Teen Mood Swings? 3 Ways to Find the Hidden Blessing Behind the Drama

We all know it’s coming: the dreaded mood swings and raging emotions of adolescence. As much as we try to brace for it, there’s no way to truly prepare for the day you greet your bubbly, outgoing kid with a cheery “Good morning!” and you’re met with an eye roll and silence as they sit sullenly at the table, refusing to acknowledge your existence. And that’s the moment you know it has happened… your baby is now a tween or teen.

From this day forward, it’s a total crapshoot what mood your kid will be in, and honestly, it’s bound to change within minutes or hours anyway. Up and down, high and low, in and out. It’s a wild ride.

One moment they’re laughing and joking, and you wonder if this is what it feels like to have successfully raised a human. The next moment, sometimes out of the blue, that same human storms off with a dramatic “Why did I get stuck with the worst mom ever?!” or a huffy “Just leave me alone!” Yes, teen emotions are bewildering and overwhelming for all of us. But what if there’s more to it? What if we viewed these highly emotional years not as a burden, but as a blessing?

3 ways to find the blessing at a glance

• Change your mindset: their emotions aren’t about you, and they’re a door to connection.
• Embrace emotion: name and allow feelings, theirs and yours, instead of shutting them down.
• Find support: none of us is meant to do this alone.

Why are tweens and teens so emotional?

Their bodies and brains are changing fast, and the part of the brain that helps manage big feelings is still under construction. The good news is that it does get easier. A five-year study that followed 474 teens from age 13 to 18 found that mood swings in happiness, anger, and sadness were strongest in early adolescence and gradually became more stable as teens got older. Anxiety was the exception, rising again near the end of the teen years as kids faced the move toward adulthood.

For many of us, there’s another layer. We grew up in an era when strong emotions were seen as a bad thing, and expressing them was a weakness. We learned early to clamp down on our feelings, tuck them away, and plaster on our best smile. So strong feelings make us uncomfortable, and our first instinct is to shut the “bad” ones down. We want to scare that anger right out of our teens with a harsh “Don’t use that tone with me, young man!” or stop our daughter’s tears by saying, “It’s really not that big of a deal.”

Thankfully, our kids are growing up in a different culture, one that’s learning to value emotional intelligence. This is where your teen’s emotional roller coaster becomes a blessing in disguise. This season is a golden opportunity to face some of the misconceptions you likely grew up with, and to become a more emotionally healthy person yourself. We can’t fully guide our teens through their struggles when we haven’t faced our own.

Changing a mindset we’ve known all our lives is HARD work. Dealing with “negative” emotions is uncomfortable and messy, and it doesn’t fit our fantasy of a perfectly happy, cooperative family. But emotions, good and bad, high and low, theirs and ours, are all part of life. A family that’s perfectly happy all the time doesn’t exist. There’s enough fake in the world already; we don’t need our families to be part of the charade. So how do we use this season of emotional turbulence to grow?

1. Change your mindset

First and foremost, we need to recognize what emotions are. They’re not your kid’s way of pushing your buttons and sending you over the brink. As a general rule, your teen’s emotions have very little to do with you. Emotions are a natural part of life, and they serve an important purpose. Hard emotions are a gateway to deeper connection. It’s in the moments of hurt and sorrow, anger and frustration, disappointment or betrayal, that we have the chance to grow closer.

When we show our kids that our family allows honest, raw, REAL feelings, we teach them that we’re a safe place, and that no matter what, they’re loved and can be themselves. Isn’t that what all of us want? Someone who sees us at our best and our worst and still loves and accepts us? When we start seeing big emotions less as a power struggle or disrespect, and more as a cry for love and a door to connection, we can respond in ways that draw our teens in instead of pushing them away.

Try saying: “It sounds like today was really hard. I’m here if you want to talk, and I’m here if you just want me to sit with you.”

