportive environment where your teen can freely express themselves without fear or judgment. You should remember that teens acquire emotional regulation techniques that will help improve their overreactions as they age.
Fostering Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Your teen’s overreaction may stem from lacking an outlet for complicated relationships. As a parent, you should encourage your teen to find healthy coping mechanisms. The best example of a healthy coping mechanism is physical exercise. When teens exercise, their bodies release endorphins, which help regulate their emotions. Endorphins stabilize one’s mood and help teens clear their minds. Encouraging your teen to have an outlet for their feelings will prevent future overreactions.
Modeling Positive Behavior
Teens learn through observation. They pick up on how their family members resolve conflicts or react to certain negative stimuli. If you want your teen to stop overreacting, you should model positivity in them. Whenever you are faced with a tough situation, react appropriately so that your teen can learn how to respond when faced with a similar situation.
Teach your teen patience and how to regulate their emotions. These life lessons will help them as they age and face stressful situations.
Treatment Options for Teen Emotional Overreactions
Let’s take a look at some of the most common forms of teen mental health treatment and how they can help with your situation.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is one of the most effective evidence-based treatments out there. It is based on the idea that thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are connected. By teaching teens to think differently, their behavior changes. Teens who overreact struggle with distorted thoughts. CBT helps them to reframe their thoughts and think more positively.
One hallmark of CBT is that it challenges your teen to defend their distorted thoughts. For example, if your teen tends to assume the worst, they will be asked for evidence that supports their thinking pattern. CBT is crucial in helping teens see their actions from a different perspective.
It used three main methods to help teens who overreact, including:
Cognitive Restructuring: This skill allows teens to reframe their negative thoughts and repackage them into more positive ones. Distorted or negative thoughts affect how teens react to stimuli. By assisting teens in identifying and isolating these negative thought patterns, CBT helps them have a more positive outlook on life.
Guided Discovery: Therapists use guided discovery to help teens see their actions from another perspective. First, our qualified therapists will ask your teen how they react when facing certain problems. These questions help the therapist understand your teen’s negative thought patterns. Afterward, the therapist will ask your teen for evidence supporting their thoughts. Your teen is then guided to discover that their thoughts are distorted.
Cognitive Journaling: Teens being treated using CBT are taught how to journal. Journaling allows teens to record their treatment progress and set achievable goals. It also helps them identify triggers and how they would usually react to the triggering situations. They can then learn how to react differently.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT treatment is also an effective treatment for teens with emotional regulation issues. It helps teens accept their experiences and work to change their thoughts and actions. It is similar to CBT but starts by assisting teens to change their actions.
DBT uses four main approaches to help teens overcome emotional overreactions. These approaches include:
Mindfulness: This practice allows teens to become more aware of the present, introspect, and appreciate their current situation. Teens who practice mindfulness can focus on the present rather than thinking about past experiences. Mindfulness helps teens slow down their thoughts and analyze how they should respond.
Interpersonal Effectiveness: Like guided discovery, interpersonal effectiveness helps teens understand how their actions affect those around them. Once your teen understands that their actions negatively affect those around them, they can work to change their behavior.
Emotional Regulation: This practice equips teens with healthy coping mechanisms for regulating emotions. It also teaches them grounding techniques, such as deep breathing exercises, to help them calm their minds.
Distress Tolerance: This DBT approach helps teens learn to accept that some situations are out of their control. During distress tolerance training, teens are taught to accept the problem and not focus on how things could be different. Once they accept their experiences, their anxiety also reduces.
Group Therapy
At NexStep Teen Academy, our group therapy sessions help teens build strong bonds with their peers. A typical session involves six to twelve teens facilitated by a therapist. The teens are encouraged to share their problems and explore ways to solve them.
Group therapy is an important part of mental health treatment as it offers emotional support. Teens may find it difficult to trust adults with their mental health issues. But when surrounded by peers, they feel more comfortable sharing their experiences. They know their peers will not judge them since they all struggle with similar emotions and behavior.
Teen Mental Health Treatment at NexStep Teen Academy
If your teen’s emotional overreactions become difficult to manage at home, you should seek professional help. At NexStep Outpatient Teen Academy, we offer high-quality mental health treatment for teens in Arizona. Tucked away in the desert of Arizona, NexStep provides a conducive environment for your teen to focus on treatment. Our highly experienced staff ensures your teen’s needs are met during treatment.
