I was a door-slammer. My brother roared. My son was a runner.
As young people move through their adolescence, they experience profound personal change. They question their identity, family heritage, gender, religion, social status and so forth. They being to think more deeply and question what’s fair, what’s right, what might happen if? And they experience a rollercoaster of big emotions with increasing intensity and range.
As humans, we are all designed to feel a range of emotions, which is normal. The comfortable, ‘glad’ emotions were very present in the school holidays on the beach at sunny Noosa. Happy, joyful, spontaneous and free, there were teenagers digging trenches, catching balls, jumping waves and eating rainbow slurpies.
Coming back to colder, winter Melbourne and school routines, many of the negative emotions quickly surfaced again in our teenagers, with varying degrees of intensity. The ‘sad’ group include hurt, guilt, despair, grief. The ‘mad’ include irritation, frustration, jealousy and anger. The ‘bad’: anxiety, fear, dread and panic.
All of these can lead to negative talk, strong, immovable feelings and big emotions. We saw this in some of our Middle Schoolers during last Friday’s Fun Run. Some said in despair, ‘I can’t do it’; others were angry: ‘We shouldn’t be made to do this’; and the ubiquitous, ‘It’s stupid’ summed up those who were in panic, while others were so overwhelmed and didn’t even start. On the other hand, many Year 7s, 8s and 9s had a fabulous time participating in either the Fun Run jog or indeed running the longer race. They accepted that there might be some intensity of nervousness, anxiety and fear, but that they could face those emotions and shared joy, excitement, satisfaction and accomplishment.
For young people experiencing this new range and intensity of strong emotional feelings, it can be quite confronting. There is a tendency towards avoidance of these big emotions or even a diversion towards more risky or unhealthy behaviours. We must work towards helping our teenagers see these big feelings as normal and controllable rather than overwhelming.
Here are some tips that I have found useful when helping my own teens to navigate these big emotions:
- Keep calm! Acknowledge your young person’s emotion.
- Talk about emotions as this helps normalise them and leave room for tough emotions as adults can’t fix everything.
- Suggest strategies such as breathing, listening to music or doing an activity your teen enjoys, taking some exercise and even connect to nature with a picnic.
- And, of course, encourage your Middle Schooler to reach out for support. Our Student Wellbeing team are always keen to assist and recommend some excellent resources:
- Home Page SchoolTV | Carey Baptist Grammar School
- Student Wellbeing – information for parents (careylink.com.au)
- Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown
Term 4 is already riding high with big emotions for the Year 12 cohort and we feel for them this week as they ride the emotional roller coaster of leaving school: excitement, sadness, nervousness and anxiety. Activities in Middle School this term have already elicited mixed feelings. The joy of having grandparents visit on Connections Afternoon with the anxiety of whether it’s ‘a cool thing to do’. The excitement of performing in Theatre Games together with the dread of not knowing how to do ‘space jump’. The sense of pride at having your work displayed in the Art and Design Exhibition with the fear of what classmates think – and there will always be more to come.
It’s normal for our teens to feel big emotions; the rich experience of emotion helps them grow into healthy adults. Hang-in there, parents. Christmas is just around the corner, and we all know how calm that will be!
Meredith Plaisted
Head of Middle School
