The Map to Joy for Teens

Article extracted from Help Me Help My Teen Supporting our teens through tough times by Maggie Dent, Macmillan Publishers, RRP $39.99

One of the techniques I used when counselling teens who struggle with big ugly feelings is to create a map to free themselves. The ability to create positive neurochemicals to counteract the negative ones like cortisol is such an important concept to teach teens. To create the map, we first explore the things a teen enjoys doing that bring a form of relief – and there is the long list of possibilities to explore. Many teens use unhealthy ways of shifting neurochemicals like consuming energy drinks, junk food or lollies and chocolates. These can create a temporary shift, however, this often ends with an even bigger flooding of ugly feelings because the sugar and caffeine crash can impact the brain and body negatively. So instead, we seek to identify the five best cup fillers – so five things that can shift negative emotions into positive ones. Your teen can create a colourful visual reminder of these five cup fillers which can be helpful to keep in an easy-to-see place.

The first steps are simple and might look a bit like this:

• Make themself a cuppa or get themself a cold drink.
• Find a semi-healthy snack – have some fruit, make some toast, eat a muesli bar, eat a couple of biscuits, or eat a small handful of nuts.
• Take five minutes outside – either with their snack and refreshment, or just for a short walk.
• If you have a family pet that they like and connect with, spend some time stroking it and talking to it.
• If they have a safe parent who is a good hugger, seek out a hug.

There are many different ways in which a teen can find joy, depending on their unique preferences. They’ll often fall into these areas:

• Athletic success & sport – go for a run, shoot some hoops, kick a ball, practise some martial arts.
• Artistic & creative expression – drama, dance, music, art. Simply get up and do something they love.
• Deep relaxation & stillness – listen to a calming audio track, do some yoga, or spend some quiet time in nature.
• Safe, honest human connection – deep human connectedness, family, friendship. Seek someone who they know they can trust and who loves them and have a chat.
• Significant immersion in nature – walking, surfing, fishing, swimming, birdwatching, or gardening.
• Acts of service – helping others. Visit someone, bake biscuits for them, offer a gesture of kindness to someone.
• Discovering new purpose & meaning – start something new, such as a hobby or fitness program.

It is so important that this solution process is driven by your teen and not you.

So what else can safe grown-ups do to help teens manage the developmentally normal stage of emotional intensity?

Do everything you can to make home be a safe base. Sometimes leave the fight over the untidy bedroom and just close the door. If they discharge some of their emotional angst at you, breathe and choose not to take it personally. Self-harm in adolescence is at a disturbing level and it is seen as a coping strategy for big ugly feelings. Let them discharge these big ugly feelings safely at you (however, never accept them lashing out physically at you) because they love you and hope you can still love them as they work through huge feelings.

Almost in the same way that we care for toddlers who also experience the same levels of confusion and frustration, the most important thing to do is to validate what your teen is feeling.

1. Become a trusted safe person in a teen’s life. Trust plays an enormous role for the developing teen. When their trust is broken, and they feel betrayed by the few people they have chosen to be trustworthy, teens become deeply wounded. Many teens do not allow their parents to help no matter how hard they try. Partly for developmental reasons, teens push back from parents. This is where teens can benefit from having a ‘lighthouse’ figure, a safe adult ally in their lives. Encourage them to find someone they can talk to safely. The only time adults can break a teen’s confidence is when the teen is being harmed or expresses suicidal ideation, at which point duty of care must override confidentiality and a professional must be informed immediately.
2. Become well-informed about the unique developmental aspects of adolescence especially about the growth of the limbic brain and intensity of emotions, the cracked windscreen and the teen tipping point. These metaphors can be helpful for our teens as well as their parents.
3. Understand that boys and girls tend to process emotionally intense experiences differently. Girls can tend to respond very quickly and can explore things verbally. Boys tend to internalise these huge emotional confusing feelings and often they come out via irrational behaviours, especially through physicality. Many boys have been conditioned to shut down their emotional world so that they can appear ‘tough’ or in control.
4. Caring adults can help teens to make sense of their emotional turmoil rather than deny it, make it wrong or minimalise it. Serious, active listening and caring communication are really important (more on this in Chapter 6).
5. Model kindness and fairness above all else while teens are walking this bumpy ride to adulthood – especially when they least deserve it. They cannot be what they haven’t seen or experienced. Remember to ask your teen often, ‘How can I support you on this bumpy ride?’
6. Show your love unconditionally, even if your teen disappoints you in some way. In our achievement-driven world we must be careful that teens don’t come to believe that they are only worthwhile when they reach clear goals like passing exams or reaching a parental expectation. Being loved conditionally can cause problems later. Take the pressure off our teens and reassure them that you love them no matter what.
7. Help our teens with how they see their world and how to know what their individual top-five ‘cup fillers’ are when things get tough. When parents and other key grown-ups model self-care, it can also help our teens learn how to take better care of themselves – eventually.
8. Choose to bring hope, light and fierce unconditional love into our teen’s lives. The world is often a big nasty place, and we need to reassure them that things can get better. I have found that teens are very easily influenced either positively or negatively. So please choose to influence them positively as often as you can.

‘Having hope helps people from overwhelming anxiety, a defeat-ist attitude or depression. Optimism works like hope – it can lift performance in life. Hope and optimism can be learned just like help-lessness and despair.’ – Christopher Peterson, Steven F. Maier, Martin E. P. Seligman, Learned Helplessness

Accepting that emotional turmoil and confusion is a completely normal part of this major life transition is the first thing parents and educators need to do. There are times in their confusion that your teens will have no idea why they are having the feelings they are having – they are simply having them. When we can normalise that, then we can seek to find how we can support them in that moment, knowing that it may be something different each time. When we work with our teens rather than do to our teens, we have a much better chance of being the guiding rails on the bridge that they need. Find moments in your home to create positive memories that matter and celebrate the small victories not just the big ones. Yes, you will need a good dose of patience, moments of laughter and lightness, lots of hugs and, if possible, find a supportive tribe of good humans who are doing the same thing – dancing the wonky waltz we call adolescence.

Want to read more? Understanding the Turbulent Emotional World of Teens

Find out more about Help Me Help My Teen