Teens can blow up in our faces because they think we are being unfair. Part 2 of this mini-series looks at: 1. What can we do to get them to express themselves better, to stop treating us like a verbal and/or physical punchbags; 2. How we can get them to respond more appropriately to their perceived sense of injustice. With practical examples and scripts.
Tag: teen anger
Why are some teens so darn rude? Why can they not just do as they are told without arguing? Without being disrespectful? It may have to do with a hidden paradox that has within it the clues to help us get them to lose the rude. Find out more! …
You think you know. You think you know what’s going on in my head, in my life, in my everything. Why I blow up in anger, or why I’m withdrawn, why I use coke, why I skip school, why I’m silent when you essentially ask me WTF? God you probably think you know why I put jam on my toast. You think you know. Well you don’t. Whether you have studied for five years, whether you have worked with troubled kids for ten, whether you have lived with me for fifteen, I have to tell you that you do not know. Why? Because when you over-rely on what you know, you do not rely on what I know. What I know of my existence, what I have experienced, the thoughts and emotions that whirl around inside me. You might see outward manifestations of all of that, you might see my dysfunction, but you do not know my inner world. The biggest tell-tale for me that you do not know is when you do not ask. It is when you tell me what I feel. It is when you tell me why I am doing what I’m doing and punish me…
On why it's not enough to focus on the 'don't's and why we need to focus on the 'instead's and the 'do's.
Hey, it’s me again, back talking about my ability to blow-up at the slightest little thing and why that may be the case- that maybe due to some trauma or event in my life I may constantly be on high alert, primed for danger and threat which causes me to over-react to situations that in reality are non-threatening. I’m hyperaroused basically, with my baseline danger setting set way too high. We looked at what you can do to help bring me back from one of these blowouts, but now I want to help you understand how you can lower my baseline arousal level so that these blowouts become less frequent, and hopefully disappear altogether. The best approach will always depend on the extent of my hyperarousal. If I have been severely traumatised by an event and my behaviour is extremely erratic, I will need to receive some formal therapy from a specialist. Problem is that this therapy is dependent on me being willing to face the trauma head-on and agreeing to go. So what can you do to help me lower my baseline stress levels without me going for therapy? Well here goes... …