When your teen is stressed, their emotional sensitivity can mean their feelings overwhelm them, making it hard for them to cope. Feelings of anger, fear, sadness, and especially shame can lead to explosive reactions, like ending friendships, shouting matches with siblings or parents, skipping school, or acting out in class, impulsive or dangerous behaviors, maybe even self-harm, or closing off, shutting down, and shutting people out.
Sound familiar?
When your teen is flooded with feelings, and they don’t yet have the skills to manage their emotions and their behavior, you as their parent may feel at a loss. They feel out of control, they’re at an age where your guidance seems to only lead to escalation of their emotions, so what can you do?
Your teen still needs you for structure, for support, and for understanding, but it may be hard to know how to provide that, especially in the middle of another emotional storm for your emotionally sensitive teen.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can give you answers on how to help your teen regulate their own emotions.
How can DBT help with parenting highly sensitive teens?
Emotional sensitivity in teens is a parenting challenge, but it’s one that makes sense when you think of what teens are really dealing with. Adolescence is tough on all of us, and when you add in more emotional sensitivity, whether it stems from neurodivergence, mental health challenges, or just how your teen is, it makes the teen years even more difficult.
This sensitivity is also something that dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can help them manage. Emotional regulation is a pillar of DBT, and DBT skills for emotional regulation were designed to help children, teens, and adults face life’s challenges in more intentional, controlled, and constructive ways, such as:
- Naming emotions to understand them
- Reducing your vulnerability to challenging emotions
- Acceptance to reduce emotional suffering
- Increasing opportunities for positive emotions
For your teen, that may mean using DBT skills to push back on avoidant behaviors, or to manage their reactions when they’re emotionally overwhelmed.
For you, as a parent, DBT can help you manage your own responses to the challenges of raising a teen, and it can also help you engage with your teen in ways that build trust and openness, instead of escalation and shame.
One way you can support your teen in re-regulating when they’re emotionally overwhelmed is through the use of validation.
How can a parent validate their sensitive teen?
Validation is the process of letting your teen know that you’re listening, that what they’re feeling makes sense, and that you take how they feel seriously. It helps your teen understand their feelings, reducing shame, and it makes it easier for them to share their feelings with you, building trust that can help with emotional de-escalation, leading to a calmer way for them to experience what they’re feeling.
There are six levels of validation in DBT; you can use any or all of these, depending on what makes sense in the moment.
Be present and listen
Really paying attention to your teen (no phones, no TV, no letting the dog out, no distractions) when they’re ready to talk models respect and mindful presence for your teen. It signals that you’re taking them seriously and that what they have to say matters to you.
Try saying this to your teen: “Hey, I put aside some time because I want to hear you out. Are you willing to share what you’ve been thinking with me?”
Reflect back to your teen
You can show your teen you’re trying to understand by reflecting back to them what you are hearing from what they’re sharing. It also gives them a chance to clarify and add detail, encouraging them to share more.
Try saying this to your teen: “It sounds to me like that conversation was really upsetting, and you felt misunderstood, like they weren’t listening to anything you had to say. Does that sound right?”
Try to help your teen name their emotions
Naming your emotions is at the core of emotional regulation, but your teen may not yet understand how to name what they’re feeling (it’s something plenty of adults struggle with, too!), or they may be too overwhelmed to put words to what they’re experiencing. Try to help them by naming what you notice, and letting them reflect on what they’re experiencing.
Try saying this to your teen: “Do you think you’re feeling angry right now, and maybe scared too?”
Recognize where they’re coming from
Your teen’s emotional sensitivity, what they’re feeling right now, and their age aren’t flaws; they’re a part of their story. Recognizing that what they’re going through makes sense based on who they are, their biology, and what’s up in their life, helps them gain perspective and understanding about the source of their feelings.
Try saying this to your teen: “I know a lot of people don’t take teenagers seriously, and I remember that being really frustrating. It makes sense you feel this way.”
Let them know that their perspective has truth to it
Validation helps your teen recognize that what they’re feeling makes some sense and is reasonable, which can help them feel less ashamed, reducing emotional escalation so they have room to reflect on whether their reactions are just as reasonable.
