5 Tips for Supporting Your Teen in Crisis
As a parent, one of the scariest things to navigate through is a crisis with one of your kids. It can be an overwhelming and draining experience. When your teenager is talking about self-harm, suicide, or difficulties with substances, it is easy to enter into panic as a parent. You begin searching for solutions and answers to solve your teen’s problem. Though well-meaning, parents sometimes miss what their teens need at that moment. It can be so easy to latch onto your own fear that comes with difficult topics and end up neglecting the needs your teen is trying to express to you.
With that in mind, I wanted to share five things to do when trying to support your teenager through a crisis. I hope that these are just as helpful to your teen as they are for you.
Ground yourself
Take a moment to calm your emotions. Take a breath, use a coping skill, or find some way to orient yourself to the moment. My best recommendations for grounding yourself include breathing exercises or engaging your senses. Personally, I know that engaging my sense of touch is one of the fastest ways for me to feel calmer and less disoriented. When I feel overwhelmed or highly stressed, I palm or run my fingers over a textured surface on my clothes or nearby. I use this often when I am working through difficult sessions with my clients.
Another way to ground yourself is to put aside any distractions. If you are working on something, find a way to put it down as quickly as possible. If there are other things happening around you, bring your teen to a more private space so that you both can feel safer and concentrate more easily. You both are going to need all your energy to work through this together.
Grounding yourself during these conversations is important so that you can have a clear sense of judgment and a rational mindset. Becoming consumed by your own emotions will lead to misunderstandings and potentially further hurt between you. Though these are difficult conversations, you can work through them together by remaining as grounded as possible.
Listen
This tip is easy to learn but difficult to master. As you are talking with your teen, make sure that you are truly taking in what it is they are sharing. Don’t be afraid to repeat what they say to you to confirm your understanding. This shows helps them feel heard and understood by you and allows your own brain to think more deeply about what is being shared.
If you are focused on making your response, you are not hearing what they are trying to tell you. When thoughts about your response come up, do not hold onto them. Let them pass or put them to the side for you to pick up later. More than anything, your teen needs to feel heard and understood by you at this moment. Sharing dark and vulnerable feelings makes people anxious. Taking the time to listen and understand will help you, and them feel calmer and more comfortable.
Take them seriously
When your teen is having an emergency, this is not the time to question their thoughts and emotions. Questioning, doubting, or outright dismissing the feelings that come with self-harm, suicidal ideation, and other extreme emotional crisis will almost always lead to your teen shutting down and not sharing with you in the future.
In order to keep your teen safe and healthy, you need to create a comforting and understanding environment. Even if you aren’t sure, they truly feel as intensely as they are saying; tell them that you are taking their outcry seriously and want to support them. Their thoughts and feelings are extremely real, even if they might be using over-exaggerated or intense language to communicate.
Investigate
During a crisis, you need information to help support your child. The best way to do that is to learn more about what is happening, what caused it to happen, and what your teen needs at that moment.
Asking questions in the right ways and at the right time can be a great tool in this situation. However, be cautious about the way you phrase them.
Questions like “Are you sure?” or “Is that really what they said?” undermine your goals. However, you can ask questions about details or processes.
Better options are these questions that invite them to share more information: “And that made you feel anxious?” “How did you respond to that?” “What would be the most helpful thing for us to do right now?”
Keep your questions open-ended. This encourages people (not just teens) to explain their answers, giving you more information. However, questions are not the only way to gather information.
Using encouraging statements, gestures, and expressions can help others talk more about themselves. One of my favorites to use with my clients is “Tell me more about that.” You aren’t making any judgments about their story while you are prompting them for more information. Another strategy can be to nod and give a gentle “Mmhmm simply.” This shows you are listening and want to learn more without having to say anything directly. If you are unsure about asking a question, rely on some of these indirect strategies to help you learn more about your teen’s problem.
Offer Choices
As we all know, being in crisis is an overwhelming experience. It is hard to make decisions or find a way forward. When supporting your teens, try to offer them a small number of choices to get support or help themselves.
If your teen is struggling with self-harm, try to offer them alternatives to their harming behaviors. Having knowledge of your child’s coping skills and other behaviors that bring them comfort becomes very helpful here.
Teens can struggle with considering all the options available to them. It can be overwhelming and hard to think, especially in a crisis. Thus, you can provide structure and guidance by helping them brainstorm and identify options they can use. Use your knowledge of your teen and how they soothe to help them identify safe, healthy ways to manage their intense emotions.
BONUS: Give yourself grace!
Navigating a crisis is hard, messy, overwhelming, draining, and defeating. Give yourself grace and understanding if you aren’t able to find the perfect words or ideas to help your teen. Expecting yourself to have the answer to every question or problem they bring to you is unrealistic. You are human too. As long as you do your best to support them with warmth and understanding, you do what needs to be done.
Your children will pick up on your energy and your support. Even if they do not welcome it at the moment, they will notice it later. That will foster communication and trust between you both. Both of those will help keep everyone safe.
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At Sharp Wellness, we know life can be hard. This is why we have locations in Birmingham, AL, and Mckinney, TX to help you with whatever issues you may be facing. Our therapists also offer a variety of therapy services to support you and your family. We offer trauma therapy, teen and adolescent therapy, individual counseling, marriage counseling, family counseling, LGBTQIA+ affirming therapy, EDMR Therapy, and Group Therapy. We also offer Couple's Intensives at our Mckinney, TX location.