Moodiness

Jokes and giggling. Sudden wrestling matches in the living room. Affection and embraces out of the blue.

Doors slamming. Sullen silences. Negative comments and yelling about anything and everything.

These two opposite pictures can come from the same adolescent, often within minutes of each other.

Mood swings, which characterize the teen years, perplex many parents. Yet your adolescent goes through these moody patches for a reason.

Defining the Problem

A mood, which is basically a pervasive emotional state of mind, can be positive or negative, up or down. In most people, moods come and go, but they do not get in the way of love and life. They may wake up in a bad mood after a sleepless night or after an argument the evening before, but in time, the bad mood passes. Healthy adults have built-in stabilizers that sort things out — for example, the capacity to soothe oneself, the ability to have perspective, the knowledge that you can solve problems, and the ability to have hope.

But teens have not yet developed these abilities. Their insides aren’t mature yet. Think of how a three-year-old views life. It’s black and white, hell and heaven, agony and ecstasy. Adolescents tend to see their world in a similar way. While teens are more mature than children, of course, much more is being required of them. Teens have more complicated relationships. They desire freedom, yet they are still dependent. They feel confusion and instability, and so their ability to manage their moods breaks down.

Circumstances and environment do not control the moods of people who are mature. When mature people are under stress, they can eventually rally. When they achieve great success, they celebrate, but they take their success in stride. They are not what psychologists call “stimulus-bound.” Their surroundings don’t direct how they feel.

But for teens, surroundings mean everything. They live and breathe by what happens with their friends, in their home, and at school. Good events bring a euphoric mood, and bad events can bring a despairing mood. Sometimes a teen’s increase in energy and activity comes from agitation rather than euphoria, and in time the energy and activity lessen.

But most parents aren’t concerned about their teens’ “up” moods. It’s the sudden and abrupt shifts to the negative that concern them. During such periods, teens can’t be talked out of their feelings. They may act out, and they may even blame their parents for their problems. The negative moods make life difficult for both the teen and those around them.

Often teens are much more moody at home than they are at school or with friends, particularly when it comes to their negative and down moods. This causes many parents to wonder if their adolescent is simply manipulating them. After all, their teen seems to pull life off pretty well in other environments.

If this is true of your teen, know this: your teen tends to be more down and negative at home because she feels safe with you. Home is where she feels she can be herself. Because of this, she allows herself to feel and express the more primitive and immature parts of herself when she’s home. Yes, you are getting the worst of your teen. But your job is to help her mature and develop the abilities she needs to stabilize her moods by showing her acceptance and love — even while she is showing you the worst in her.

Handling the Problem

How can you help? You can do several things that can make a difference. Basically, do the same sorts of things you did when your teen was little. Here is what I mean.

Contain and empathize. In chapter 10, “A Period of Tremendous Change,” we talked about the task of containing and empathizing with the strong emotions of a teen. You, the adult, listen, give compassion, and feed back the emotions so that your teen can then absorb them in a more meaningful and less extreme way.

You contain your teen’s feelings rather than react to, invalidate, or try to change those feelings. You avoid saying things like, “Aren’t you being dramatic here? It’s really not that bad. Cheer up; it will get better.” Your job is to be with your adolescent as he is.

This is how teens learn to regulate their moods. Remember, your teen’s feelings seem larger than life to him and probably scare him. When you listen and put those intense feelings into perspective, you help your teen bear them.

Let me show you what this might look like. Let’s say your fourteen-year-old daughter comes home from a party depressed and angry because of something that happened. To contain her feelings and empathize with them, you might say something like this: “Brooke, I know you’re hurt by how Kelly treated you at the party. She got between you and your other friends, and it really embarrassed you. I can see why you’d feel sad and alone.”

Your words have helped your daughter experience that someone else understands how she feels. But that’s not all. They have also shown her a more mature perspective of what happened. If you had said, “Brooke, I would just want to die if Kelly had done that to me. I would feel like all my friends hate me and I can never return to school,” you would have expressed emotions similar to what your daughter was feeling. But by not mirroring her anxiety, you are helping her internalize a more mature experience, and her negative mood should begin to get better. If it doesn’t, you may need to offer some clarification.

Clarify. When you clarify, you give reality and perspective to your teen and her situation. You can counter her catastrophic thinking by giving your take on what happened. This can be very stabilizing for her. This takes some work, as you should not be patronizing or condescending. While you want to usher her into reality, your teen needs for you to respect what she is feeling.

For example, let’s suppose that Brooke is still quite upset. You could clarify the situation for her by saying, “Brooke, you should be upset by what Kelly did. It was hurtful. At the same time, I want you to remember that the girls who are really on your side won’t leave you, because you have some really solid and good friends. You are a good person, and good people like you, and will continue to like you.”

Provide structure. Teens who are moody need an ordered, structured environment. Their internal world is unstructured, a little chaotic, and still forming. So they need their external world (you and their home) to be safe and stable. A good principle to keep in mind is this: the more internally instable your teen, the more external stability you need to provide.

So if your teen is having a lot of ups and downs, save your own ups and downs for other people. Make sure that you keep your promises and that you are consistent and dependable in time, scheduled activities, and meals. This, along with your warmth and support, can go a long way toward helping your adolescent begin to regulate his moods.

Keep the limits and consequences you would normally keep for your teen. Unless she has a clinical condition (which we will get to in a few paragraphs), don’t allow disrespect, aggression, or acting out. Moody teens need a lot of love and comfort, but they don’t have license to disrupt other people’s lives.

Mention the mood only after containing, clarifying, and providing structure. Before you say, “I’ve noticed that your feelings are extreme, and I want to help you with them,” try containing, clarifying, and providing structure first. This way you don’t run the risk of causing your teen to feel invalidated and dismissed, so that she may not improve simply because she feels she has to prove you wrong. However, if your teen’s moods don’t improve over time, it might help to mention it so she can become more aware of what is going on.

Distinguish moodiness from bipolar disorder. Sometimes moodiness can be caused by a clinical problem. For instance, teens with a bipolar disorder experience extreme mood swings that disrupt normal functioning. They have a chemical imbalance contributing to the problem, and they need the help of a professional in order to improve. Good parenting alone won’t be enough to help these teens improve. They need to be on medication to get stabilized.

If you have implemented the above suggestions, but your teen’s moods are becoming more serious and she isn’t responding, take her to an adolescent psychiatrist for an evaluation.

You Can Do It!

Don’t be afraid of your teen’s moods. Expect them, and deal with them. He needs a parent who will engage with him about them, talk to him, and help him. He needs a parent who knows what to do or else knows how to find someone who can help.