NexStep’s 5-day-a-week outpatient teen program utilizes several treatment methods to help teens regulate their emotions. Contact our team today to learn more about the specifics of treatment and how we can help your teen.
Mood swings and emotional overreactions are different. Emotional overreactions are exaggerated reactions toward situations or people, while mood swings are regular mood changes.
The primary treatment for teen emotional overreaction is therapy. However, medication may be prescribed in instances where teens have underlying mental health conditions such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), anxiety, or depression.
Teen Emotional Overreaction Management
Table of Contents
Adolescence is a challenging time for teens. They undergo physical, emotional, and mental changes that can be overwhelming to manage. During this time, teens also carry the weight of their parents’ expectations on their shoulders. They are expected to behave like adults while still being told what to do. It can be very confusing to be a teenager. Teenagers who cannot handle complex emotions may begin overreacting to situations.
An overreaction or meltdown is an involuntary reaction that leads to a nervous system overload. The reaction is usually disproportionate to the problem. Overreactions are generally an emotional response to a current trigger and a reaction to a prior trigger or painful memory from their past that is unresolved. Think of it as reacting to the current problem, with the prior problem piled on top. Their feelings get out of control when this happens, and an outburst ensues. It can be distressing for any parent to watch their teen overreact to certain situations or problems.
This article aims to help parents understand how to manage their teen’s meltdowns or overreactions and when to seek professional help. However, if you are looking for help now, contact NexStep Teen Academy. Our team can provide you with the expert insight you need to make an informed treatment decision.
Identifying Emotional Overreaction Triggers
Several factors can cause your teen’s emotional overreaction. These factors may be external or internal. Parents need to recognize common triggers to try and prevent future overreactions. These triggers include the following:
External Stressors
Teenagers live in a dynamic world where they face various challenges. At school, your teen may face mounting academic pressure that may be overwhelming. A lot is expected of your teen when they are at school. They are expected to perform well in their academics and extracurricular activities. This pressure may be too much for many teens to bear.
Your teen’s social life may also contribute to an overreaction. If your teen experiences conflict with friends, they may be unable to regulate their emotions properly. The fear of losing their friends may make them clingy and overreact to situations.
Family disagreements may also cause your teen to have an emotional overreaction. They may feel misunderstood or caught in a fight that is not their fault. This feeling can cause them to overreact as they think it is unfair for them to walk around on eggshells all day.
Internal Factors
As teens grow, they start producing hormones that affect their moods. Fluctuations in hormones may cause your teen to be irritable and unable to process their feelings correctly. As a result, they may overreact when they face a small inconvenience.
Difficult emotions such as romantic feelings or loss can make your teen overreact to problems. Even as adults, it is hard to process loss or betrayal. Imagine what it is like for your teen to experience these complicated emotions for the first time.
Strategies for Managing Teen Emotional Overreactions
As a parent, it can be distressing to watch your teen have an emotional meltdown. If your teen is having an emotional overreaction, there are several things you can do to help them feel better, including:
Immediate De-Escalation of The Situation
Parents are encouraged to de-escalate the situation when their teen has an emotional overreaction. This can be done in several ways. First, speak to your teen in a compassionate and empathetic way. Show them that you love and support them regardless of the current circumstances. Feeling seen, heard, and supported can help teens regulate their emotions better.
Second, always remember to stay calm and collected. If you let your emotions run high by raising your voice, you will cause the situation to escalate further. Remaining calm diffuses the situation and allows your teen to model their behavior to reflect yours. When you stay calm, your teen can observe how they are supposed to behave when faced with a difficult situation.
Third, validate your teen’s feelings. Although you know that your teen might be overreacting, it is vital that you validate their feelings. Tell them you understand how they feel and that there is nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed. An underlying issue may cause your teen’s overreaction. When you validate their emotions, they know they can count on you to help them through their struggles.
Timeout and Space Creation
Create space for your teen to feel emotional. Do not force them to remain in a place where they feel uncomfortable. As a parent or guardian, you should remove your teen from the triggering situation to help them regulate their emotions. Giving teens space and time to process their feelings allows them to reflect on their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Open and Effective Communication
When your teen has an emotional overreaction, they yell or shout rather than verbalize their problems. As a parent, you should encourage your teen to communicate their issues effectively. First, you need to calm them down. Secondly, ask them about their feelings. Use open-ended questions to give them the chance to express themselves fully. Yes or no questions limit your teen’s expression by providing them with few options.