2. Embrace emotion

We have to come to the point where we accept and allow ourselves (and our kids!) to feel all the things. The happy, good feelings. The scary, overwhelming feelings. The sad, angry, anxious, and uncomfortable feelings. When we become more aware of our own emotions, we have more empathy and compassion for our kids’ emotions. We need to learn to recognize, allow, and express our own feelings so we can model healthy ways for our kids to express theirs.

Emotions that stay pent up build on each other and create resentment and disconnection. We’re wired to feel because feelings tell us something is wrong. When the check-engine light comes on in the car, we don’t just turn off the light and hope for the best. Emotions are the check-engine light of our hearts. If we turn off the light because it’s annoying or inconvenient but don’t do the work to find the problem, we risk something far more serious. That’s true for our own feelings, and for walking with our kids through theirs.

Naming a feeling really does help. In a UCLA brain-imaging study, when adults put a feeling into words, activity in the brain’s alarm center went down. You can help your kid do the same.

With a tween: “You seem really frustrated. Is it more mad, or more sad?”
With a teen: “That sounds so disappointing. It makes sense you’re upset.”

3. Find support

None of us is meant to do life alone, especially in hard seasons. Raising a teenager is HARD. Finding ways to connect, handling their mood swings, learning to let them go a little, balancing boundaries and independence: it’s too much to carry on our own! As scary as it is to find a place where we can be vulnerable, it’s even scarier to face these years feeling isolated. Trust me, you are NOT alone in any of the struggles you or your teen have faced.

Find a place where other moms can rally behind you and be a safe place to share your thoughts and struggles. There’s power in connection and in realizing others are going through this with you. That’s exactly why I created our Moms of Tweens and Teens community.

When is it more than normal teen moodiness?

Ups and downs are normal. Reach out to your kid’s doctor or a counselor if a low or irritable mood lasts most days for two weeks or more, if your tween or teen pulls away from friends and things they used to love, if their sleep, eating, or grades change a lot, or if their anger turns into aggression. If your kid ever talks about feeling hopeless or hurting themselves, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

Questions moms ask about teen mood swings

Are teen mood swings normal?

Yes. Research shows mood swings tend to be strongest in early adolescence and gradually settle as teens get older. What matters most is how long a low mood lasts and whether it gets in the way of daily life.

At what age are mood swings the worst?

For many kids, the early teen years, around 12 to 14, bring the biggest ups and downs. Every kid is different, and puberty timing plays a big role.

How should I respond when my teen yells “Just leave me alone!”?

Give them some space, without disappearing. Try: “Okay, I’ll give you some space. I love you, and I’m here when you’re ready.” Then check back in later, when things are calm.

Should I let my teen express anger?

Yes, with limits. All feelings are okay; not all behavior is. You might say, “It’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to speak to me that way. Let’s talk about what’s really bothering you.” Here’s more on how to stop arguing with your tween or teen.

The blessing on the other side

There’s no quick, easy, or one-size-fits-all way to raise our teens, especially when it comes to their ever-changing feelings. It’s all easier said than done. But as we reframe and reshape how we view and handle emotions, we begin to discover the blessing behind them. I believe that on the other side, we’ll find we learned just as much from our turbulent teens as they learned from us.

One day we’ll look back on these crazy days with a smile, knowing that the sullen moods, the quick-to-fall tears, and the angry remarks all brought us into a stronger, deeper connection with the people we love most. They brought us to a place of more real, raw, honest, accepting, unconditional love. And I can’t think of a greater blessing than that.

I’m praying for you as you ride these waves, Mama. For more support, read How to Be a Safe Place for Your Teen to Open Up, The 4 Family Roles Kids Play and What Each Tween or Teen Needs, and Mom Burnout Is Brutal: 5 Ways to Cure It.

xo Sheryl

About Sheryl Gould: Sheryl is the founder of Moms of Tweens and Teens and a Parent and Relationship Coach with 18 years of experience helping moms stay connected to their kids through the tween and teen years. She’s a mom of three, author of SOS! The Technology Guidebook for Parents of Tweens and Teens, and host of the Moms of Tweens and Teens podcast.