Help Your Teenager Handle Anger
Anger is a natural human emotion that your teen will experience as they grow up. There is nothing wrong with feeling angry from time to time as a fitting response under many circumstances. Anger can be an expression of disappointment, hurt, sadness, or helplessness. However, if your teen is just letting the sparks fly with no good reason and losing control much of the time it may be time to reach out for help. It is important to pay attention. Intense and frequent outbursts can be your child’s way of asking for help.
Dissecting Healthy Teen Anger
Your teen child may behave and talk like an adult, but they don’t have the brain functions of a grownup. Their brains are still developing, our frontal lobe isn’t fully developed until we are approximately 25 years old. Teenagers perceive things in a different light, and they may resort to anger as a defensive reaction to emotions or thoughts they don’t understand. Like small children, they may release their emotions onto other people around them, engaging in yelling and shouting matches with you and/or their siblings. Because teenagers’ thinking is immature, arguing with them can be futile and stressful for you and them.
When Anger Deserves a Second Look
When your adolescent child’s outbursts happen often and they are prolonged, destructive, and/or illogical something more may be going on. Losing your cool and screaming back to stand up for yourself as a parent will not help you or your teenager. At this stage of development your child is experiencing changing hormones, body functions and trying to fit in socially. They experience stressors at school and at home. Many teens also experience symptoms of depression and anxiety which can manifest as anger. Anger deserves to be addressed not ignored. Counseling can provide this much needed help.
Finding the Right Help
A teenager who has difficulty handling anger deserves to be helped. Counseling can provide a safe place to process difficult feelings and learn more about what triggers these emotions. A skilled therapist can teach you and your child valuable coping skills to regulate emotions and tolerate distress. Approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) can be remarkably effective.
Carolina Counseling Services – Fuquay-Varina Office contracts with skilled, licensed counselors and therapists. Find the provider that is right for you with CCS. Call today to schedule your first appointment.
The Teacherage offices are Handicapped Accessible with a Handicapped Accessible restroom.
PO BOX 9909 Fayetteville, NC 28311