Try saying this to your teen: “I think most people would feel angry and uncertain if it seemed like someone didn’t want to understand my perspective. I certainly would.”
Relate to them with radical genuineness
This is an opportunity to relate to your teen as a fellow person, not so much as parent and child. As you show them respect and respond authentically, they see that they’re being taken seriously, helping them cope.
Try saying this to your teen: “Thank you for talking to me about this. It helps me to better understand you. Is there anything else you want to talk about?”
What are some things to avoid when validating your teen?
Validation serves as a way to get your emotionally sensitive teen to open up to you about how they’re feeling and what they’re experiencing, as a way to help them re-regulate. It’s not necessarily the time to discuss consequences, responsibilities, or future possibilities; these are important conversations, but they should happen either at a different time or after you’ve validated your emotionally sensitive teen (if they seem receptive to more specific and action-oriented conversations in the moment).
It’s important, when building trust with your teen, to avoid:
- Comparing them to others, e.g., “So and so does it this way, why don’t you?”
- Moving immediately into problem-solving mode, instead of listening
- Judging them for their thoughts or feelings, you don’t have to agree or understand. Just listen and recognize that their experience makes sense for them
- Insisting your teen share with you. Letting them set the pace for sharing helps build trust
- Devaluing or minimizing how they feel, or what triggered the emotions and thoughts. To them, it’s a big deal.
Suffolk DBT can help parents support their highly sensitive teens
Validation reduces shame, escalation, and emotional distancing for teens who experience heightened emotional sensitivity. It helps you build trust with your teen, supporting their emotional regulation so they can change how they respond to strong emotions. It’s just one of many ways that DBT can help you be the supportive parent you want to be.
At Suffolk DBT, we can help teens, parents, and whole families to constructively respond to life’s challenges. If you and your family could use support in raising your emotionally sensitive teen, we can help. Connect with us today to learn more and schedule a free consultation.
Frequently asked questions about emotionally sensitive teens
Why is my teen so emotionally sensitive?
Two reasons: biology and life experiences.
Teen brains are more sensitive to any stimulus, but especially stress, and the part of their brain that allows them to regulate their emotions is still developing. Teens’ brains and bodies are undergoing massive changes, and some teens are also trying to manage conditions that increase emotional sensitivity.
Your teen’s emotional sensitivity is coming from:
- Hormone changes during puberty.
- The emotional centers of their brain are growing, but they aren’t fully capable of regulating them yet.
- Their frontal lobe, where emotional regulation happens, isn’t fully developed or fully connected to the emotional centers of their brain.
- Experiences like trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, BPD, ADHD, or autism can increase their emotional sensitivity.
- Social interactions take on a lot more personal meaning; belonging is important to teens.
- They are facing more responsibilities, temptations, and personal challenges than ever before.
- They’re more aware of society and their future, and this can be daunting.
Why is validation a better choice than “tough love”?
As a parent of a teen, you want to build trust. Having a trusting relationship with your teen can help you guide them and make them more willing and able to participate in the family, take on responsibilities, and take accountability for their actions.
Validation helps you build trust with your teen. When they know that you’ll listen, that you believe what they say, and that how they feel makes at least some sense, they’ll feel safer being honest with you. Honesty is at the core of responsibility and accountability; a teen who trusts you is more likely to own up to mistakes and make amends than a teen who is frightened and distrustful of you.
Isn’t validation just giving my teen permission to misbehave?
Validation isn’t meant to be a permissive parenting tool; it’s the beginning of a conversation, not the end.
As you build trust with your emotionally sensitive teen, they’re less likely to stay completely emotionally flooded and overwhelmed after a difficult experience. This emotional co-regulation alone can de-escalate behavioral impulsivity, and it also cuts down on the overwhelming shame and avoidance of accountability that can arise when your teen is emotionally dysregulated.
Validation helps your teen re-regulate, so you can work together. They can feel safer taking responsibility for their actions,and taking ownership of their goals and future.