Reflective parenting could help your teenager manage their big emotions, new research shows - here are 5 steps to try

The teenage years are tough for everyone involved. But research has suggested that an approach known as 'reflective parenting' can be the key to reconnecting.

Reflective parenting is a style where you, as the adult, become aware of the behaviour you model for your child. Unlike other parenting styles, like tiger parenting, reflective parenting encourages compassion and means putting yourself in your teen's shoes and imagining the feelings they may be experiencing. It shifts the way you react to the behaviour. In practice, parents are asked to reflect on the meaning of the behaviour and to consider if their teen could be expressing a need.

Just because they can get themselves dressed and walk themselves to school doesn't mean that parenting teenagers is any easier than the early years. The changes that teenage brains go through creates a unique challenge for parents and, coupled with their need for independence, leaves many wondering why their teenager won't talk to them anymore and searching for teen conversation starters.

If you're at a loss for how to help your teen manage their emotions and the challenges that come with this formative time in their life, rest assured you're not alone. However, new research shared by online science magazine Neuroscience News has highlighted how using an approach known as 'reflective parenting' can improve communication and understanding between parents and teens.

Emphasising the importance of understanding the teenage brain to foster resilience and independence in adolescents, reflective parenting encourages parents to go beyond addressing challenging behaviours. Instead, the approach aims to help teenagers manage their feelings and relationships safely.

Sheila Redfern, a consultant clinical child and adolescent psychologist and author of How Do You Hug a Cactus? Reflective Parenting with Teenagers in Mind, explains, "Understanding the neuroscience of the changing teenage brain can really help parents to empathize and connect with their teenage children.

"This is not just a time of physical and neurological change, but also of great vulnerability. It’s during this period of development that teenagers are much more likely to engage in risky behaviour and develop a mental illness."

Expanding on the benefits of reflective parenting, Dr Redfern says that it can help keep a connection with your teenager as well helping them to manage, sometimes overwhelming and unwanted, feelings - which is an important life skill.

And there's a reason why teenagers struggle with their emotions. "Where adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part, teenagers process information with the amygdala – this is the emotional part," Dr Redfern says. "This leads teenagers to be preoccupied with their own emotions, particularly when they have an overwhelming emotion, and less able to tune into other people."

How to parent reflectively

Matt Albert, director of the Teshisnky Family Foundation, previously explained in Psychology Today that 'reflective capacity' is the natural way we make sense of ourselves and each other, and it has three elements:

1. Parents and children have separate minds with their own unique perspectives.
2. Behaviour has meaning and is dictated by what is going on inside our minds.
3. Misunderstandings and conflict are normal and common.

He urges parents to "Slow down, push pause, and reflect on what might be going on inside the child and themselves. When we are reflective, we are better able to recognise mistakes, clarify misunderstandings, and resolve conflicts - all of which are stress-reducing and promote resilience."

Dr. Redfern warns that parents who solely focus on fixing behaviour will leave their teenager not feeling understood or unable to manage the feelings that lie underneath. As teenagers lose their ability to be reflective because of changes in their brain (resulting in frequent states of high emotional arousal) parents can step in and help guide the process.

Meanwhile, Matt Albert offers five tips for parents to get started with reflective parenting:

1. Be there: Slow down and be present. It's not possible to do this if we react without thinking.
2. Accept: Our tendency is to want to change situations we don't like, but accepting our powerlessness is calming.
3. Empathise, validate, support: Parents need to let teens know they understand the (sometimes extreme) feelings their teen is experiencing are real and ok.
4. Teach coping skills: Teens need help seeing that current situations will not last forever and that the future will be ok. This will help them build resilience in the long-term.
5. Balance empathy with coping: Empathy is calming but too much of it can lead a parent to over-identify and experience as much pain as their child. Recognising that it is the child’s pain, not the parent's, will help with offering coping strategies.

Dr. Redfern acknowledges that being a reflective parent – simultaneously being aware of what’s in your own mind and being empathic and curious about the teenage mind – is difficult. "None of us can be a reflective parent all of the time, because our emotions rise and fall along with events that happen in our lives and as a result of the support (or lack of) that we get from other people," she says.

But if parents have serious concerns about their teen’s mental health, seeking professional help and advice is key.

In related news, we've asked the experts what to expect when your teen starts dating and how much sleep teenagers need (it turns out the reason they sleep in late isn't because they're lazy). Elsewhere, child psychologist Dr Becky has shared the one question to ask your teen to improve your relationship, and we've put together a list of 125 funny jokes for teens that might even get a smile out of them.