Your girl, during her puberty, is having a new experience when it comes to the number of emotions she is experiencing thanks to the changing hormones in her body. Every child is different, and so they all have different ways of dealing with puberty and the mood swings they experience during this time.
Being a parent/guardian, here are a few tips and tricks you should have up your sleeve that can help you and your girl deal with the emotional ups and downs that hit her during puberty.
- Recognition:
- The need to recognise the situation as a whole is of the utmost importance
- The default setting of parents where you end up going into the discipline mode of the situation is not going to help
- She is not the only one who is experiencing mood swings during this time, know that this is a perfectly normal thing for teens
- You need to understand that she might be feeling sad or bad due to reason unknown even to her, and dealing with these very emotions can be hard for her.
- Talk:
- It might just surprise you to know as to how many arguments or issues can be solved by merely talking about it openly.
- Talk to your girl and encourage her to try to recognize what she is feeling.
- Try to also make her recognize why she is feeling a particular emotion or what the reason behind that emotion might be.
- However, if she is not able to reach the “why” of it, let her also know that it is fine and that the emotion she is feeling right now will eventually pass.
- The main thing you need to tell her is that she is not alone in feeling all these emotions and that almost all girls her age go through the same phase.
- Coping Mechanisms:
- Knowing how to cope with emotions becomes an important part of everyone’s lives as they grow up, but your girl does not know how to do that yet, and that is what you need to talk to her about
- The way, over the years, adults have been able to pin point the causes that trigger their emotions and how to control the same is something your girl will not be able to master now.
- Role playing might just be the way to go.
- Teach her to calm down when she is angry or sad or anxious by counting down and taking deep breaths.
- Also emphasize the role of music and fresh air in helping her cope with her emotions.
- You could also encourage her to take up a hobby or two to keep her distracted and more in tune with her emotions.
- Give her space:
- Privacy is one thing that your girl becomes very particular about during this time, and there might be emotions all over the place if she considers that her privacy has been violated.
- Adults need to understand the importance of giving space to their girls when nothing seems to be making their girls’ moods better.
- Waiting it out sometimes becomes the best and healthier option for both you and your girl, but do let her know that you are there if she needs to talk about anything at all.
