Teenagers are very complex people. Sometimes, they are difficult to talk to. If you are the parent, they don’t believe anything you say, especially, if you have had times when you’ve made a mistake, or forgot something they told you, or as silly as it sounds, you didn’t read their mind. You have to be physic and a mind reader to understand what they are really feeling and trying to make you understand.
Teenagers are going through a hormonal change during their teen years. Their emotions are everywhere because of it. The effect of hormonal moods, emotions, and impulses as well as their body. The mood swings that teens experience are caused by fluctuations in estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone-the sex hormones.
These same teen hormones will also affect the way they think, feel, and react to certain situations. I used to work with teens who had been sexually molested. I had this 17-year-old client. A very angry, untrusting, at times violent young lady. She also was suffering from depression. I had a hard time getting her to open up.
One day she lighted up her cigarette in front of me, the smell of the cigarette made me sick to the point of wanting to throw up. I asked her as kindly as I could, to please turn her cigarette off, she asked me” why, what is it to you.?”
I told her the truth;” the man who raped me smoked those kinds of cigarette your smoking now.” She instantly turned the cigarette off. (to my surprise). She said she was sorry, something like this happened to you? I told her my story. She apologized for how she was acting towards me and said she felt like I was just pretending to care for the money and I really did not give a shit about her. She told me her story and was very positively different and more open. Now she too is helping others to turn things around.
Emotional and psychological trauma can also be caused by ongoing stress such as dealing with sexual harassment, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood Breaking up with another boyfriend or girlfriend. Emotional feelings are more heighten when being traded by a friend, this triples the emotional feelings of being alone.
The following are signs and symptoms associated with emotional and psychological trauma:
- Depression, unable to get out of bed.
- Not wanting to visit friends or go out with them.
- Having unexplained aches and body pain.
- Always complaining about feeling tired.
- Unable to sleep, having nightmares
- Angary outburst, Irritability, and mood swings
- Unable to remove feelings of guilt and shame.
Treatment for trauma takes time. It may take weeks or months before you start seeing improvement in your teenager’s mood and it is important to stay patient and to continue to offer support and encouragement throughout this process. Be prepared for setbacks and celebrate the milestones.
As parents, we know our teenagers are hard to talk to sometimes. We will need to try to be more patent, more compassionate. Try talking about expectations and what we do, is because we have their best interest at heart
” Because I love you, and want what is best for you, we can do this together and get your input on this, what do you think”. Ask them about their personal habits. Are you sleeping well? Practice empathy with one other, tell them they need to show their friends that this teenager cares about them, doesn’t that feel good to you when they ask how are you doing?
Ask teens about their own coping strategies, I am just curious, Mija, with the covid 19 virus How are you coping without your friends around? How are you coping with the school situation?
I enjoy talking to teenagers more now than before. When they tell me something that would concern me. I will confess to them that I would like to help. Or I will be a very good listener and thank them for trusting me enough to talk to me.
To all our Teenagers and those involved in helping them Many Blessings.