As they express their feelings, listen attentively without interrupting them. Validate their feelings and repeat what they said to avoid miscommunication. Once you are on the same page, collaboratively solve the problem. Offer them insight into how you would have solved the problem if you were in their shoes. Remember that sometimes your teen just needs to vent. Let them talk about their concerns; if they require solutions, help them with problem-solving.
Reappraisal
If your teen has an emotional overreaction, it is important to reappraise them about the situation. It involves reframing their negative thoughts into more positive ones. For example, if they overreact to failing to buy their favorite artist’s ticket, you can help them put a positive spin on that situation. They can think about something else they could have used the money on and focus on acquiring it.
Reappraisal helps teens to understand that always reacting negatively to situations is not helpful. According to research, teens who reappraise themselves of the problem have less anxiety and depression.
Role of Parents and Guardians in The Long-Term Management of Teen Emotional Overreactions
Apart from immediate management of emotional overreactions, parents and guardians play a key role in long-term emotional regulation. Some strategies you can use to help your teen include the following:
Providing Emotional Support and Understanding
A supportive environment can be the difference between worsening or improving mental health conditions. The importance of love and support in a teen’s life cannot be understated. Supporting your teen is not about enabling their negative behavior but understanding it. As a parent, you should foster a supportive environment where your teen can freely express themselves without fear or judgment. You should remember that teens acquire emotional regulation techniques that will help improve their overreactions as they age.
Fostering Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Your teen’s overreaction may stem from lacking an outlet for complicated relationships. As a parent, you should encourage your teen to find healthy coping mechanisms. The best example of a healthy coping mechanism is physical exercise. When teens exercise, their bodies release endorphins, which help regulate their emotions. Endorphins stabilize one’s mood and help teens clear their minds. Encouraging your teen to have an outlet for their feelings will prevent future overreactions.
Modeling Positive Behavior
Teens learn through observation. They pick up on how their family members resolve conflicts or react to certain negative stimuli. If you want your teen to stop overreacting, you should model positivity in them. Whenever you are faced with a tough situation, react appropriately so that your teen can learn how to respond when faced with a similar situation.
Teach your teen patience and how to regulate their emotions. These life lessons will help them as they age and face stressful situations.
Treatment Options for Teen Emotional Overreactions
Let’s take a look at some of the most common forms of teen mental health treatment and how they can help with your situation.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is one of the most effective evidence-based treatments out there. It is based on the idea that thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are connected. By teaching teens to think differently, their behavior changes. Teens who overreact struggle with distorted thoughts. CBT helps them to reframe their thoughts and think more positively.
One hallmark of CBT is that it challenges your teen to defend their distorted thoughts. For example, if your teen tends to assume the worst, they will be asked for evidence that supports their thinking pattern. CBT is crucial in helping teens see their actions from a different perspective.
It used three main methods to help teens who overreact, including:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT treatment is also an effective treatment for teens with emotional regulation issues. It helps teens accept their experiences and work to change their thoughts and actions. It is similar to CBT but starts by assisting teens to change their actions.
DBT uses four main approaches to help teens overcome emotional overreactions. These approaches include:
Group Therapy
At NexStep Teen Academy, our group therapy sessions help teens build strong bonds with their peers. A typical session involves six to twelve teens facilitated by a therapist. The teens are encouraged to share their problems and explore ways to solve them.
Group therapy is an important part of mental health treatment as it offers emotional support. Teens may find it difficult to trust adults with their mental health issues. But when surrounded by peers, they feel more comfortable sharing their experiences. They know their peers will not judge them since they all struggle with similar emotions and behavior.
Teen Mental Health Treatment at NexStep Teen Academy
If your teen’s emotional overreactions become difficult to manage at home, you should seek professional help. At NexStep Outpatient Teen Academy, we offer high-quality mental health treatment for teens in Arizona. Tucked away in the desert of Arizona, NexStep provides a conducive environment for your teen to focus on treatment. Our highly experienced staff ensures your teen’s needs are met during treatment.
NexStep’s 5-day-a-week outpatient teen program utilizes several treatment methods to help teens regulate their emotions. Contact our team today to learn more about the specifics of treatment and how we can help your teen.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The causes of emotional overreaction in teens include:
Mood swings and emotional overreactions are different. Emotional overreactions are exaggerated reactions toward situations or people, while mood swings are regular mood changes.
The primary treatment for teen emotional overreaction is therapy. However, medication may be prescribed in instances where teens have underlying mental health conditions such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), anxiety, or depression.