Dealing with Frustration in Teens – A Difficult Phase for Parents

Frustration is an emotional reaction to anger which is felt by everyone at some or the other stage of their life. While dealing with frustration (and therefore finding a solution) is easy for adults… it’s significantly more challenging for teens. Immaturity, brain-development process, peer pressure, identity crises and hormonal changes play a constant role where teenagers are concerned.

Dealing with frustration in teens is not a cake walk

On one hand parents find it difficult to handle a frustrated teen or sometimes even feel helpless to comfort their teen. The child on the other hand keeps struggling to find true inner strength (or illustrate the things they lack) to make everyone understand his/her perspective.

You must have long range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short range failures ~ Charles. C (Tweet this)

Dealing with frustration with a difficult teenager can result in days that feel like months, and months that feel like decades. But your child’s teenage years will eventually end, and with (mutual) love and understanding, your terrible teen will blossom into a mature, caring, responsible adult.

Fortunately, parents and educators can help children learn to maneuver through life’s twists and turns in healthy ways. Work on the skills needed now, so that later you will have the tools you need to build an emotionally-strong bridge between parents and teens.

Why the Conflict Happens?

Basically frustration occurs when we try to achieve more without paying heed to our abilities. Our teen fails to understand this phenomenon. They try to portray themselves as much more mature and intelligent, able to handle any situation but when faced with failure or disappointments they get frustrated and aggressive.

When dealing with frustration at this stage it becomes very difficult for parents to make teens understand where the real problems lie as the teen feels that they are right and so they justify their actions. A better way to handle this situation is to try to help teens recognize a few major factors which might lead them to frustration/aggression.

Reasons for Teen Frustration

Many factors trigger frustration in teens (and if not dealt with at the appropriate time you can end up with fatal results). A few are:

Bullying,
Stress by parents for achieving higher goals,
Peer pressure
Lack of quality time spent by parents with children,
Lack of respect and love from siblings,
Lack of willpower,
Disturbed home environment,
Inferiority complex
Poor health

Often, parents feel that frustration, anger or confusion are so common in every teen’s life, that they don’t spend the time trying to find out the real problem behind the frustration. Which, if you haven’t guessed it by now, is not a sign of good parenting.

Dealing with Frustration in Teens – What Parents Should Do?

For some parents it is hard to balance the emotional imbalances that they themselves have as well as their teen, but this isn’t the time to give up. You have to redouble your efforts. Stand up firmly and help the teen to come out of this phase comfortably, confidently and amicably by taking a few wise steps.

First and foremost, give proper respect to your teen.
With your utmost love and affection help shape them from negative to positive thinking.
Create a cordial and peaceful atmosphere at home. Your tolerance, self-sufficiency, confidence, and ability to deal with difficult situations strongly will show the right path to your teen.
Never nake teasing comments or challenge the abilities of your teen in comparison to their peers.
When required, help them make their own decisions (whether related to their career or personal lives) but once they’ve decided, respect their choice. Just make sure they understand their boundaries as well.
Make your teen strong enough to recognize their inner power to understand that bullying is an act of weak character, so never get frustrated and always stand against these elements like a well-built wall and set an example for others.
Create a bridge of trust between you and your teen so they feel free to discuss any kind of problem with the confidence that they will not be misunderstood. This will develop a firm bond between both of you and in the future if your teen commits any mistake he/she will admit them without hesitation.
Teach them to meditate, exercise and pray.

Conclusion

Frustration is a common emotion in teens but can really take a toll. Dealing with frustration is a difficult phase for parents. Laughter and tears are both responses of frustrations and exhaustion. It is okay to air out your frustration. Just don’t dwell on them. Find out the cause and come up with a solution of getting rid of it.

Although frustration is a part of growing up, dealing with frustration and learning to cope is quite a challenge. Have faith in your teens, and together you can accomplish anything!