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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

By Test User / December 18, 2024

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

Most of us were never taught any of this. Our pare

Most of us were never taught any of this. Our parents were doing their best with what they had, keeping us fed, safe, and on track, and the inner world was left to sort itself out. For a lot of us that took decades, and a fair bit of pain, to learn what we could have been handed at fifteen.

That’s the quiet gift sitting in front of you. You get to give your teenager the thing you had to find the long way around. Not a perfect life. Not protection from every hard thing. Just the inner tools to meet whatever comes….. a steady mind, good energy, and the belief that they get to shape their own life instead of waiting for it to happen to them.

When you teach a teen that, you’re not only raising them. You’re ending a pattern that probably ran for generations before you.

- Save this for the young person you’re raising

- Send to a parent who wants to give their teen more than good grades.
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#energy #spiritualparenting #raisingteens #parentingteens #innerwork

Some kids pick the fight on purpose. Not because t

Some kids pick the fight on purpose. Not because they’re defiant, because anger is a feeling they can survive and disappointment isn’t. Anger is loud and fast and forgotten by morning. Disappointment means you really looked at them and found them lacking. So they hand you a reason to be angry before you can be the quiet thing instead. The move isn’t to match the heat. It’s to refuse the fight and stay anyway.

- Save this.

- Send to a parent stuck on the same fight
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#parentingteens #teenageson #boymum #consciousparenting #raisingteens

You notice it one morning. The accounts are gone.

It’s 7pm Dinner’s ready. The door’s been shut sin

It’s 7pm

Dinner’s ready. The door’s been shut since they got home, same as yesterday same as the day before. You knock. ‘I’m fine’ and you stand there wondering when your kid turned into a stranger down the hall

Here’s what the closed door usually is and when it’s something more

A teen’s room is the one space in the world they actually control. Not school, not the timetable, not their changing body, not the family rules. Just that room. Retreating into it is often how they decompress after holding it together all day. Wanting space from you is not the same as rejecting you. It’s developmentally bang on.

So the door itself is usually normal. What matters is what’s on the other side of it.

The move isn’t to barge in or demand they come out. That just makes the door matter more. It’s to stay a low-pressure presence they don’t have to perform for.

Try knocking and offering not interrogating… ‘Not making you talk. Just bringing you a drink. I’m around if you want company no pressure either way.’ You leave the door open without forcing it. You become safe to come out to instead of something to hide from.

When to look closer. Wanting space is normal. Not eating with anyone, dropping their friends, stopping the things they loved, flat mood for more than a couple of weeks, that’s not teen retreat. That’s worth a gentle conversation and a GP visit.

The closed door isn’t them pushing you away. It’s them catching their breath. Keep knocking softly. Don’t kick it in.

- Send to a parent staring at a closed door tonight.

- Save for the next ‘I’m fine.’
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#parentingteens #teenmentalhealth #raisingteens #teenanxiety #momsofteens

It’s 5pm. Everyone’s home. Within ten minutes yo

It’s 5pm.

Everyone’s home. Within ten minutes your teen has snapped at their younger sibling over nothing. The remote. A look. Breathing too loud and you’re the referee again, thinking, why are you so horrible to them when you’re fine with everyone else

Here’s what’s usually underneath it….

Your teen holds it together all day. School, friends, the group chat, the pressure to be okay. They mask it for hours. Then they get home, where it finally feels safe to let the pile out…. and the sibling is the easiest, safest target in the house. Someone who won’t leave, won’t judge them the way friends might, and is right there

It’s not that they hate their sibling. It’s that the sibling is where the overflow lands. The little stuff is never the real thing. It’s the bad mark, the friend who went cold, the body they don’t feel okay in, all coming out sideways at the one person who’s safe to be ugly in front of.

That doesn’t mean it’s allowed. It means arguing about the remote misses it completely.

Try pulling them aside not in front of the sibling. ‘You’ve been snapping at everyone since you walked in. That tells me today was rough, not that you’re a bad person. What actually happened today.’ Name the overflow, not the crime.

Then hold the line gently. ‘I get you were full up. Your brother isn’t the place to put it. Let’s find where it can actually go.’

The kid who’s hardest on their sibling is often the one carrying the most they can’t say. The sibling isn’t the problem. They’re the release valve.

- Send to a parent refereeing the same fight every afternoon

- Save for the next ‘why are you so mean to them.’
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#parentingteens #teenmentalhealth #raisingteens #siblings #momofteens

It’s 4pm. You pick them up. On the way to the car

It’s 4pm. You pick them up. On the way to the car another mum stops you, “Your kid is honestly the loveliest, so polite.” You smile, say thanks. You get in the car and within ninety seconds they’ve snapped at you over nothing and you think, so everyone else gets that version, and I get this.

Here’s what that actually means and it’s not what it feels like.

Your teen holds it together all day. School is a performance. They mask, they manage, they keep the lid on every big feeling for seven hours straight. By the time they reach you they are full to the brim and out of capacity

Then they see the one person in the world they feel safest with. You… and the lid comes off.

They don’t melt down at you because you’re the problem. They melt down at you because you’re the safe place. You’re the one they trust won’t leave when they’re at their worst. That snap in the car isn’t rejection. It’s the most backhanded compliment there is.

It still doesn’t feel good and it doesn’t mean anything goes. But it changes what you do with it. Instead of matching their snap with yours, try… ‘Rough day? You don’t have to be okay right now. We can just drive.’ You’re not rewarding the behaviour. You’re meeting the overwhelm underneath it.

The regulation comes later, once they’ve landed. You can name it then… ‘I get that you were full up. I’m still not a punching bag. Let’s find a better way to let it out.’

The kid who falls apart the second they get to you isn’t the one who loves you least. They’re the one who feels safest with you

- Send to a parent who gets the worst version every afternoon.

- Save for the next 3:30 meltdown
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#parentingteens #teenmentalhealth #raisingteens #momsofteens #teenagers🙄

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